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WTF Moments: The craziest thing Star Trek: Voyager ever did involved lizard sex

Credit: CBS

In hindsight, we can say that Star Trek: Voyager absolutely got away with some crazy s**t.

Think "splicing Vulcan Tuvox and Talaxian Neelix into Tuvix" crazy. Or a scene in the pilot, which aired 25 years ago this week, where cocky helmsman Tom Paris — trapped in a cave — asks his Native American colleague "Isn't there some Indian trick, where you can turn yourself into a bird?" They even had an empathic serial killer aboard.

But the craziest thing to air on Voyager — and from Star Trek in general — has to be Season 2's "Threshold." The one where Paris breaks the impossible Warp 10 speed barrier, devolves into a lizard, has sex, and makes babies with Captain Janeway… who is also a slug lizard.

Yup. You can practically smell the crazy on this one.

What the ship's doctor, an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), calls a "future stage in human development" looks like rejected concept art from the original V miniseries, as Paris escapes from Voyager's sickbay and hunts down Captain Janeway . Outside a turbo-lift, Paris gets the drop on Janeway and abducts her. Why? So he can smuggle her aboard a special shuttle refitted to go Warp 10, turn her into a lizard thing, too (off-screen), and then mate and procreate with her and have tiny lizard babies.

(I mean, who among us has not set out to break the laws of physics so we could impregnate a superior officer with our space iguana spawn?)

Eventually, members of the Voyager crew find Paris' shuttle on a jungle planet. They soon discover he, their captain, and their offspring in the form of palm-sized lizards. Back on the ship, the EMH is able to eradicate this mutation from both Paris and Janeway's genome (because science!) and restore them to their human forms.

Janeway confronts Paris for what he submitted her to. She had never had children before, and now the ones she did have — she was forced to leave them behind on a planet 75 light years from Earth. From there, an ashamed Paris resigns his commission and waits for Janeway to forgive him and — nope! Sadly, none of this happened... minus the leaving the kids behind bit.

Instead, "Threshold" ends on the emotionally dishonest note of Janeway and Paris having the briefest conversations about their de-evolution. With a smirk, Janeway remarks, "I thought about having children, but I never considered having them with you." And then, as a joke, Braga has Janeway flippantly dismiss what happened to her, without her consent, with the line "sometimes it is the female of the species who initiates mating." *forehead, desk*

"It's a terrible episode," Braga says on the 2003 DVD set for Season 2, nine years removed from the making of what fans consider to be among the worst hours of Trek ever produced.

24 years after it aired, he and the fans are not wrong.

• Star Trek: Voyager
• WTF Moments

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Happy 25th Anniversary to Star Trek: Voyager’s Infamous Lizard Sex Episode, ‘Threshold’

“Threshold” is considered one of, if not the , worst episodes of Voyager and it’s honestly a little hard to refute. Things start well enough in a traditional S tar Trek -ian manner: Tom Paris takes an experimental voyage in an attempt to become the first being to ever cross the Warp 10 barrier. He briefly succeeds, discovering it essentially sends his consciousness to every point in the universe simultaneously for a tiny bit. When he recoalesces, he’s a little discombobulated, and then he starts mutating, and gets much more discombobulated.

(Just in case you didn’t watch the entire video above, I do need to inform the mutation causes Paris to vomit out his tongue, which is quite something!)

During a potential treatment to return him to human form, Paris breaks out, grabs Janeway, steals a ship, and escapes at Warp 10 again. A few days later, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) finally has a theory about what’s happening to the former flight officer, which is essential to understanding why this “Threshold” is so infamous: The Doctor believes that achieving Warp 10 hasn’t caused Paris to mutate, but evolve at an astonishing rate — he might be reaching an evolutionary apex that the rest of humanity won’t achieve for millions of years. It’s weird to think humans would eventually grow out of a need for tongue, but evolution can be wacky that way. Still, when the stolen craft is found on a remote planet, evolution has been far, far wackier than anticipated:

Yes, humanity’s future will be as amphibious, quadrupedal lizards. Not lizard men , lizards. With catfish whiskers. But there’s one thing evolution hasn’t changed: The desire to keep one’s species alive. So lizard-Janeway and lizard-Paris lizard-fucked, lizard-Janeway had lizard-babies, and the non-lizards on the Voyager crew grabbed their former fellow officers and abandoned those lizard-babies as quickly as humanly possible.

I’m an extremely casual Trek fan at best, but it does strike me that leaving creatures that are technically children of two Voyager crewmembers on a planet that they’re not from — and could be in danger of getting killed or destroying the native eco-system — jibes with the Prime Directive. It’s even weirder when you wonder that, since Janeway and Paris can be (and are) turned back into humans, those are three potentially human children being ditched on the side of the galactic road. Then there’s, you know, the whole fact two main characters on the show turned into lizards and had sex of extremely dubious consensuality.

But the craziest part to me is the show’s absolutely bananas theory that these things are humanity’s evolutionary future. It turns out that wasn’t originally the idea for the episode, though. Longtime Trek producer and screenwriter for the episode, Brannon Braga said in Captains’ Log Supplemental: The Unauthorised Guide to the New Trek Voyages (as recorded by Memory Alpha ):

It’s very much a classic Star Trek story, but in the rewrite process I took out the explanation, the idea behind the ending, that we evolve into these little lizards because maybe evolution is not always progressive. Maybe it’s a cycle where we revert to something more rudimentary. That whole conversation was taken out for various reasons, and that was a disaster because without it the episode doesn’t even have a point. I think it suffered greatly.

Saurian (species)

• View history

The Saurians were a reptilian humanoid species affiliated with the Federation . They have served in Starfleet since at least the 2250s . ( DIS : " Brother ")

• 5.1 See also
• 5.2 Appearances
• 5.3 Background information
• 5.4 Apocrypha
• 5.5 External link

Biology [ ]

Dr. Culber performs a stress level scan on Linus

The Saurians resembled humanoid lizards with scaly skin that could be pink or gray. Their large black or yellow eyes were endowed with both vertical and horizontal eyelids , and granted them an enormous visual spectrum of 74,000 nanometers . ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture ; DIS : " Brother ", " Far From Home ")

Saurians had six nasal canals , making certain afflictions such as the common cold particularly miserable. Saurians shed their skin once a year, during which time they were forced to avoid areas where hygiene was important, such as mess halls . Each Saurian had a unique dorsal ridge, which was as distinctive as the fingerprints of a Human . ( DIS : " An Obol for Charon ", " The Sanctuary ", " Jinaal ")

Saurian reproduced asexually and laid clutches of eggs . The offspring were not raised by their biological parents , but rather by the entire community. ( DIS : " Through the Valley of Shadows ", " Jinaal ")

History [ ]

A Saurian named Linus served on the USS Discovery in 2257 . ( DIS : " Brother ")

A Saurian scientist as well as a second crewmember served aboard the USS Enterprise during the final stages of its refit in the mid- 2270s . ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture )

A Saurian commander served on the USS Titan in 2380 . ( LD : " No Small Parts ")

A Saurian diplomat accompanied Federation President Laira Rillak to Ni'Var during the final negotiations for Ni'Var's re-entry into the Federation . ( DIS : " All Is Possible ")

Culture [ ]

The Saurian language consisted of lingual clicks and pops. During the 2250s, the universal translator would on occasion have difficulty translating it. ( DIS : " An Obol for Charon ")

Saurian brandy was an alcoholic beverage , bottled since at least the 22nd century , that had been popular in the Federation for centuries. ( TOS : " Requiem for Methuselah ", " The Enemy Within "; DS9 : " Behind the Lines ") It was illegal in the alternate reality as of 2263 . ( Star Trek Beyond )

Bamboo was one of the foods Saurians ate. ( DIS : " Through the Valley of Shadows ")

• Unnamed Saurians

Appendices [ ]

See also [ ].

• Saurian virus

Appearances [ ]

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture
• " Brother "
• " Point of Light "
• " An Obol for Charon "
• " The Sound of Thunder "
• " Through the Valley of Shadows "
• " Far From Home "
• " People of Earth "
• " Forget Me Not "
• " Scavengers "
• " The Sanctuary "
• " That Hope Is You, Part 2 "
• " Kobayashi Maru "
• " Choose to Live "
• " All Is Possible "
• " The Examples "
• " Rubicon "
• " The Galactic Barrier "
• " Rosetta "
• " Species Ten-C "
• " Coming Home "
• LD : " No Small Parts "

Background information [ ]

Detail of facial design

This species was identified on screen in DIS : " An Obol for Charon ", previously only identified by production materials created for Star Trek: The Motion Picture .

The original Saurians were designed by Fred Phillips and Robert Fletcher for The Motion Picture . With the approval of Gene Roddenberry , the Saurians, as well as numerous other new species in the film , were named by Fletcher and provided a backstory by him. The following is a brief description, in Fletcher's own words:

" SAURIAN – A lizard person, very able, excellent space officers. Learned to communicate in Earth tongue, have complicated vocal language of own. Have upright, direct posture. Intelligent. Can breathe a number of gases. Valuable in exploration of new areas because of enormous strength due to four hearts. (Note: in rec deck scene only.) " ( The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture , pp. 132-133; Starlog #33, April 1980 , p. 71; Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 2, Issue 9 , January 2002 )

Also in 1980, Mego released a 3¾" Saurian action figure as part of its second series; the company inadvertently called it a Rigellian . [1]

Star Trek: Star Charts ('United Federation of Planets I") and Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library ("Federation Historical Highlights, 2161-2385") depicted a planet called Sauria in the Alpha Quadrant star system Sauria ( Psi Serpentis ). This was a trinary system consisting of three G-class stars . Sauria was listed as a Federation member as of 2378 .

Apocrypha [ ]

In Star Trek Online , Saurians are one of the playable Federation species, and a Saurian named "Aennik Okeg" is the current Federation President .

External link [ ]

• Saurian at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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• Night Vision
• Sticky Header
• Highlight Links

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E15Threshold

Recap / Star Trek: Voyager S2E15 "Threshold"

Edit locked.

Here lies Thomas Eugene Paris. Beloved mutant.

This episode provides examples of

• Aliens Made Them Do It : Paris and Janeway are accidentally transformed into nonsapient animals, mate and produce a litter of offspring. Probably the most bizarre way of getting two main characters to make out in sci-fi history!
• Artistic License – Biology : The episode features a notoriously bad depiction of evolution . According to the script, not only can individual beings evolve into a completely different form, but the path of that evolution is laid out by fate.
• The Atoner : Tom thinks that being the first to breach the Warp 10 barrier will make up for his being a failure in life.
• Big "NO!" : Tom shouts one as he begins his transformation.
• Body Horror : Paris's mutation causes his DNA to break down, gradually making him look less human and more alien. At one point, he spits out his tongue , thus making talking difficult for him. Unsurprisingly, the episode won the Emmy for Best Makeup Effects.
• Contrived Coincidence : Warp 10, according to this episode, makes you somehow everywhere in the universe at once. So how convenient that Tom rematerializes right back near the ship! And on mutant!Tom's second attempt with Janeway, they just wind up on a nearby planet, makin' salamander babies.
• Cool Ship : The squat Type 6 shuttlecraft is replaced by the sleek Class 2, dubbed the 'Speedboat Shuttle' by the production staff and fans.
• Creator Provincialism : Janeway says Tom will be joining the likes of Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, and Zephram Cochrane. Many viewers noted the oddity of her not mentioning the actual first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Not to mention that all of these are Humans.
• Danger Room Cold Open : The episode opens with Tom in a shuttlecraft that breaks up as he hits the Threshold. We then cut to Tom sitting on the floor of the holodeck . B'Elanna: You're dead.
• Death Is Cheap : Tom dies, his cells so damaged the Doctor doesn't try to revive him past the first attempt . Then he comes back to life again. He and Janeway mutate into lower lifeforms and are brought back to perfect health.

