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Star Trek Episode Archives: Threshold

Of the 172 episodes of Star Trek Voyager, few can boast the status claimed by Season 2, Episode 15: Threshold

By WoorLord Sun 11 Aug, 2024 6:46 PM - Last Updated: Sun 11 Aug, 2024 6:56 PM
This article contains opinions by the author and is not the held opinion of UFP or anyone else

In these series of articles I will be looking at some of the famous and infamous episodes of Star Trek, ones which I felt were the best and the worst of what the franchise has on offer. Starting off with Star Trek Voyager: Threshold

The Writer and Director

Michael%20De%20Luca? t=1723400521The initial story of the episode came from renowned producer and screenwriter Michael De Luca (pictured right), who had previous experience as the writer of the TV series Freddy’s Nightmares before becoming an associate producer on Leatherface – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. He then wrote and produced Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. His experience wasn’t limited to the horror genre, however, as he also co-wrote, with William Wisher Jnr, the story for the film adaptation of Judge Dread, which starred Sylvester Stallone and grossed $113 million worldwide. In 1996, De Luca was approached by Star Trek producers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore to write an episode for the second season of the Star Trek Voyager franchise; this ultimately turned into Threshold.

The Director for this episode was Alexander Singer, who had considerable experience with the Star Trek franchise, having been a director previously on Star Trek the Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

The plot (Beware spoilers ahead)

The Federation Starship Voyager has been lost in the Delta Quadrant for almost 2 years when the crew discover a stable form of Dilithium in an asteroid field. Assisted by the ship’s resident cook, Morale Officer and all-around Delta Quadrant expert, Neelix, Paris hypothesises an opportunity to get Voyager home instantly – by breaking the Warp 10 barrier and taking Voyager to trans-warp speed.
The crew constructs a new shuttlecraft outfitted with the necessary equipment to test the idea's feasibility. They name it “Cochrane” after Zephram Cochrane, the father of Warp Drive on Earth.

After some initial concerns about Paris’s fitness to undertake the test flight, Captain Janeway gives her permission to continue with Paris at the controls. The test proves successful, and the Cochrane disappears from Voyager’s sensor range, reappearing moments later. Lt. Paris is unconscious inside the craft. When awakened, he tells the crew he has seen everything in every part of the universe, and after checking the shuttle’s database, they find that there is indeed a vast amount of new data about the Delta Quadrant stored. Lt. Paris immediately shows signs of sickness and is rushed to sick bay, where the doctor determines Paris is now allergic to water. A new safe habitat is created to help stabilise him.

Efforts to stabilise Lt. Paris begin to fail as his symptoms become progressively and rapidly worse. His facial features, behaviour, and mannerisms all undergo fundamental change, and the Doctor soon determines that Paris is undergoing some evolution into a new life form. The Doctor believes that Anti-Proton therapy will be able to revert Paris back to his original form; however, before he gets an opportunity to try, Paris manages to escape sick bay, sabotages the Voyager systems, kidnaps Captain Janeway and makes his escape aboard the Cochrane.


To find Paris and Janeway, Voyager manages to follow the trail left by Cochrane to a swamp-like planet. Upon beaming down, the ship's First Officer, Cmd. Chakotay, and Chief of Security, Lt. Tuvok, find two salamander-like creatures. Upon further investigation, they note three smaller similar lifeforms, which they determine to be offspring of the larger two. They surmise that the adult pair are the ship’s Captain and Chief Helmsman, now fully evolved into a new amphibious species. They beam the adult lifeforms to Voyager for treatment and decide to leave the offspring on the planet.

The Doctor successfully treats both Paris and Janeway, who revert to their former selves. There follows some awkwardness between them as they remember that they have produced offspring. The captain defuses the tension by pointing out that she may have instigated the mating. Janeway commends Paris for his achievement, noting that "regardless of the outcome, you did make the first trans-warp flight."

Critical Reception

The episode did not receive favourable reviews and has been ridiculed by fans. For some, it tarnished the rest of the series entirely. Following criticism of the episode, many showbiz and entertainment channels included it in their list of the worst Star Trek Episodes.

The showrunners themselves had a hard time understanding what was supposed to be happening, with Robert Duncan McNeill describing the script as “bizarre”. Even the episode's producer, Brannon Braga, later described it within the DVD commentary as a "royal, steaming stinker". He went on further to explain in In Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, that he had edited away the exposition which may have helped the episode make more sense. Braga went on to say:
"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."
What went wrong?

The next section is my opinion; others may take a different view, and that’s fantastic, but for me, the biggest issue with this episode is that it violated two very important rules of Science Fiction.

1. Never break the rules established in previous episodes without good reason.
2. Never try to be a real science show – it’s science fiction; the clue is in the name. Whilst you can use the basic rules of physics to
help tell stories and can suspend a few with technology, never try to be a science class – you’ll end up looking stupid. (as this episode shows).

To me, this was clearly an episode written by someone who likely hasn’t watched much Star Trek - and that's a problem many Science Fiction shows face.

In this episode, the audience is told categorically that you cannot travel beyond Warp 10 because, at that speed, you will occupy every part of the universe at the same time. Ok, great – but what about the episodes of The Next Generation that show ships travelling faster than Warp 10? What about the “Grand Experiment” with the Excelsior NCC-2000, which would almost certainly have travelled at Trans-warp speeds without Captain Scott sabotaging its state of the art trans-warp drive?


(I know - its labouring the point - but I love this scene from Star Trek III so had to include it!)

If the writers had picked Warp 15, for example, and explained that inertial dampeners were not advanced enough to maintain the structural integrity of the ship or those inside it beyond that speed, that would have been perfectly acceptable; it would have felt correct within the existing canon and made sense to the mind of a Star Trek fan. Instead, the notion that someone can be everywhere at the same time, is just bonkers. It makes no scientific sense, sounds silly, and doesn’t sound as if it is based on any “real” laws of astrophysics. The result is that the audience also considers it silly; therefore, a big part of your episode is a joke.

Since this episode, fans have been told that there are different warp scales, but this falls into the same trap that both Star Trek Discovery fell into with “Spore Drive” and Star Wars The Acolyte fell into with the Force. If you must meddle with a fundamental rule of the show to make your story work, you better have a good reason and explanation – and this episode doesn’t. This new universal speed limit was just introduced as a new rule for the audience to accept, and we just didn’t. It was stupid, and when you’re asked to accept something stupid, it tends to get rejected and damages the episode.

However, what takes the episode to the land of farce is the final shocking reveal. Paris and Janeway have evolved into a completely different life form, mated and produced offspring – in three days. Now, setting aside the clear junk science about creatures evolving into completely different lifeforms, this section of the episode was so unnecessary. It added an even sillier element to an episode that was already verging on a sketch from Monty Python. Introducing weird sexual tension between two characters where there was none needed and just making everything seem sillier.

Final thoughts
Whilst not every episode of a franchise series can be a winner, Threshold should teach writers not to treat their subject as silly. Don’t try to teach sci-fi fans about science; they will undoubtedly know more than you think. Stop feeling that you need to break canon to tell your story. If your story can’t respect what’s already been established, maybe you should try to tell a different story or your story differently.

What did you think of Threshold as an episode? Do you have any suggestions for other episodes we should look at? Leave your thoughts and comments below.

WRITTEN BY WoorLord
EDITED BY WoorLord
IMAGES SOURCED FROM Star Trek - Oscars Wiki
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