Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Threshold (1996) User Reviews

A crazy but enjoyable episode

[snoozejonc · 5/10 · 8 September 2022]

Tom Paris breaks the warp 10 barrier.

This is a famously panned episode that entertains if you go into it with the right frame of mind.

If you take your Star Trek seriously and appreciate good thought-provoking sci-fi writing, you might find Threshold somewhat of an insult to the intelligence, but if you appreciate wildly implausible ideas brought to life by a professional cast you can still take some enjoyment.

It starts off strongly with a good premise that works with the dilemma faced by the Voyager crew. Tom's ambition of piloting at warp 10 fits perfectly with his character and the build up to the flight is as good as any character work in the show.

Then events turn ridiculous in so many ways it would take too long to cover. The plot contrivances, the scientific implausibility, the reset button ending, and the fact the writers have taken a great Star Trek foundation of the warp 10 barrier and done THIS to it.

Robert Duncan McNeill carries Brannon Braga's ideas (including a tribute 'The Fly') remarkably well in an entertaining performance. I refuse to believe he plays the ranting and raving Paris as anything other than a tongue in cheek homage to Seth Brundle. There is some development for the character in the episode's resolution and the makeup effects are excellent.

Where does it sit on the list of worst Star Trek episodes of all time? It's not great, but it cannot be accused of tedium and I have seen some far worse in Voyager, The Original Series, TNG, and Enterprise.

You don't watch it perse --- you experience it.

[thevacinstaller · 4/10 · 6 April 2020]

A few of my random thoughts while watching Threshold:

• So, of all the ships in the galaxy that have had warp drive it is the USS Voyager out in the Delta quadrant without a team of high IQ professionals working on warp drive theory manage (over lunch) to crack this case?

• If we are not sure what will actually happen after warp 10 is achieved how about putting the shuttle on auto pilot and recording the results instead of putting Tom Paris is an unknown situation?

• Why was the reasoning behind Tom Paris kidnapping Janeway?

• Wait a sec, didn't Tom Paris get jail time for pulling a crazy shuttle maneuver in the academy?

• So, when Janeway broke the warp 10 barrier she instantly turned into a Lizard and didn't go through the 24 hour evolutionary cycle that Tom Paris did?

• What type of space magic did the doctor use to change Tom and Katheryn from electric Lizards into flesh and blood human beings? Give that man a medal of freedom for this achievement.

As a star trek fan I can suspend my disbelief in service of the plot but the writers of this episode expect me to murder my disbelief. After all the crazy things that happen in this episode we get an ABC after school special moment of Tom realizing that it is his own opinion of himself that truly matters.

At least there were no space nazis

[woodwardrijsewijk · 5/10 · 1 July 2019]

Pretty forgettable episode. Not great but not awful either.

Star Trek has given us space nazis on more than one occasion, so people turning into salamanders from driving too fast isnt that far out.

Grade D-

The Worst

[Bolesroor · 1/10 · 2 February 2011]

Utterly ridiculous pig-foul.

Can I be anymore clear? Utterly ridiculous pig-foul.

This episode was a puddle of hot vomit. A dead skunk stuffed down your throat. It's not only the worst episode of any "Trek," it might very well be the worst programming ever broadcast, the worst THING that ever was, and I'm embarrassed to have witnessed the crime.

The inconsistency of Voyager has always been a constant- some weeks the crew seems resigned to their fate of being stranded in the Delta quadrant and in others they are willing to risk not only their lives but the very fabric of space-time in order to get home. This episode begins with Torres, Kim and Paris test-piloting a shuttle-craft at trans-warp speeds. In the holodeck.

Already we're served two absurd premises. First, Star Trek has created the rule that traveling at a speed faster than Warp 9.9 is impossible, since a craft would theoretically occupy all spaces in the universe at once, breaking every known law of physics and destroying whatever galaxy, reality or dimension in which they exist. Luckily it turns out this Iron Law of Existence can be broken by three curious officers with a couple hours free time. Breaking your own fictional rules is destructive and short-sighted, and the attempt shows the writers' desperation and lack of respect for both "Trek" canon and actual scientific knowledge.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that they're testing this idea on the ship's holodeck. Insanity goes to Cuckooville.

The holodeck, as we all know, is a completely synthetic environment, which reacts solely based on the programmer's instructions. The holodeck has no innate intelligence of its own and cannot be accurately used as a flight simulator since no one could have programmed the holodeck on how to appropriately react! How could the holodeck gain sentience and the foreknowledge of a design problem which even its own programmers could not foresee?

How could ANY Captain authorize a mission so inherently dangerous based only a holodeck simulation- with the safeties on? So far the episode has destroyed physics and the entire conceit of the holodeck, as well as the collective reputations of Tom, Torres, Kim and Janeway. And we're only seven minutes in.