• Easily Forgiven : Tom Paris because he was literally Not Himself at the time, what with being a catfish and all. As for the kids, Janeway jokes that it might have been her idea.

• Famous, Famous, Fictional : Janeway tells Tom that by being the first man to breach the Warp 10 barrier, he'll be joining the ranks of Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, and Zefram Cochrane. This case differs from the usual trope in that Cochrane is from already established Trek canon (he invented the warp drive on Earth, and thus the Vulcans decided it was time for First Contact ), rather than a completely made-up name.
• Foreshadowing : Janeway says that the ability to fly at warp 10 will change the nature of humanity's existence. Yeah, turning into a catfish will do that...
• Forgotten Phlebotinum : Even ignoring the lizard-fication, it's mentioned that the experimental shuttle's computers were jam-packed with helpful navigation aids and maps — which are never mentioned again.
• Formerly Sapient Species : Tom Paris's "accelerated evolution" into a non-sapient salamander-like creature. The writer of this episode has stated that his idea was that in the distant future, humanity would evolve beyond the need for sapience due to technology providing for all our material needs.
• FTL Test Blunder : Paris figures out transwarp traveling, which might get the ship back to the Alpha Quadrant. After a seemingly successful test, he has an allergic reaction to water and starts de-evolving into a salamander/lizard/catfish creature. And then things get very weird.
• Gone Horribly Wrong : Just for starters, Tom, upon returning to the ship, becomes allergic to water. Somehow, it goes downhill from there.
• If I Do Not Return : Tom's last words before he (temporarily) dies. Tom: Do me a favor. When I'm gone, call Starfleet Headquarters and tell Dad that I did it. Tell him...
• I Just Want to Be Special : What drives Tom into this whole mess.
• Impossible Genius : Quite a few reviewers wondered why the crew didn't just transwarp back to the Alpha Quadrant regardless , given the Doctor's miraculous ability to restore them from an amphibious state. Though given the stress the transwarp flight put on the shuttle, it's possible Voyager wouldn't have survived.
• The Infinite : Tom Paris designs and builds an engine to go To Infinity And Beyond!! As a drive the infinite turns out to be improbable though.
• Just Think of the Potential! : Why, they could get home instantaneously, change space travel forever, but most of all, let Tom work out his daddy issues!
• Last Kiss : Tom asks for a last kiss from Kes, but she points out that he'll die if they let down the medical forcefield. After Tom dies anyway, a distraught Kes kisses him on the cheek.
• "Lesson of the Day" Speech : At the end of the episode, Tom realises that doing something famous is not going to solve his issues.
• Subverted when we find the reason Tom found Neelix's special blend so disgusting is that he's allergic to the water due to the changes in his body.
• Ludicrous Speed : Doesn't even begin to describe it.
• Men Don't Cry : According to Admiral Paris, apparently. Tom doesn't buy it.
• Mistaken for Gay Tom: Kiss me! Doctor: What?! Tom: (indicating Kes) Not you! Her!
• The Mole : Judas...err Jonas transmits details of the Warp 10 experiments to the Kazon. Unfortunately they didn't turn themselves into catfish trying it out.
• Tom is shouting "I'm breaking up!" accompanied by Explosive Instrumentation , then we Smash Cut to B'Elanna and Harry looking bored on the holodeck, with Tom sitting on the floor.
• Tom himself is this In-Universe ; he goes from afraid to angry, to meek and pleading then back to belligerent again, sometimes mid-sentence.
• Mundane Solution : After the Doctor confirms Tom is only unconscious, Janeway says to wake him up. Instead of the expected hypospray of stimulant, Doc leans down to his ear and shouts, "Wake up, Lieutenant!"
• Not Himself : Mutant!Tom lashes out verbally at Captain Janeway, accusing her of wanting him dead as he's an embarrassing failure.
• Ominous Hair Loss : Right after coming back from the dead, Tom finds himself losing clumps of hair, the prelude to the next stage of his mutation.
• Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious : One of Neelix's anecdotes about losing a nacelle passing through a dark matter nebula gives Tom and Harry inspiration to finish their transwarp drive.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here : Chakotay, having retrieved Janeway and Paris, apparently decides this about the lizard babies.
• Ship Tease : This episode marks the first time its hinted that B'Elanna may be starting to consider Tom more than a crewmate.
• Passing through all points of the universe simultaneously, causing ridiculous things to happen, sounds a lot like the Infinite Improbability Drive . Well, it did turn Ford into a penguin... but he got better.
• Tom comes back to life with a changed face and two hearts .
• Snark-to-Snark Combat Paris: You're losing me, aren't you? I'm going to die. Doctor: You're too stubborn to die, Mr Paris. Paris: Here lies Thomas Eugene Paris. Beloved mutant. Doctor: A fitting epitaph, but I don't intend to let you use it just yet.
• Snowy Screen of Death : Mutant!Tom's escape is only shown by Doc and Kes watching it on the viewscreen . Phaser beams can be seen cutting across Engineering until one knocks out the screen.
• Swiss-Cheese Security : Tom is able to break out of his chamber, take out the security officers guarding him, screw up the internal sensors, abduct Captain Janeway and steal the Warp 10 modified shuttle without any problems. And all this after Tuvok promised Janeway there wouldn't be any more shuttle-stealing incidents in " Maneuvers ".
• Tainted Veins : When Tom first collapses in the canteen.
• Take Our Word for It : The mutated Tom breaks out of his restraints and starts a huge fight with the security team. None of this event makes it on-screen. Instead we have Torres telling the Doctor what is happening.
• Techno Babble : When Tom and Harry have their "Eureka!" Moment . Neelix: I have no idea what they just said.
• That Didn't Happen : Chakotay wonders how the hell he's going to explain in the log that a Starfleet officer abducted the captain, evolved into a lower lifeform and had babies with her. Captain Janeway however takes the matter in stride, suggesting the sex might have been her idea.
• Timey-Wimey Ball : Implied with Tom's incoherent explanations. "The present, the past, they're both in the future. The future is in the past."
• Title Drop : "I'm approaching the Threshold!"
• Too Much Information : Tom discusses how he lost his virginity at 17 while his parents were out of the house. Doctor: I'll...note that in your medical log.
• Too Strange to Show : What Past-Warp-10 looks like. We only see Tom's face when he does it the first time, and the second time, we only see the multi-colored streaks of hundreds and thousands of stars streaking by at super-warp, before the screen fades entirely to white.
• Touch of the Monster : Mutant!Tom carrying Janeway in his arms as he places her in the shuttle.
• Unable to Cry : Tom says that B'Elanna won't be crying at his funeral as she never cries.
• Weaksauce Weakness : Super-evolved catfish things get put down pretty quickly by basic phaser fire.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy : Tom's last words before he dies are to let his father know he crossed the Threshold.
• What Happened to the Mouse? : We see the mutant children of Tom and Janeway enter the slimy pool and...they're never mentioned again.
• Whole-Plot Reference : Brannon Braga wrote the episode as a homage to David Cronenberg 's The Fly .
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form : Tom finds it difficult to explain what traveling through every point in the universe is like.
• You Talk Too Much! : Not imminent death, mutation, or even the loss of a tongue stops Tom from rambling away. Tom: Doctor, I need to talk! Doctor: So I've noticed.

Chakotay: I... don't know how I'm going to enter this into the log. Tuvok: I look forward to reading it.

• Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 14 "Alliances"
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 16 "Meld"

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Interview: Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill On Tuvix, Lizard Babies, & ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Podcasting

| June 17, 2020 | By: Laurie Ulster 10 comments so far

Star Trek: Voyager ’s Garrett Wang (Harry Kim) and Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris) have launched their own podcast, The Delta Flyers , where they’re making their way through every Voyager episode in chronological order. The podcast is a lot of fun, and comes with bonus content for Patreon contributors that includes guest stars, extra segments, plus video of the two actors as they record, and even as they watch the actual episodes.

The two actors were incredibly generous with their time, so we split the extended interview into a few parts. The first part of the freewheeling conversation, in which McNeill insisted I call him Robbie (“If you call me Robert, I’ll think I’m in trouble”), focuses on the The Delta Flyers . ( Read part two here. )

Garrett, you had already been doing a Deep Space Nine podcast before this with Aron [Eisenberg]. So what made you decide to (a) plunge back in and (b) ask Robbie to be your partner?

Garrett Wang: When I did Alpha Quadrant with Aron, that was because “Evel Dick”— Big Brother season eight winner—came to me and said, “Hey, you want to do a Discovery recap show?”  Then halfway through it, Aron was like, “No one really wants to hear us talk about Discovery, we should be talking about DS9 and Voyager .” And I said, “To be perfectly honest, Aron, a Voyager recap show has been my idea for many years before this, and I would rather Alpha Quadrant not review Voyager episodes.” To which he protested. And finally, I gave in to him. But then obviously some drama happened, and everything separated.

And the impetus honestly, was The 7 th Rule . Ryan Husk called me up and said, “Can you come on our show? And review the Voyager pilot?” And I thought they were just reviewing all the pilot episodes of all its different Trek incarnations. And he said, “No, we’ve decided that we’re going to recap all the Voyager episodes.” I go, “Ah, then I will not be coming onto your show then.”

It was Megan, my significant other who said, “You should ask Robbie.” And I have thought about Robbie, but Robbie’s literally always working as a director, so he really doesn’t have much time. So once the pandemic hit, I pitched it to him, and he was game, and it’s been pretty fun so far.

Robbie, what was your reaction when Garrett brought you the idea?

Robbie McNeill: Even when we were filming Voyager he used to talk about, “We should have a talk show like The Tonight Show . You and I can do an interview show because we have a banter and our comedy sensibilities can come out when we’re together.”  And back then he said, “Our production company should be called McWang Productions with a…” What was it?  Instead of an Irishman, a leprechaun, it was like a fortune—.

Garrett Wang:   I said that on our letterhead we’ll have a logo. Our logo will be a leprechaun straddling a pot of not gold—but a pot of fortune cookies. [both laugh]

Robbie McNeill: So I wasn’t surprised when he brought up the idea because we’ve talked about it before. But the pandemic gives us all this time on our hands, and the other part is, we both know that the fans are getting conventions canceled left and right, so being able to offer something that’s different and fun, and even have the opportunity to engage with us directly at some level.

Garrett Wang:  And the timing really was perfect because it is the 25th anniversary of Voyager and it’s just so sad that all these events have been canceled. Next Gen did their big celebration for their 25th and 30th, and we really got shortchanged.

So up until this podcast, when was the last time each of you has watched Voyager episodes?