The test flight begins, and Tom transcends space-time and reaches an infinite identity occupying every molecule of matter at precisely the same instant, gone from Voyager's sensors. But that one moment of quasi-reality is destroyed when Tom reappears- seconds later- in the exact same place from which he started! Just luck I guess... thank you, Universe, for dropping Tommy off so close by. Can you give me a ride to the shoe store?

Suddenly, Tom's coffee tastes funny! This is not a drill- Set phasers to Sweet & Low... fire Folgers torpedoes. Tom keels over from the whack java and is rushed to Sick Bay where we learn he's allergic to water. (Luckily not the water that makes up 90% of his body... what a break.)

A series of mutations changes every organ in Tom's body. Except his brain. For no reason. We know he will end up completely back to normal by episode's end, so we don't care when the doctor degrades Tom's condition from stable to not-so-stable to dead. And then back to stable. Yes, its true: Tom dies and then returns, growing EXTRA body organs, including a bonus heart- in case the first should ever get broken. Tom evolves into some squishy creature who taunts Janeway and then vomits up his own tongue. Luckily this doesn't stop him from talking. Quel surprise!

Doctor comes up with a sloppily-written plan about anti-proton chemotherapy nonsense, which is as meaningless as it sounds. Tommy Boy escapes and miraculously wipes out the ship's computer, stealing a shuttlecraft and bringing Kap'n Kate along with him. He achieves trans-warp again and disappears, but this time he's a whole half-mile away. There's a big surprise when Voyager goes to pick up Paris & Janeway: they're lizards.

Yeah, they're lizards, and the episode goes from astoundingly-stupid to mind-blowingly incompetent. Piling on the Awful, Tom & Kate Lizard have mated and spawned Junior Lizards, who go swimming happily into the sea to begin the long process of evolution. Get it? GET IT?!? Oh wait, there's nothing to get, this is just peanut diarrhea in a bowl. With a spoon.

Back in Sick Bay Janeway and Tom are human again, thanks to the Doctor's handy De-Lizardizer Machine. Dialogue reaches an all-time low as Paris declares he, "feels a little overwhelmed."

Janeway tries to encourage him, assuring him that the events of the last few days have won him a newfound respect among the crew(?) Why the writers would pour schmaltz onto an already-excruciating episode is incomprehensible. Brannon Braga- the stunted manchild who secretly hated Trek because he was intimidated by its size and stature- makes his most brazen attempt at killing the series from the inside... and comes dangerously close to succeeding.

Robert Duncan MacNeill's acting here is the worst I've seen; he assures the Captain that he learned a very important lesson- it doesn't matter what others think of him, only what he thinks of himself. What the hell is he talking about? Is this Star Trek for the mentally retarded? Because THEY'RE insulted.

Janeway inspires Paris to "keep reaching for that rainbow" and the pain is finally over. To scrape this low for a storyline in Season Two does not bode well for the life of the series, and to defy rules of your own universe for no good reason is devastating.

"Threshold" is fatally-flawed in conception and offensively executed... the worst of the worst. I reserve the letter grade F for episodes that cross the line between poor and offensive... this show insults the intelligence of every Star Trek fan ever to watch an episode.

Congratulations, boys... you've crossed the threshold.

GRADE: F

Not even close to the worst episode. Starts strong, goes off the rails.

[geoffstrickler · 6/10 · 9 June 2021]

Interesting premise, goes off the rails about 15-20 mins into the episode, never recovers. Despite that there are at least a dozen episodes in TOS that are worse, and another dozen in TNG that are worse. You have to suspend all expectations of plausibility and just enjoy the insanity for the last half of the episode.

Spock's Brain: Please Return Your Trophy

[championbc-99-5005 · 1/10 · 18 October 2014]

As a life long "Trek" fan, I have always agreed with those who said that "Spock's Brain" was the nadir of all the "Star Trek" episodes ever made. Until I saw "Threshold." I can cut the original series some slack: low ratings, under-funded, under the gun to get a new episode out every week, and the original series had its stinkers, and "Spock's Brain" was the best example of the worst episode ever to carry the "Star Trek" brand. Until now.

And there was no excuse. Now the "Star Trek" franchise has everything the original series did not have: money, ratings, multi-generational fan base, computer generated graphics -- you name it, they had it.

And then there is this. It even makes the animated series look good. This is probably the most hated episode of all time for several reasons: 1. It takes upon itself to completely destroy the delightfully vague "warp" rules of physics. For those of us who have been around for a while, and know that warp 13 or higher can happen, the silly idea of warp 10 being "everywhere in the universe at once" is disgusting. 2. Turning to a lizard. I'm too sick to comment further. 3. Being able to conceive and have lizard children in a few hours. Ditto. 4. Everybody being normal again at the end after the doctor figures something out. I know; it happens all the time. But in "Spock's Brain," even McCoy forgot how he fixed things when it was over. The doctor just made up a two-minute fix that got Paris and Janeway back to their original forms again, with no apparent psychological trauma, but maybe a pretty wacky memory for each of them to hold on to for the rest of their lives. To the show's credit (and here is the only really nice thing I can say about it) they did not merely use the old transporter fix and revert them to the patterns in the buffer like all the other series did several times -- that got really old.