Robbie McNeill: I had talked to Seth MacFarlane about directing on The Orville and Seth had mentioned a few episodes of Voyager that he really loved. And he was modeling the tone of The Orville after some of those episodes. So I went back and started watching them in 2017. “Someone to Watch Over Me,” which I directed, was one of the ones he mentioned. “Body and Soul,” I think was another one. A few others. And I just went down a rabbit hole and watched probably a dozen or more episodes when I was talking to Seth.

Garrett Wang: I’ve been splitting my time between the U.S. and Canada in the last five years, and Canada’s version of the SyFy channel is Space. When I’m up in Canada and channel surfing, if I see Voyager is on Space, I will always stop and I’ll watch the episode, so I’ve definitely seen them more frequently than Robbie has.

The Doctor (Robert Picardo) teaching Seven (Jeri Ryan) to dance in “Someone to Watch Over Me,” directed by Robert Duncan McNeill

You’ve both expressed some discomfort watching yourselves, especially in those early episodes. How has it been to sit and watch yourself?

Robbie McNeill: I felt like oftentimes my performance was a little stiffer than I remember. So for me, it’s been a little challenging. Sometimes I’m very critical of my performance, sometimes I’m very critical of the character and the writing of that character. But there’s also a lot of really nice moments that I’m discovering that I hadn’t seen in many years. It’s kind of a mixed bag.

Garrett Wang:  I also have always been a very self-critical watcher of my own performances. Because of the frenetic pace of the episodic world back in the 90s, especially on Star Trek, we didn’t have rehearsals; we literally got the script sometimes the night before we were filming. Once we got on set, we would do a rehearsal just for the camera crew and the sound and to figure out how to light that particular scene. But it wasn’t for the actors to hone our acting, it was just for the crew.

So after that one quick rehearsal, we’d come back and we’d have to shoot it, we’d get one to three takes. And I find that when you have a lack of rehearsal like that, it’s very difficult to hit the right pacing. So when I’m rewatching myself, especially in the first season, I find there are certain lines that I deliver that were way too quick. And there are other lines that should’ve been faster, delivered with a little bit more intensity, a little bit more energy. And then other times, I’m just like, ‘Wow, slow down, you’re racing through this. You’re not an announcer at an auction, where you have to go through and just get all that information out in a very short amount of time. There’s nobody sitting there with a stopwatch timing you.’

Robbie, you’ve talked on the podcast about how at the begininng, Tom Paris was kind of creepy with women and he wasn’t “likable”— you use that word a lot. How did you feel about that at the time?

Robbie McNeill: I was at a place in my life and career… I’d just had my second kid. I had come from a very pretty thin year as an actor the year before. I’d been doing an off-Broadway play, where I was making a few hundred dollars a week and trying to support a family of four on that.

I knew what Star Trek was because I’d guest-starred on Next Gen . I knew the possibility of a long run, and I knew that I really wanted that long run and an opportunity to maybe direct, and all the things that Star Trek brought with it. So my biggest focus that first season was: Don’t get fired. Whatever they say, do it.

I guess kind of selfishly I was just making sure I was a good team player, and so it didn’t occur to me to push back creatively the first season. I really wanted to keep that job. So I just did not critique or question anything they wrote because I was there to do whatever they wanted. But I think that if I had not been in maybe–desperate’s a strong word, but ‘desperate-close’—if I did not have demands that required me to play ball, I might have said, “Wait a minute, you know what? I don’t want to play this guy this way and I don’t like this.”

I think eventually that character grew into something I was really proud of and very happy with. But early on, I felt like he was a little misguided. But maybe that’s part of the journey, too. He grew into someone who was a true adult and truly heroic in a lot of ways, and a good guy. And he grew into that, someplace that was kind of broken and needed some work. I think the story worked in the end.

Lt. Stadi “Do you always fly at women at warp speed, Mr. Paris?” Paris: “Only when they’re in visual range.” (from “Caretaker”)

As you look ahead to the other episodes you’re going to talk about, are there any that you’re either really looking forward to talking about—or dreading?

Garrett Wang:  We’re about to do our recap of “Faces” and Robbie knows the actor that played Durst in that episode [Brian Markinson], whose face gets removed and put onto a Vidiian—he played the Vidiian as well. We’re going to have him join us on the entire recap. I really feel that adds a lot of value to the podcast, when you bring in people for the entire time, not just for a quick phoner, like when I was listening to the Office Ladies . They would call up Rainn Wilson for like, two minutes [in high-pitched Office Ladies voice]: “Hey Rainn, great to see you, what’s going on? Oh, you’re doing your own podcast? That’s great. Oh cool, do you remember that one scene? Okay, thanks a lot, bye.” And two minutes later, he’s gone.

Robbie McNeill: I think the only episode that I’m—I’m not dreading, but it’s gonna be interesting—is “Threshold.” I am so proud that I have one of the most hated episodes of all of Star Trek. The reason I think it’s so hated is because of the writing and the story elements—not what I did, I hope.

That IS what it is, for sure.

Robbie McNeill: Yeah. I never hear from people like, “Oh, you were a horrible actor in that episode.” I just hear how much they hate the episode because it’s crazytown.

Garrett Wang:  Robbie, I don’t think they hate it, man. I think it’s just the ending that’s so bizarre, that disturbs people. The fact that you have lizard babies with Janeway at the end. It’s like, ‘Really? Yeah, they’re lizards. And now they have children?’

Until recently, I didn’t know that you really took a lot of pride in that, but it’s true. I mean, you had to act the progressive stages from human to full lizard. That’s definitely a feat in and of itself. And then you’re proud of that.

Robbie McNeill:   I was proud of it. It was very theatrical, and I loved working in the makeup. As an actor? I actually really loved doing that episode. But when I was acting—I haven’t acted in a long time—it didn’t serve me to go, “Oh, this story doesn’t make sense.” If I started breaking down my confidence and my commitment to a story, as an actor, I would start losing confidence in what I was doing. I always looked at a script like, ‘All right, they wrote it, it must be true, like this character would do this.’ It’s my job not to figure out why they wouldn’t do this, or why the story doesn’t work. My job as an actor was to figure out, ‘In what circumstance would my character do this? How desperate would he have to be to kidnap the captain?’ That’s my job.

Garrett Wang:  As he was getting closer and closer to the full lizard, and they had all that prosthetic makeup on him, I remember walking into the trailer and seeing him. Honestly, he looked like a burn victim. And it was hard for me to even look at Robbie when he had that stuff on. It was just so jarring. It was like, ‘I don’t want to see you this way, my friend. I want you to be your regular self.’ [Robbie laughs]

Robert Duncan McNeill getting closer to “full lizard” in “Threshold”

It’s a dopey episode, but I think you did an amazing job. You conveyed a lot of intensity and anger and confusion.

Robbie McNeill: Cool. Yeah, it was fun. That’s the only one I’m not looking forward to. But I feel like the fans are going to not want to hear me say, “Oh, I liked it. I had fun.” Nobody wants to hear this episode that they all hate…

Garrett Wang:  I’m gonna disagree with you that on that one, Robbie. I think everybody who is now following Delta Flyers , they probably marked that on their calendar already. Like, ‘This is the “Threshold” day of release. We’re all going to listen to it at 12:01 am on Monday.’ That’s what I’m thinking.

I’m gonna back you up on that. Another one I’m sure they want you guys to talk about, because it’s one of the most polarizing episodes of the show… what’s your stance on “Tuvix”?

Garrett Wang: The polarizing part is, some people think that Janeway basically murdered Tuvix, right? I don’t even think about that. I just think about how amazing that guest star was [Tom Wright]. I love that man off camera. He had class. He was graceful. He was talented. He had a great voice. I had a mini man-crush on that guy when he shows up. Literally, the last day of filming, I think I almost started crying. I remember he was leaving, I was like, “Well, wait a minute! Here’s my number. Maybe you want to go grab a drink or something?” I’m straight man, but I was still reaching for straws to keep contact with this man because I thought, ‘Oh, he did SUCH a great job, I LOVE this guy!’

And then I was thinking [in dejected tone], ‘Oh, Tim’s coming back next week.’ [Both laugh.] ‘Why do we have to have Tim come back? Can’t we just keep this guy? Pleeeeeease?’

I love that episode. I don’t get into the politics of “Janeway should have let that guy live,” you know? But if you let Tuvix live, then you’ve just killed Tuvok AND Neelix. You’ve killed TWO individuals now, right? That’s a tough decision for Janeway to make, but I think she made the right one.

Tom Wright as Tuvix

Would you consider having Tom or other guests on the podcast, and have you approached people? Like cast members, directors, writers… 

Robbie McNeill: We’ve talked to Dan Curry, we’ve got Brian Markinson coming up in a couple of days.

Garrett Wang:  We just released the Bob Picardo one a couple days ago.

Robbie McNeill: Robert Beltran’s been on the show.

[Editor’s note: The guests, so far, have been for Patreon listeners only, but their first episode with Dan Curry has been made available to all .]

Kate Mulgrew has expressed interest. We definitely want to have other actors and other behind-the-scenes people. We’ve talked about Dennis Madalone, our stunt coordinator for all those years. There’s a lot of people and they could come on our show more than once, and have a lot to say.

Garrett Wang:  Wherever it makes sense. I want to try to get Nan Dutton, the original casting director that cast all of us series regulars. I would like to get Brannon Braga; any of the writers would be wonderful. But then beyond that, I don’t have an issue bringing in some of the guys that were camera crew.

Hey Robbie, do you remember—what’s his name? One dolly grip that was so amazing. We had him for like a year and a half, two years.

Robbie McNeill: George Santo Pietro. George is awesome, he helped me on my first short film.

Star Trek fans love the writers, we love the tech people in addition to actors. So I’m glad you guys are thinking that way. You’ve also had some pretty amazing guest stars. Would you try to get Michael McKean or Sarah Silverman, Ed Begley, Jr., or Kurtwood Smith, any of those people?

Garrett Wang:  Oh my gosh, that’d be great. Do you have contact with Sarah Silverman, Robbie?

Robbie McNeill: I know a couple of friends of hers but I didn’t stay in touch with her. But she’d be hilarious.

Garrett Wang:  Jason Alexander will be fun if we could grab him. Andy Dick. That would be an interesting grab as well. Who’s the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine? Tom Morello. Huge Star Trek fan, [he’d] be good too. Robbie, maybe we can get Seth [MacFarlane], interview his butt about his love of Star Trek.

Sarah Silverman as Rain Robinson in “Future’s End”

When I interviewed Kate Mulgrew, Garrett, she sort of called you out, saying that you’ve been—“ dining out for years ” was her expression—on an impression of her? Did you ever do that for her on set?

Garrett Wang:  No. She didn’t hear about it until we were at the Museum of Television and Radio, Voyager was being honored that night. There was a Q&A with the entire cast, and the very first question from the audience was this one fan, and he says [doing fan voice], “Yeah, this question’s for Garrett. I know that you do an impersonation of Captain Janeway.” And right when he said that, I sideways glance at Kate, and she kind of gave me the eye, and I was then looking at the fan going, ‘Please don’t say anything else, please.’ And he was like, “Could you please do the impression for us now?” And I look over at Kate and I just knew she was like [in Kate voice], ‘Yeah. Go ahead. Try it. Just see. Let me see what you’re gonna go with.’

So I stood up, and I did it. And she grabs the microphone, she goes, “I don’t sound like that.” She goes [in Kate voice], “That’s not how I sound.” And I said, “Yes it is.” And she says, “No it isn’t.” It was funny little playfulness there. But that was the first time she ever heard me do [it].

So now even though I’ve been dining on that, like she says, for many years, I’ve been dining on more of a parody. And so now my ultimate goal in 2020 is to get all the little layers and tiny nuances of when her voice becomes more gentle. It’s not as harsh-sounding when it pitches higher. I really want to try to get it down to where people are going to be like, “Oh my gosh, that’s REALLY good.”

To this day, the only person who I’ve heard do a spot-on, cannot-tell-the-difference-between-her-voice-and-the- impersonator, is Nancy Hower [Samantha Wildman]. Nancy and I became friends when she was filming the show. And one day she left a message on my voicemail in Kate’s voice. She said [in Nancy-doing-Kate voice], “Garrett, it’s Kate. I’m just—I don’t understand, why did you do this?” She was complaining about something to me. And I’m listening to this going, ‘Oh my god, what did I just do? Oh my god!’ I’m listening, and I can’t even recall the incident that Kate’s talking about, what is she talking about? And at the very end, Nancy stops the voice. She goes, “It’s Nancy. Just kidding. Bye.” And she hangs up.

And I was like, ‘Oh, you! I’ll get you, you rascally rabbit.’ And that was the best Janeway I ever heard. If you don’t mind, Robbie, I’m going to reach out to Nancy and have her come on and I want her to do the Janeway voice on the podcast.

Nancy Hower as Samantha Wildman with the real Kate Mulgrew as Janeway

Obviously we don’t know when things are going to open up and Robbie will be directing 7,000 TV episodes again, but do you think you’ll be able to keep going once things do? Will you have the time?

Robbie McNeill: Yeah, I think so. This is a great opportunity to figure out what our format is and get comfortable with it. We also have a great team of people that work on this, including my partner Rebecca Sims, and Megan, and Jessey. I think we’ve got our routine down now and enough support that we can continue it even if I have to just do it on the weekends on a day off or something.

Garrett Wang: It’s  not something that we’re going to abandon ship or in any way, shape, or form. I’m not going to let Robbie do that if I have to fly my ass up to Vancouver or whatever, to be next to him to do this. I’ll do that. I don’t care. It’s gonna happen.

Listen to The Delta Flyers

New episodes come out every Monday. The full video version of their first episode is below.

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Read part two of our interview , where we dig deeper into their time on Voyager,  missed opportunities with Chakotay and Neelix, and that famous fire on the Voyager bridge.

Keep up with all the interviews at  TrekMovie.com .

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That’s pretty cool, but I will be surprised if they make it through every single episode. That’s a very, very long time.

Absolutely loved Robert’s acting in Threshold. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the wacky science and the lizard babies (and them obviously having a way home), the episode would be a classic. The intensive body horror is really something and Robert just nailed the performance.

I haven’t listened to the podcast yet but it sounds a lot of fun. There are plenty of really good Star Trek podcasts on Spotify. Voyager is my second favorite Trek series after TNG.

I wish someone had/would given these awesome actors an equally awesome script. They deserved way better than what they got.

CBS is currently in talks regarding a Tuvix themed spin-off – stay tuned!

Well, what can I say. Threshold was a lot of shit, indeed because of the ending and the reset button. AT that point you just wonder what you did just watch and why.

Tuvix on the other hand, I love this episode. Yes, Janeway’s decision is polarising, but I can understand her decision. Nonetheless, Tuvix was a very cool character.

Either way, great interview!

That was really interesting. I thought Tom Paris was rather a jerk during the first couple of years of the show, but he became SO much better as time went on. It’s so validating to realize that the actor who portrayed him thought the same thing. :-)

I’ve read so much about how Bill Shatner insisted on this, or Leonard Nimoy insisted on that during the TOS years that it never occurred to me that Robert Duncan McNeill felt that he couldn’t question the way his character was written. I’m so glad to hear that perspective; it makes so many things clearer.

I don’t usually listen to podcasts — I much prefer to read, because listening takes so much longer for the same amount of content — but I might make an exception for these guys.

And yeah, I think Janeway made the right decision in “Tuvix,” too. Tuvix didn’t have the right to destroy two other people’s lives to continue his own. I thought it was a fabulous episode with a really interesting moral dilemma. And Mulgrew was fabulous, really giving us a sense of how difficult it was for Janeway to have to do this.

Isn’t Andy Dick in prison?

No he is not :) He’s on Cameo and really spends a lot of time making those. Bought two for two Newsradio fans and worth every penny. Hopefully he can stay out of trouble and get his career back on track.

At the point of the interview where Wang did his usual “throwing Rick Berman under the bus” shtick, I would have liked to see the interviewer call him to task on his history of verbally attacking Berman, Bragga, Mulgrew and others. He’s been given a free pass for far too long from the soft-peddling Star Trek fan site press regarding his past behavior and his delusions of grandeur — my opinion!

In this interview, he made it sound like Rick Berman wasn’t allowed to stand on a part of the set that Wang stood on for a TV interview, and then indirectly suggested that Rick Berman behaved like a coward with the fire on the set. That’s just wrong — my opinion.

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Star Trek: Voyager – Threshold (Review)

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek , including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and  Star Trek: Voyager . Check back daily Tuesday through Friday for the latest review.

Threshold is hated by fandom.

Veteran reviewer Jamahl Epsicokhan described it as “one of the all-time worst episodes of Star Trek ever filmed.” He is far from the only voice raised in protest. Winston O’Boogie remarked that, watching the episode, “you can’t help but think that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with the world that allowed this to happen.” Assessing writer Brannon Braga’s contributions to the larger franchise, Jim Wright reflected, “Whatever else he may accomplish, he’s as forever shackled to Threshold as George Lucas to Jar-Jar.”

It’s not even the worst episode of the season…

Threshold is terrible. There is no way around that. It is a very stupid episode that is never entirely sure what it is trying to say from one moment to the next. More than that, positioning it as an important Tom Paris arc in the middle of the second season serves to sabotage the already confused character arc running between Alliances and Investigations . There is absolutely no context in which Threshold could be described as a “good” (or even “competent” ) hour of television.

At the same time, it is not one of the worst episodes of the franchise ever produced; it is not even one of the worst episodes of the series. Surrounded by episodes like Tattoo or Alliances , the episode cannot even make a particularly confident claim to being the worst instalment of the season. None of this should be confused as an endorsement of Threshold . It is condemnation of everything that exists around Threshold .

The great mutato!

It’s interesting to wonder why Threshold generated such a strong response from fandom. The episode is terrible, but there were so many terrible episodes airing around it that it seems weird to focus hatred on this individual story. After all, Threshold aired directly following Alliances ; that particular episode found Janeway opting to ally with white-skinned slave owners instead of their dark-skinned former slaves, offering a big sanctimonious speech at the end about how, if she can’t trust slaveowners, then Voyager must truly be on its own.

This is to say nothing of the script for Tattoo , an episode about a bunch of magical white-skinned aliens who came down from the heavens and gave indigenous populations a spark of divine genius that somehow makes them all mystical or something. There is a lot of unfortunate racial subtext running through the second season of  Star Trek: Voyager , and that is without considering the implications of the whole  “Kazon as Los Angeles street gangs” theme that Michael Piller and Kenneth Biller thought would be fun to thread through the season.

“Computer, play some ambient thunder noises in the background…”

In light of all this, it seems a minor miracle that Threshold decides to mangle evolutionary theory in a manner that is simply idiotic rather than explicitly racist. Considering the handling of race in scripts like Tattoo and Alliances , it is a wonder that Tom Paris evolves into a space! salamander rather than a space! W.A.S.P. Threshold is terrible and ill-conceived on multiple levels, but at least it is not spectacularly racist. That should be a fairly low bar for any episode Star Trek to pass, but it seems to be a lot tougher than it should be this season.

(This is not to suggest that Threshold doesn’t have its own rather problematic moments. After all, mutant! Paris abducts Janeway for the purpose of making mutant! babies with her. The closing scene tries to shrug that off, with Janeway remarking that “sometimes it’s the female of the species that initiates mating.” However, the point of the abduction is clear, even if mutant! Janeway consented to freaky mutant! sex. Given the second season’s fixation on female characters as mothers, the whole climax of the episode is ill-conceived. At best.)

The episode really blew up in everybody’s faces…

What is it about Threshold that provokes such a strong and emotive response from fandom, while other second season episodes simply get a pithy dismissal or a half-hearted critique? Perhaps a lot of it is down to the positioning of Threshold . This is not a good episode, and it comes at the end of the first half of a season that has struggled to produce a handful of passable hours of television. More to the point,  Voyager has yet to produce a truly classic or defining episode; the first season has come and gone without a hint of a  Duet or a  In the Hands of the Prophets .

There are good episodes in the first stretch of the second season; Projections is genuinely great, while Persistence of Vision and Resistance are generally entertaining. Nevertheless, it has been a long and painful slog through the second season. There is a lot of crap here. It isn’t even like the second season of Star Trek: Enterprise , where everything blends into a competently-produced blur with no distinct flavour; there are genuinely terrible episodes scattered through the season, with the production team messing up what should be simple Star Trek stories.

“So, yeah. Maybe Kim should do it.”

Perhaps the hatred is cumulative. Maybe Threshold is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. The episode is certainly more engaging than Twisted ; it is certainly less actively racist than any episode featuring the Kazon. In some respects, Threshold arrives at a low point in the second season. The second season does have some legitimately great episodes coming up in a fairly short space of time, with one genuine masterpiece and a number of nice character-driven stories for the ensemble. There are still a few stinkers to come, but less than there were before.

That said, it feels like an unconvincing explanation for the raw anger that Threshold provokes from fans. It is interesting to wonder if the aggressive response to Threshold is rooted in the fact that it is a very silly episode of television. After all, Star Trek fans tend to take the show very seriously; Kenneth Biller was very eager to complain about the goofy and pulpy design of the robots in Prototype , ignoring that the retro design was perhaps the the strongest part of an episode with a number of very questionable storytelling choices.

Mutant got your tongue?

The episode was originally pitched by Michael De Luca, the head of New Line Cinema who had struck up a friendship with Brannon Braga. De Luca explained his original pitch :

I think my pitch was if you break the warp ten barrier you…at warp eleven you’re in touch with every molecule in the universe at the same time and it has a bad effect on that character on the show that played the test pilot. I think it was Lieutenant Paris or something. So, they bought the story and I got to have my name on that episode of the Star Trek series and it made me really happy.

De Luca’s writing credits include Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Judge Dredd , giving an indication of the sensibilities of his pitch. This is not the sort of science-fiction that nineties Star Trek did very often.

Threshold is a very pulpy episode of science-fiction. If the robots from Prototype look like they escaped from a fifties or sixties b-movie, it seems entirely possible that the script for Prototype is another refugee from late-night broadcasts of cheap horror films. Brannon Braga has always been fascinated by schlock and horror, with his work on Threshold sitting comfortably between his scripts for Genesis or Microcosm . Much of Threshold plays as an attempt to do trashy body horror within a familiar Star Trek framework.

Braga’s script is aware of its ridiculous elements. “Here lies Thomas Eugene Paris, beloved mutant,” Paris laments as the EMH and Kes fight to save his life. As the EMH prepares to infuse him with radiation, Paris amends his epitaph, “Great. Now it’ll read, beloved radioactive mutant.” After his supposed death, the EMH is working in Sickbay (with the lights turned down low for maximum horror vibe) only to discover that the pilot has been resurrected. Pulling back the tarp draped over the body, the EMH declares, “You’re alive.” Victor Frankenstein would be proud.

The monster demands a superior officer…

Discussing the episode, Braga has explained that he was attempting to do high concept body horror within the structure of a traditional Star Trek episode. Braga is the first to admit that Threshold doesn’t work :

Of course, the one I’d just as soon forget is called Threshold. That’s the one in which Janeway and Paris turn into lizards. That’s a real low point. I was trying something. I don’t want to get into what I was trying  to do, but it didn’t quite work. It was my homage, I guess, to David Cronenberg’s The Fly, but it really backfired on me. It was poorly executed by me.

It is not a surprise that Braga should want to make an episode like this. More than any other Star Trek writer of his generation, Braga has been fascinated by the intersection between Star Trek ‘s science-fiction sensibilities and classic horror tropes.

Putting the “man” in “salamander.”

The body horror of Genesis , Threshold and Microcosm provides perhaps the most jarring contrast to the somewhat sterile aesthetic of nineties Star Trek . However, Braga also worked on the script for the gothic horror of Sub Rosa . His own stories for episodes like Frame of Mind and Projections have a strong psychological horror element to them. Indeed, even his breakout script for Cause and Effect could be seen as an existential horror story. So there is definitely a larger context for what Braga is doing here.

(Indeed, Braga’s reintroduction of horror into the Star Trek oeuvre is arguably long overdue. Classic Star Trek contained more than its fair share of goofy space horror episodes; the first episode of Star Trek to air was The Man Trap , a script featuring what might be described as “a salt vampire.” Kirk was constantly confronted with cosmic horror, with classics like The Squire of Gothos and The Immunity Syndrome consciously playing up the horrors of going “where no man has gone before.” This is to say nothing of Robert Bloch’s influence on the show.)

“Hey! The Emmys think this is better than The Visitor! C’mon!”

Threshold actually works reasonably well as a piece of body horror. It is certainly more compelling as body horror than it is as character study or philosophical treatise. The show is surprisingly discomforting for an episode of Star Trek , with one of the lead characters pulling out his own tongue. The make-up is impressive, even if it leads to the bizarre situation where Threshold beat The Visitor to an Emmy award. Paris rants and raves all sorts of suitably creepy existential nonsense about what he is “becoming.”

Of course, the episode around all this is incredibly lazy and disappointing. There are any number of credible criticisms of the plot, right down to the principles underlying Paris’ transformation. Quite simply, evolution does not work that way. Evolution is not a linear process that can be magically accelerated. Evolution occurs through natural selection and genetic diversification; there is not a magic “go faster” button buried in DNA that might speed things up. For a show that claims to be science-fiction, Star Trek sure has a shoddy understanding of evolution.

Evolved sensibilities…

Star Trek tends to adopt a very deterministic approach to evolution. According to Star Trek , evolution is not a process that results from a variety of external factors – including the surrounding environment and gene pool. Stories like The Chase and Threshold suggest that there is really a predetermined evolutionary path for mankind to follow, a clear and orderly progression between what mankind is and what mankind is to become. According to the logic of the Star Trek universe, evolution is something that occurs with a very clear purpose and objective.

Indeed, this arguably plays into the rhetoric of the Prime Directive as it is articulated in the nineties Star Trek shows. Picard and Janeway are reluctant to interfere with the so-called “natural” evolutionary course of a species, refusing play god. In Prototype , Janeway even suggests extinction is the most likely outcome of any evolutionary path. All of this ignores the reality that evolution is a process that is adaptable and flexible; it does not occur within a vacuum, and often welcomes the arrival of outside influences.

Flight of fancy…

In Captains’ Logs Supplemental , Braga argues that he intended the episode to play as a deconstruction of the idea that evolution was inherently progressive:

It’s very much a classic Star Trek story, but in the rewrite process I took out the explanation, the idea behind the ending, that we evolve into these little lizards because maybe evolution is not always progressive. Maybe it’s a cycle where we revert to something more rudimentary. That whole conversation was taken out for various reasons, and that was a disaster because without it the episode doesn’t even have a point. I think it suffered greatly. I got the note that it wasn’t necessary, but in fact it really had a lot to do with what the episode was about. Big mistake taking it out.

It’s a fair point, but Braga’s central thesis still suggests that evolution is a single predetermined path, albeit one that doesn’t always lead upwards.

Breathing it in…

(As if to demonstrate that Threshold considers evolution to be a singular predetermined path, it is worth noting that apparently Janeway undergoes the exact same transformation as Paris; her “evolution” progresses in exactly the same direction as his own, to the point that the two are able to conceive children together. It appears that Threshold is being rather unambiguous here; those salamander creatures are the natural end point of human evolution, folks. Don’t worry that it doesn’t make any sense.)

In a way, Threshold could be seen as an example of the Star Trek franchise’s somewhat reactionary anxieties about transhumanism. For a property that claims to offer a utopian vision of the future, Star Trek is frequently terrified by the idea that anything could exist “beyond” humanity; humanity is presented as something approaching the pinnacle of evolutionary design, and any attempt to transcend that is inherently abhorrent. The future might hold infinite possibilities, but they are possibilities to be explored by good old standard-model humans.

“Yes. I’m sure the Kazon – of all people – will be able to put this knowledge to good use.”

The franchise has been wary of attempts to genetically enhance humanity, dating back to Space Seed and continuing through to Star Trek Into Darkness .  When genetic engineering does not produce monsters like Khan, it produces sociopathic misfits like those featured in Statistical Probabilities . The Borg are portrayed as monstrosities in their efforts to transcend organic life and reach towards “perfection.” It seems that Threshold is embracing this anxiety, suggesting that even evolution itself cannot improve on the basic human form.

Even allowing for the somewhat… questionable evolutionary theory underpinning the episode, the script around the pseudo-science is incredibly weak. Threshold starts out as another “Voyager almost gets home” story, in the grand tradition of Eye of the Needle , Prime Factors and Cold Fire . This time, it seems like the crew of a ship stranded on the opposite side of the galaxy are somehow able to break the fundamental laws of the universe. Well, they certainly have the necessary motivation.

His hair is falling out from the pressure…

Threshold is very much a “Voyager crew redefine the laws of physics and forget about it the following week” story. The crew would often solve seemingly impossible scientific problems, constantly re-writing the textbooks on basic physics and elementary science. Although this tendency was somewhat exaggerated by fandom, there are a number of points where it seems like the Voyager crew devote a few hours of thought to a seemingly unsolvable problem, refine it to the point where it helps them either get into or out of the plot of the week, and then promptly discard the idea.

(This is typically a factor in “crew almost get home” stories, because the nature of Voyager means that the crew cannot get home before the end of the series. As a result, a number of key projects and decisions are motivated by the possibility that the crew might get home, only for the episode to handwave a reason why they can’t actually use the technology or research to get home. In Prime Factors , they try to use the Sikarian technology once; when it proves incompatible, the crew make no further investigation into it and conduct no further research.)

The A-Team…

It does seem weird that Voyager is apparently populated with the sort of hyper-competent individuals who put the crew of the Enterprise to shame. Picard assembled his crew from the best of the best to staff the Federation flagship, it makes sense that Geordi LaForge and Data would be among the best and the brightest. In contrast, Caretaker suggested that the crew of Voyager were a bunch of rogues and neophytes thrown together by circumstance. It seems weird that so many breakthroughs should come from throwing these characters together.

After all, the team that crack “warp ten” are hardly a collection of Starfleet all-stars. Tom Paris was a hotshot pilot who was not skilled enough to avoid detection when he became a terrorist; Harry Kim is just a child. The only person on the team whose specialty is actually warp travel is only one who never actually graduated from Starfleet Academy. It seems weird that Torres should prove so skilled at theoretical physics when the show has made so much of her practical prowess.

“It was all a holodeck simulation. Let’s go with that.”

In Threshold , the crew develop a new technology that allows them to be everywhere in the universe at once; it has a fairly useful application for a crew stranded on the other side of the galaxy. In his initial test, Paris starts and ends in the same place; however, his later adventure with Janeway suggests that it is possible to enter and exit transwarp at different locations. (Although it is convenient that he stays within range of Voyager.) This could be a vital part of getting the crew home, with a bit more research and development.

Sure, the technology has some unfortunate side effects, like turning people into lizards. However, the closing scene of Threshold suggests that the EMH has found an effective treatment for that potential issue, as reverting Janeway and Paris to their human forms is no big deal. Why can’t Voyager make the jump, and then have the EMH treat the crew afterwards? It seems like the transformation from human to lizard takes quite a bit of time, so the EMH certainly has a window of opportunity; particularly if he has an effective treatment.

“Or a dream. It could all be a dream prompted by Neelix’s new coffee blend.”

If there are factors like Samantha Wildman’s pregnancy to consider, why not send a shuttle with one person (and details of the treatment) to Earth to let them know Voyager is alive and to give them the transwarp research? Why not continue research into transwarp with an eye to preventing the sudden evolution of the crew? There are any number of ways that the events of Threshold should get Voyager at least a little closer to home, although the show can’t be bothered to do anything with them.

There is a reason for this, of course. The second season of Voyager is absolutely abysmal at arc-based storytelling. Even leaving aside the question of how quickly the crew forsake the possibility of using transwarp to get home, Threshold wreaks havoc with Tom Paris’ arc across the second season as a whole. Threshold is essentially an episode about how Paris has to become comfortable in his own skin, coming right before Paris starts roleplaying as a lovable rogue in an effort to get himself kicked off the ship and recruited by the Kazon.

“Starfleet is NEVER going to believe this.”

Discussing Threshold with Cinefantastique , actor Robert Duncan McNeill explained how he tried to root the episode in a simple character arc for Tom Paris:

What is this about? Before you can even start to tell the story you have to find the moral. What is the simplest point of this episode? Once you can say that in a sentence then that is what the episode is about. To me that the whole warp ten and salamanders and all of that frosting was about Paris trying to find some sort of salvation outside himself and ultimately realizing that he had to find his own self worth from within. Here is somebody who thinks he’s got to break warp ten and prove to everybody, his father and himself that he can do this outside thing, but ultimately your happiness comes from within.

It is a fairly generic character arc for Tom Paris, particularly heaped upon an episode that is already as tonally messy as Threshold .

In the horror vein…

At the same time, the theme kinda works with the episode’s body horror themes; Tom Paris finds himself transforming into a monster, perhaps reflecting how he sees himself – or how he suspects other see him. “What I’m becoming will probably be better than who I was,” Paris confesses to Janeway in a moment of self-pity. However, the theme is never quite as developed as it needs to be for the story to work. Instead, it feels like a concept grafted on in an attempt to give the episode some emotional heft.

The episode ends with Paris coming to the realisation that he needs to be comfortable in his own skin. “I guess I went into this looking for a quick fix,” he confesses. “I thought making history would change things. Not just my service record, my reputation.” Janeway assures him, “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve changed quite a few minds on this ship. You’ve earned a lot of people’s respect and admiration.” Paris responds, “Yeah. But I’m starting to realise that it’s not other people’s opinions I should be worried about. It’s mine.”

Engineering a solution…

It is a sweet – if corny – sentiment. Unfortunately, it is completely undercut by Paris’ character arc across the next few episodes. Starting with Meld , Paris reverts back to his bad boy ways and starts squandering all the good will that he has built up. In Investigations , it is revealed that this is all part of a secret plan to infiltrate the Kazon and expose Michael Jonas. Ignoring the terrible execution of the arc, which pretty much killed any possibility of  Voyager embracing serialised storytelling, it is an interesting concept.

The problem is that the handling of Paris across the rest of the season jars completely with the central point of his character arc in Threshold . Threshold insists that he is appreciated on Voyager and that he can be comfortable enough to stop playing the feckless rebel. There is a way to rationalise Paris’ character development in Threshold with his treatment across the rest of the season, but it would require a fundamental reworking of the season arc. As it stands, the arc is incompatible with the character work here.

“Hey, why are you guys all sitting away from me?”

Then again, it comes down to one of the fundamental problems with the second season’s use of Paris. Having Paris act like a jerk for no reason, before revealing the reason as a twist, is a terrible creative decision; it feels lazy and ill-judged, prioritising the twist ahead of the character. It might have worked better to be upfront with the deception, exploring the arc from the perspective of Paris himself. There are many issues with the Paris arc that runs through season, but the fact that it doesn’t actually develop Paris’ character is one of the most striking.

Having Janeway pitch the ruse to Paris, and having Paris decide that he is willing to throw away all the goodwill he has earned to protect the crew, would be an organic continuation of his arc in Threshold . The closing scene of Threshold has Paris suggest that his own esteem is more important than that of anybody else on the crew; watching Paris make that choice would be an interesting dramatic beat. Of course, this does nothing to resolve the many other problems with the arc; most notably, Janeway and Paris still violate the trust of the senior staff – especially Chakotay.

“Oh, boy…”

There are other stock problems with Threshold . As with a lot of Voyager scripts, flimsy science (and hazy internal plot logic) are hung on technobabble. The show offers a variety of gobbledygook to explain what is happening (and how the EMH plans to fix it) but none of it is actually convincing. “I’d like to place Mister Paris in an isotopic restraint and then infuse it with controlled antiproton bursts,” the EMH explains. “A tricky venture, but I see no other alternative.” It is hard to generate tangible stakes when dialogue comes out of a technobabble generator.

At the same time, there are some interesting concepts. The idea of transwarp allowing Paris to be everywhere at once is quite interesting, in a vaguely spiritual sort of way; the ability to occupy every space in the universe in the same instant is something almost beyond human comprehension; it suggests a state of “oneness” with the universe. In fact, it invites the viewer to wonder whether beings like the Q evolved in a similar fashion, transcending the boundaries of space (and even time) to be everywhere at once.

“Don’t worry. In a week, it’ll be like this never happened.”

Paris’ description of the experience is romantic. “I was… I was staring at the velocity indicator. It said warp ten. And then, as I watched it, I suddenly realised that I was watching myself as well. I could see the outside of the shuttle, I could see Voyager, I could see inside Voyager. I could see inside this room. For a moment, I was everywhere. I mean, everywhere, Captain. With the Kazon, back home, with the Klingons, other galaxies. It was all there. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was like. Well, no, it wasn’t like anything.”

Star Trek is a show that is about exploration, and Voyager was very consciously an attempt to get back to the art of exploring. However, that exploration is as much about interrogating the human condition as it is about charting literal new frontiers. The use of transwarp as a means to connect mankind to everything in the universe and to transcend linear perception does both at the same time; it suggests an evolutionary leap in the type of “exploration” that is possible on Voyager . Too bad that it ultimately ends up as an episode about lizard babies.

“But my next character-centric story is better, right?”

(Then again, it is hard to imagine what the dramatic stakes might have been in a story about the crew achieving “oneness” with the wider universe. Where does that particular story go? What happens when you are literally everywhere at once? As Death Wish suggests, omniscience can be boring. At best, this alternate version of  Threshold might have played out in an abstract manner that recalled Where No One Has Gone Before . Given how Threshold ultimately turned out, that might not be such a bad thing.)

Threshold is not a good episode of television. It is, in many respects, quite terrible. However, it is not as terrible as its reputation suggests; it is not as terrible as the episode that aired directly before it. It doesn’t even come close to working, but it is not even the worst episode of this season.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: Brannon Braga , evolution , horror , posthuman , salamanders , star trek , star trek: voyager , threshold , tom paris , voyager , warp 10 , warp ten |

27 Responses

>The episode is terrible, but there were so many terrible episodes airing around it that it seems weird to focus hatred on this individual story.

To address the two you cite – I simply found “Tattoo” boring and loathed “Alliances” for the message that compromise is bad.

“No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.”

I didn’t pause to consider the racial problems in either program because it requires time to pause and consider the subtext of what was going on. I didn’t grasp that “Tattoo” had said the First Nations were special because of white men until SFdebris pointed it out and didn’t notice Voyager asked the slave owners for help against their former subjects until your own worthy observations.

To me, “Threshold” irritated me instantly because of the bad science.

>Braga is the first to admit that Threshold doesn’t work:

Well, *now* he bows to popular opinion. He was much more defensive in the 90s.

>Picard and Janeway are reluctant to interfere with the so-called “natural” evolutionary course of a species, refusing play god. In Prototype, Janeway even suggests extinction is the most likely outcome of any evolutionary path. All of this ignores the reality that evolution is a process that is adaptable and flexible; it does not occur within a vacuum, and often welcomes the arrival of outside influences.

“I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.” “‘In the end’? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.”

(on a Watchmen kick, obviously)

>After all, the team that crack “warp ten” are hardly a collection of Starfleet all-stars.

You don’t even mention the crucial breakthrough which solved the engineering of infinite speed came from ***Neelix***.

Ha! “Neelix: The Man Who Cracked Warp Ten!” It sounds like a Federation documentary waiting to happen. Or like a fictionalised “Breakfast with Neelix” film waiting to happen. (“Neelix, your ratings are huge!” “Well, I am the only thing on.” “Still, check out that market share!”)

All these years later I still remember this one… unfortunately!

I think that the reason why I specifically hated this episode so much was because for me it so perfectly epitomized the major failing of Voyager. Let me explain…

In the next-to-last scene, Paris and Janeway have evolved into weird non-humanoid lizards, have mated, and have produced offspring. The rest of the crew finds them and brings them back to Voyager. Then, just one scene later, they are both completely back to normal, with seemingly little-to-no effort needing to be expended to restore their humanity. It was the most egregious example of hitting the reset button that I had seen in a very long time.

And that, for me, was the cardinal sin of Voyager: it promised that it would go in completely different directions, do things never been done before in Star Trek, push the characters in uncomfortable directions, yet it was always hitting reset, always ending every single episode with the status quo completely restored. No matter how bad things got, at the end everything got put back perfectly in the box.

I guess I also had the same problem with “Year of Hell.” That, at least, was a good episode… except that at the end inevitably the writers had Janeway alter history completely erased all the events of the story, once again returning things back to business as usual.

Another example would be deadlock. I think it is an excellent episode, but at the end Voyager is a steaming wreck of a ship. The next episode though everything is hunky dory.

I think it’s funny that in Alliances, Chakotay said Voyager had taken so much damage they’d be lucky to ever get warp drive back online again. And now in Threshold, they’re working on a way to get the ship up to Warp 10 and travel at infinite velocity. Yeah, Voyager is fond of the reset button, but some have thought that the production team were so ashamed of Threshold they actually erased it from canon. That may have been why in Day of Honour, Tom claims to have never travelled at transwarp before.

Yep, that’s the episode I was thinking of. I knew Tom made a remark like that at some point, I just couldn’t remember where exactly.

“Tom and Janeway have lizard sex” is Brannon’s entire work, ‘in ovo’ as they say in Latin.

a) the episode is goofy and makes no sense, existing solely to reach the desired outcome of Tom/Janeway lizard sex

b) it’s kinky but in a passive sort of way, as we can’t get away with normal sex on Star Trek.

c) Janeway assets her sexual dominance over Tom, another one of Braga’s thumbprints

d) it leaves the audience wanting to take a cold shower.

Braga’s sexual fixation is interesting, if only because it’s very adolescent. (In many respects, Seven of Nine is a teenager’s blonde ice queen fantasy brought to life, particularly early in her life.)

I remember Braga’s infamous interview where he tried to paint himself as the “bad boy” of the TNG writers’ room by talking about how “kinky” he was. (If I remember correctly, this was the same interview he boasted about never watching TOS.) I’m actually quite fond of Braga as a science-fiction and mind f$!k writer, but he should probably stay away from sexual themes.

I do feel a little hypocritical here. I am a major critic of the “reset button” trope as a reflexive force of habit, as it became for Voyager from this point onwards. In fact, I think Deadlock really establishes a template, and Year of Hell is another glaring example. However, I really like both Deadlock and Year of Hell, in spite of their reset button endings. Indeed, to the extent that the only way those stories become possible on Voyager because of the reset button endings, you could argue I really like them because of the reset button.

(Hell, I even kinda like Course: Oblivion, more for the idea than the execution.)

None of which negates your criticisms, which I largely agree with and I suspect I’ll make in due course. (I think I’ve alluded to similar sentiments in earlier reviews.) But it is a nice example of how conflicted I am on the subject of Voyager.

I agree that this is not the worst voyager episode ever made, as at least it has an Ed Wood or Tommy Wiseau quality to it. The audience just wants to keep watching to see how ridiculous it gets and by God does it ever succeed. What are your thoughts on Genesis? The plot is equally ridiculous, but I thought the atmosphere was much more successful. It made me wish Gates McFadden had been given a better script.

I am a big fan of Genesis. I loved it as a kid, and I enjoy it now. And I love Phantasms. And I adore Masks. I loved it as a kid and I love it even more now.

And I find Sub Rosa fascinating. Not good, necessarily, but fascinating.

I find a lot to like in the seventh season of The Next Generation.

Yeah, if anything, “Threshold” was a blessing for Voyager. Because it misdirected hate went into this episode, far more than was deserved.

Which neatly avoids the malign racism and anti-intellectualism that went into seasons 1-2, and Voyager ended up looking much better in the end tally. Threshold is an easy target. The rest is too esoteric to break into soundbites.

It’s not even Braga’s worst episode – “Primeval” is a stiff contender, ironically being a hasty rewrite of Threshold. What can we say. Brannon is none too bright! (Which is why we love him.)!

“…ultimately your happiness comes from within.”

You might say it was his…. “greed for knowledge” that led him to this place? https://them0vieblog.com/2013/03/29/doctor-who-planet-of-the-spiders-review/

The funny part is, this isn’t even Robert. He’s not wringing meaning from a bad script. The holistic reading is baked into this episode. We’ll see it again when Darren gets to “The Fight”.

If you’re an aficionado of bad sci-fi, it starts to become a giant ‘red flag’.

It means the science has broken down, the story makes no sense, and the writer is desperately trying to pass the whole thing off as “Zen”.

Sorry, I meant Extinction.

To be fair to Braga, I think Extinction is Bormanis. But it happened under Braga’s watch, and he rightly acknowledges it as a stinker.

That said, I actually consider Extinction worse than Braga’s two (or three) evolution-themed episodes, because it veers right into racism on top of the awkward sexual politics, but without the campy fun of “Spider Barclay!” or “Toad Tom!” or “Super Virus!”

I like the idea of foreshadowing my reviews three seasons down the line! (Although we may be a ways away.)

And good spot on the anti-intellectualism. I hadn’t quite twigged that, but it’s definitely there.

I have to admit I always found something romantic to the idea that the misfits and malcotents on DS9 and Voyager might be better at thinking outside the box than the staid hyper professionals that make up Picard’s crew.

Tom Paris’ omnicompetence is a running gag on SFDebris but there is something appealingly individualistic in the notion that he and B’elanna Torres are brilliant mavericks who in normal situations would never last inside a Starfleet uniform. If only the execution had lived up to that!

So, Voyager didn’t go just missing — they’re going Galt!

That’s Voyager in a nutshell. “If only the execution had lived up to that!”

I always wondered why Threshold received the worst episode status, SFdebris even said it was the worst Star Trek episode of the franchise until Enterprise. This puzzles me because this episode isn’t painful to watch, it isn’t racist or sexist propaganda, and none of characters so damaged, that they are beyond redemption. It really does feel like the only thing that failed about this episode is the stupid, stupid script, I daresay the wrongness of the science rivals that of Star Trek 09.

There’s something really sad about this episode, you can tell people are trying, Robert Duncan McNeill is going all out in his performance and you can tell the costume people are doing their best, all to be thoroughly wasted with Braga’s script. Still, I’m a sucker for high-concept stories and when this first aired, I had never considered the possibility of infinite speed, or say, the benefits of having two hearts (didn’t know about Doctor Who yet). Which, as an aside, doesn’t infinite speed sound insanely dangerous? If you occupy every part of the universe at the same time, doesn’t that mean you’ve destroyed the universe? Or become the universe? I don’t blame Starfleet for not trying to pursue such dangerous concepts.

Overall, I do find that because there is some competency in this episode, and the people behind it are clearly trying (heck, they won an emmy), that I can’t even call this a “worst” episode of anything, it’s just a big misfire. Watching this episode and witnessing Tom mutate into a monster, you never felt the urge to gouge out your eyes, unlike say, in Profit in Lace, where we see horror made flesh with Quark with boobs wearing a dress in the style of Colin Baker’s Doctor *shutter* and watch as other Ferengi try to grope him *vomit*. There’s also some real tension/anxiety in this episode, it is as if the transformation process is intentionally mirror what it’s like to die slowly from a lethal dose of radiation. At first you only experience subtle differences, but because your DNA is irreparably damaged, you are robbed of your humanity in your last days/hours as your skin and hair fall away, your tongue swells and what’s left of you is barely recognizable. You can understand why Tom reacts in despair the way he does, it is a gruesome death and the Doctor’s helplessness and confusion is palpable. That said, whatever good this episode has vanishes by the time we reach acts 4 and 5. Even Captain Proton would scoff at the silliness and stupidity.

Yep. In a season that includes Tattoo and Alliances, it seems strange to single Threshold out. And there are logical problems with this, but they’re really just an extrapolation of the logical problems that come baked into the franchise. (Which is appropriate; if transwarp is warp to the power of infinity, it makes sense that its logical inconsistencies and insanity should be equivalently scaled up from the already ropey science of warp speed and transporters.) But you’re right that MacNeill gives it his all.

Something I’m surprised that hasn’t been touched on in these discussions about why “Threshold” is so hated is the possible squick factor. It’s always summarized to me as, “Paris and Janeway turn into salamanders and have sex!” Even though it’s not onscreen as opposed to the appalling racism in other episodes, it’s exactly the kind of thing that easily elicits a visceral reaction from an audience and magnifies their dislike of the episode. Probably more so if you consider the strain of Puritanism that runs deep in American culture.

(Of course what does this say about the fact that Tattoo and Alliances didn’t elicit similar disgust?)

That’s fair.

As somebody pointed out when I remarked that Alliances and even Tattoo get a pass while Threshold doesn’t: it just depends on your tolerism for racism as compared to sexual assault .

I have a certain fondness for Threshold. Threshold is terrible, but it’s terrible in a bold, exciting way. There was a lot of painful mediocrity in Voyager, particularly the second season. And, as you note, much of it was offensive and tedious at the same time, which is the worst of both possible worlds. Threshold was offensive, but decidedly not tedious, which made it stand out, I think. I’ve seen pretty much every Voyager episode, and so many of them seem to melt together. However, the story beats of Threshold–warp 10, transformation, death, tongue falling out, kidnapping, salamander babies–stick out in my memory. I couldn’t tell you what happened in Tattoo or the Kazon episodes.

I’m kind of reminded what the elderly matriarch of the Wagner family said in re: the very controversial centennial staging of the Ring cycle: “Isn’t it better to be furious than bored?”

And I’d even argue that Threshold’s badness is generally inoffensive compared to Alliances or Tattoo. Isn’t it better to be gonzo than casually racist?

Maybe it’s the prurient nature of the ending that threw people off. For whatever reason, there’s perhaps an expectation of cultural tone-deafness and casual racism in Star Trek; thus, fans can view something as objectively offensive as the Kazon with boredom. But throw in an aspect of bizarre sex, and that drags your standard nerd out of his comfort zone and onto his high horse.

That might be it. There are certain sides of fandom that I will never completely understand.

I like that you try to redeem this episode which I fin rather boring. It could have been way more intriguing, especially Paris’ outline of his transwarp experiences could have had some kind of “2001”-ish feeling to it – especially given the theme of evolution. You are quite right about your observations and I guess it all comes down to Star Trek’s rather old-school enlightenment vision of humankind and progress which is only a bit at odds with its bio-conservatism which still suggests that the highest form of evolution is mankind and progress is observed by humans for eternity, everything fitting nicely into a system – even if there might be potential drawbacks like humans (d?)evolving into lizards. Still, I do like this bio-conservatism somewhat… it seems to respect human dignity more than anything we are even experiencing now.

Regarind the illogicity of the ending: Well, it had to be that way for Voyager not returning home too early. And the story barely manages to ignore that because it was so bad overall.

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Published Jan 10, 2022

Janeway, Fair Haven and the Romantic Making of A Heroine

In the eyes of one fan, the infamous "Fair Haven" saw Janeway at her strongest.

StarTrek.com

In a genre as vast, and intellectually and artistically curious as science-fiction the possibilities for plot lines are as endless as the various universes one can create. With an exponential number of lanes to explore, the chances are that any long-running series will produce a few episodes that reach a certain level of infamy within the fandom.

Perhaps no series better exemplifies this principle than Star Trek: Voyager , a series in which Captain Janeway and Tom Paris became copulating lizards due to a freak accident; and where the ship’s logical Vulcan, Tuvok, physically melded with the colorful morale officer, Neelix, leading to a great in-episode debate on the very nature of being. Within internet circles, Star Trek: Voyager ’s “Fair Haven” has gained a similar level of infamy, frequently ranking on the web’s various "Worst of Voyager " lists, with the main reason cited that it’s “Just a romance novel.”

But is that necessarily a bad thing? Or is styling Captain Kathryn Janeway as a romance novel heroine, simply adding another layer of complexity to an already richly developed, fascinating, strong female character? For a woman who has spent six years with only a glimmer of hope towards finding her home, isn’t spending a few hours as the heroine in a romance novel, a genre defined by its focus on joy and on female fulfillment, really such a terrible development?

In season six’s “Fair Haven” the ship is about to fly through an ion storm just as Tom Paris is putting the finishing touches on his new Holodeck program — the small, early 20th-century Irish town of Fair Haven. In an effort to ride out the storm, Captain Janeway makes the decision to drop anchor and (in an effort to increase ship morale while they wait) initiates an open-door policy on the Holodeck, a privilege she tentatively enjoys herself as an escape from her own fear of storms.

In the town, Janeway finds solace with a charming man who isn’t exactly her type, the barkeep Michael Sullivan. She “slightly” alters his physical and interpersonal parameters to make them more compatible, describing it jokingly as, “Girl meets boy, girl modifies boy's subroutines.” Her tinkering eventually leads to a crisis of conscience, where Janeway is at once conflicted about enjoying a romantic entanglement with a hologram and with modifying that hologram out of her need to control and “captain” every situation she faces.

Implicit in much of the criticism of “Fair Haven” as an episode is the proposition that all romance novels are Bad and that people who read and enjoy them are also Bad. Janeway, who experiences the Fair Haven simulation and her relationship with Michael Sullivan as many romance readers do — by putting herself in the shoes of the romantic heroine — is suddenly Bad too, or at least finds her strength somehow lessened in the eyes of viewers because of her engagement with this material. Even Kate Mulgrew herself, in an infamous hidden clip from the Voyager box set, disparages the entire plotline, visibly shivering as she describes her character “falling in love” with a hologram.

There have been many articles, essays, think pieces, and books defending romance novels and giving it the respect it deserves as a literary genre. I won’t do that here. But it doesn’t take a fistful of think pieces to understand why "Fair Haven" further illuminated how much Janeway meant to me as a character.

According to most genre experts, including Sarah Wendell of the website Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, A romance novel needs to meet two guidelines. First, the main thrust of the story needs to concern two characters falling in love. Second, that romance needs to find a Happily Ever After, also known as HEA in romance circles. According to Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan’s Beyond Heaving Bosoms, “Romance means believing you are worthy of a happy ending.” If we agree with the premise that most “Fair Haven” detractors suggest, then I say it makes Janeway one of the strongest characters in the Star Trek universe. Because after six years of separation from her home with no end in sight, Janeway is still able to give herself over to the possibility of romance.

Despite all that she’s endured and that her crew has endured over six years in the Delta Quadrant, the captain retains the optimism that everything will work out fine in the end. She gives herself over to the idea that she deserves a happy ending, a belief that extends beyond the walls of the Holodeck, beyond the hull of Voyager, and beyond the Delta Quadrant.

Some may say that “Fair Haven” was the death of Captain Janeway as a strong female character, but as far as I’m concerned, it might have been the most inspirational she ever was.

Alys Murray is a romance novelist with a particularly geeky style. She can be found on twitter @writeralys . Tobey Maguire is her Spider-Man

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Why Star Trek: Voyager's Threshold Episode Ignited An Army Of Outraged Fans

In the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Threshold" (January 9, 1996), the U.S.S. Voyager discovers a rare, extra-powerful version of dilithium, the crystal that is required to run starship engines. Using this new dilithium, the Voyager crew figure they can build an engine capable of passing the mythic warp-10 barrier, essentially allowing them to reach infinite velocity, passing through every point in the universe simultaneously. Such a breakthrough would allow the Voyager to return to Earth in a moment. 

When testing their new engine, however, something goes awry. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) returns from a test flight ... altered. He begins to mutate and change, losing skin and spitting out his tongue. It seems that the infinite velocity flight somehow triggered his body's evolutionary genes and he is rapidly transforming into whatever creatures humans will evolve into in the next hundred million years. When Paris becomes an amphibian-like frog man, he kidnaps Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and forces her to take the infinite warp flight while unconscious. 

The episode ends with the Voyager crew locating Paris and Janeway, and discovering that they had evolved into fleshy, outsize newts. Also, they mated, spawning several efts. This was the apex of evolution. Big, weird newts. The Voyager's doctor (Robert Picardo) transforms them back into humans. 

It seems the newts weren't well-received by fans. In the 1996 book "Captains' Logs Supplemental: The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages" by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, "Voyager" producer Jeri Taylor talked about the negative fan mail the show received for "Threshold," and how awful those newts were. Fans were also angry at some of the technical details, feeling that "Voyager" crossed a line. 

The Warp 10 Barrier

Taylor, firstly, remembered the backlash over the warp-10 barrier, and it's easy to see why. While the ships on "Star Trek" can travel at tremendous speeds, even their fictional warp engines have to contend with the real-life enormity of space. Even the U.S.S. Voyager, one of the fastest ships ever built, requires 70 straight years of traveling at its top speed just to cross the Milky Way. The idea of a ship breaking that barrier and reaching infinite velocity would remove all the trekking from "Star Trek." It would be as if a starship could teleport, and what dummy would think to write a "Star Trek" series about a ship that can teleport?  

Taylor recalled hearing from angry Trekkies on the matter, saying:

"We're taking a lot of flak for that [...] There's been a real lashing out. I recognize that people who are on the Internet and who write us letters are a tiny portion of our audience, but when it is as overwhelming as it was on this episode, you begin to take notice. Some of this anger was misplaced, I thought. A lot of the ire seemed to be caused by the fact that we stated that no one had ever gone warp ten before, and people flooded us with letters saying. That's not true, in the original series they went warp twelve and warp thirteen." 

Taylor, of course, knew all about the history of Trek, and calmly pointed out the recalibration done with the franchise's lore. Ultimately, she was more concerned with the story than with explaining the history of Trek tech. Indeed, Trekkies would know about the recalibration anyway. Fans were just being snotty, it seems.

Staying away from big heads

She continued: 

"[I]t really was a recalibration of warp speed. Gene [Roddenberry] made the determination at the beginning of 'Next Gen' that warp ten would be the limit, and at that point you would occupy all portions of the universe simultaneously, which always seemed like a wonderfully provocative notion. Then the question is 'What happens if you do go to warp ten, how does that affect you?'"

That focus on the story led to some fun postulations about evolution. In many sci-fi stories, when humans find themselves suddenly evolving — at least to Taylor's recollection — they suddenly have larger heads and spindly bodies. Taylor and the show's writers wanted something different and unexpected. Hence the newts. Taylor said: 

"[We] came up with this idea of evolution and thought that it would be far more interesting and less expected that instead of it being the large-brained, glowing person, it would be full circle, back to our origins in the water. Not saying that we have become less than we are, because those creatures may experience consciousness on such an advanced plane that we couldn't conceive of it. It just seemed like a more interesting image. But it is not one that took with the audience."

A fine idea, but in execution, it seems that Trekkies were put off. At the end of the day, one is pointing a camera a giant newt puppets. Trekkies weren't happy with that. "The fact that we were turning people into salamanders," Taylor said, "was offensive to a lot of people and just plain stupid to others."

Braga's opacity

"Threshold" was credited to longtime "Star Trek" veteran Brannon Braga, notorious for writing the headier, more psychedelic episodes. Braga recalled the scientific notions behind the newts, but that he didn't bother to explain them with clarity. In an episode that was already hefty with technobabble and scientific dialogue about velocity and evolution, Braga felt he needed to pare things down a little bit. Sadly, in so doing, he chopped out something that would have made ultra-evolved space-newts more acceptable. He said: 

"['Threshold' is] very much a classic 'Star Trek' story. But in the rewrite process, I took out the explanation, the idea behind the ending; that we evolve into these little lizards because maybe evolution is not always progressive. Maybe it's a cycle where we revert to something more rudimentary. That whole conversation was taken out for various reasons, and that was a disaster because without it the episode doesn't even have a point. I think it suffered greatly. I got the note that it wasn't necessary, but in fact, it really had a lot to do with what the episode was about. Big mistake taking it out."

Indeed, evolution is a long-term transformation wherein organisms adapt to a changing environment. It is not necessarily a gradual movement toward a type of pre-determined complexity. "Threshold" possesses that idea, but it's not part of the dialogue. Not having a character speak it aloud leaves the episode's themes murky. Instead, audiences simply have to accept the absurd notion that two main cast members turned into amphibians. 

Fun trivia: "Threshold" was initially pitched by longtime Trekkie Michael De Luca, who, at the time, was best known for writing the screenplays for "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" and John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness."  

• Cast & crew
• User reviews
• Episode aired Jan 19, 1967

For bringing hostility into their solar system, a superior alien race brings Captain Kirk into mortal combat against the reptilian captain of an alien ship he was pursuing. For bringing hostility into their solar system, a superior alien race brings Captain Kirk into mortal combat against the reptilian captain of an alien ship he was pursuing. For bringing hostility into their solar system, a superior alien race brings Captain Kirk into mortal combat against the reptilian captain of an alien ship he was pursuing.

• Joseph Pevney
• Gene L. Coon
• Fredric Brown
• Gene Roddenberry
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• 42 User reviews
• 13 Critic reviews

• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk

• Mister Spock

• O'Herlihy

• (as Carole Shelyne)

• (uncredited)

• Lieutenant Leslie
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia Although it was not intentional, Desilu's research department realized that Gene L. Coon 's screenplay strongly resembled a novella of the same name by Fredric Brown . To deal with the difficulty, Brown was telephoned about the matter and he agreed to a writer's fee and an official credit for the story.
• Goofs Gunpowder is a low explosive: it has to be contained to explode. Otherwise it simply burns. Even if Kirk had real gunpowder, it wouldn't have exploded.

Metron : You surprise me, Captain.

Captain James T. Kirk : How?

Metron : By sparing your helpless enemy, who surely would have destroyed you, you demonstrated the advanced trait of mercy. Something we hardly expected. We feel that there may be hope for your kind. Therefore, you will not be destroyed. It would not be... civilized.

Captain James T. Kirk : What happened to the Gorn?

Metron : I sent him back to his ship. If you like, I shall destroy him for you.

Captain James T. Kirk : No. That won't be necessary. We can talk. Maybe... reach an agreement.

Metron : Very good, Captain. There *is* hope for you. Perhaps, in several thousand years, your people and mine shall meet to reach an agreement. You're still half savage. But there is hope. We will contact you when we're ready.

• Crazy credits The closing credits are set against a combination background of stills from that episode, previous and future episodes - as per usual Star Trek: TOS practice.
• Alternate versions Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song. Highlights include a wider angle on the Cestus outpost showing more destruction (and removing an oddly-placed chunk of metal in the foreground) and the never-before-seen Gorn ship.
• Connections Featured in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)
• Soundtracks Theme From Star Trek Written by and credited to Alexander Courage

User reviews 42

• Oct 31, 2016
• January 19, 1967 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park - 10700 W. Escondido Canyon Rd., Agua Dulce, California, USA (Fight with the Gorn N34.486018 W118.313123)
• Desilu Productions
• Norway Corporation
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 50 minutes

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The Best Current Star Trek Series Isn't On Your TV

Posted: May 31, 2024 | Last updated: May 31, 2024

The Best Current Star Trek Series Isn’t On Your TV

Along with the coming of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and the disappointing cancellation of Star Trek: Lower Decks, there are a lot of questionable decisions that are being made behind the scenes about the sci-fi franchise these days. But regardless of where the films or TV series go, you can rest assured that right now, the best Star Trek series isn’t found on the screen, but in IDW’s comics. Among the best of what the company has to offer there’s the flagship title Star Trek and its spinoff Star Trek: Defiant.

Premiering in 2022, IDW’s Star Trek comics are written by the duo of Colin Kelly and Jackson Lanzig with a rotating art team. The comic sees the return of Captain Ben Sisko of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to the material world at the behest of the Prophets who task him with finding and stopping a villain who is hunting down all the more godlike beings of the galaxy (e.g., the Prophets, Q, the Crystalline Entities).

Starfleet gives Sisko command of the USS Theseus, an experimental new ship with a very unique crew.

Spinning out of the flagship title are the Star Trek: Defiant comics, written by Christopher Cantwell with art by Angel Unzueta. Worf captains another both unique and familiar crew, acting as an officially unofficial clandestine arm of Starfleet.

Crews From Every Corner Of Trek

IDW’s Star Trek comics are unique–even among Trek comic adaptations–because while they may not officially be considered canonical, they nevertheless work within the canon and at the same time deliver stories that would be almost impossible in most mediums.

The crew of the Theseus in the Star Trek comics, for example, are pulled from almost every corner of the franchise.

Set between the events of 1998’s Star Trek: Insurrection and 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, the Theseus heroes nevertheless include characters from Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: The Original Series, and even Lower Decks.

Data (still alive before the events of Nemesis) and Beverly Crusher are borrowed from TNG, Tom Paris of Voyager is the Theseus helmsman, and Montgomery Scott–possible because of his trip to the 24th century in the TNG episode “Relics”–is the chief engineer.

For a time, the fierce Shaxs of Lower Decks is a part of the crew, and even the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise gets a nod with the inclusion of Lily Sato–a half human, half Andorian descendant of Enterprise‘s Hoshi Sato.

And it all makes sense. Every single one of those characters is alive and–thanks to the Voyager finale–in the Alpha Quadrant during that time.

But unfortunately with all of the actors who portrayed these characters either much older or no longer with us, this isn’t a story you could tell in a live-action film or TV show without recasting, widespread digital de-aging and/or grotesque CGI puppetry.

The Star Trek: Defiant comics have a similar crew, and like the one from the flagship title, they all make sense. Thanks to Vulcan longevity, Spock is a member of Worf’s crew, as is the Bajoran Ro, and B’Elanna Torres of Voyager. Other Trek characters working briefly for Worf include Data’s evil twin Lore, the reformed Borg Hugh, and even Tasha Yar’s half-Romulan daughter Sela.

Other Old… Friends?

The specific time IDW’s Star Trek comics are set in also allow for guest appearances from other characters in the franchise, without making their arrivals feel like pure fan service. Examples include Admiral Janeway of Voyager, Admiral Jellico (possibly the single most hated Enterprise captain ever), and Commander Liam Shaw of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 fame.

Giving What The Series Couldn’t Or Wouldn’t

Another gift of IDW’s Star Trek comics is that they offer the chance to show things the series couldn’t or wouldn’t show.

For example, one of the most pivotal episodes of Deep Space Nine is the Season 3 finale “The Adversary,” in which a Changeling infiltrates the crew of the Defiant and tries to use the ship to reignite war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi.

But one of the most frustrating aspects of the story is that while it tells us there was previously a destructive conflict with the Tzenekethi, we never see them or even really learn much about them other than the fact that they once fought the Federation.

“Glass and Bone,” one of the most recent Star Trek comic arcs, fixes that for us. Spoilers–the Tzenkethi are giant lizard people.

Likewise, one of the most blatantly dangling plotlines of TNG is the utter disappearance of the gross bug creatures of “Conspiracy”–the Season 1 finale which strongly hinted at their eventual return. Since they never made it back in the show, the Star Trek: Defiant comics bring them back in its most recent arc, “Hell Is Only a Word.”

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