I really don't need to write a scathing review here. Someone has beaten me to it, and done an excellent job.

But as someone who sat through "Star Trek: the Motion Picture," and "Star Trek V," as well as "Plato's Step Children" and ALL of seasons 1 and 2 of "The Next Generation," I think I have the right to say that this was the worst of the worst ever.

And I am a big fan of "Voyager." In some ways, it was my favorite series.

But the "Spock's Brain" trophy for worst episode ever must leave the glass show case of the original series archives, and be awarded to this pathetic episode, the worst that ever was. I hear that true trekkers do not consider this episode "canon," and I thank them for that.

This was just a wild dream that Paris had after eating something -- er -- green, that Neelix called "chili."

Not as bad as I'd heard

[Tweekums · 6/10 · 16 July 2010]

Before watching this episode I'd heard that it was so bad that even the writers had disowned it so I was expecting a real turkey. It wasn't that bad however; it is by no means a great episode but I didn't think it was terrible either.

The story follows Tom Paris' attempt to break the transwarp barrier, something that was always considered impossible. He manages to do it however but when he gets back something is wrong with him. At first he seems okay but suddenly collapses and starts to mutate, at one point he appears to have died but much to the Doctor's surprise he recovers. We later learn that these aren't random mutations but highly accelerated evolution. During an attempt to delete all the mutate genes he escapes and kidnaps Captain Janeway and flees in the transwarp shuttle. By the time Voyager finds them they have both evolved into what look like giant salamanders and have even had off spring... luckily for them after they are cured the memories of what happened fade.

The story itself was good enough although it did have its faults; it is said that when they go at warp ten they are at every point in the universe simultaneously, if this is so it seems unlikely that they would end up a mere three days away from Voyager.

Jesus Christ what the ???

[info-5918 · 1/10 · 11 September 2017]

People had written about the episode where Paris goes back and devolves into a salamander, and has sex with Janeway to produce baby salamanders.

I thought they were making it up. I watched Voyager. They weren't.

I'm thinking this was an experiment, where for inspiration, the writers sat around with a bowl full of qualudes, chomping them down as they wrote out the episode. The other episodes seem OK. May be they tried the qualudes once, for this episode, but then gave up on it. May be it was acid. May be LSD. I hope they say what it was one day.

Not the best but I like it

[adlvcolt · 7/10 · 18 April 2017]

Thanks to Netflix I watched this episode for the first time several years after first aired on TV and found quite interesting and entertaining, not as bad as many say. The general idea is good, it is clear its execution problem, difficult to solve in an episode with a happy ending and probably the state of evolution of TV at the time it was done, too.

I appreciate when writers try to brake a barrier away from the comfort zone and not give all the answers.

Part of me died

[annb-4 · 1/10 · 25 April 2013]

this has to be the worst start trek episode OF ALL TIME.

what the f---? warp 10 makes you evolve? Paris mated with janeway? and it's all about tom Paris's emotional growth, starting from the angst of the privileged white male? "my father said i'd go far, all the kids pointed at me and said i'd do so much" boo hoo poor me.

how bad is the science? how often can people change shape and their entire body chemistry without effect?

a part of me has died.

the only good part was reading the review here that accurately and in detail reflects the awfulness. thanks for that.

An extremely intelligent episode

[epsaux · 10/10 · 14 April 2023]

This episode is about the intimate ties between evolution & devolution & how they're ultimately the same process; if an accelerated genomic flux isn't matched in rate by thoughts, experience, & actions to guide it, then it'll no doubt result in devolution or worse. It's a conceivable notion that the transwarp nature of non-locality in space & time would have a destabilizing effect upon a humanoid form which is itself predicated upon its locality in space & time. Therefore, the barrier of transwarp is less about attaining greater "velocity" & more about shielding occupants of any such a vessel from the energetic effects thereof.

Just as moving through regular space is less about attaining velocity & more about shielding occupants from deadly DNA destroying radiation or the necessity of deflector fields to mitigate deadly debris or gravity fields to prevent abiotrophy or of course inertial dampeners for obvious reasons. Moving through space at great or infinite speed is no small thing & this theory of a transwarp barrier manifesting in such a manner is a very strong premise for an episode.

This is a very intelligent episode & I'm unsurprised that it's met with resistance & hate. It's one of my favorites. I mean Paris had sex with Janeway, I thought people liked that kind of thing.

Salamanders

[aram-99008 · 6/10 · 9 August 2020]

Honestly I was on board until they said the future of human evolution is salamanders

Is this what we come to?

[BethBartel74 · 2/10 · 27 November 2013]

Of all the scientific improbabilities in the Star Trek universe, of all the scenarios we see, this one is by far the most mind-numbingly horrendous in my opinion. OK, so my willing suspension of disbelief goes far enough to cover that Tom breaks Warp 10. It goes further to accept that his medical condition or the lack of sufficient protection (or both) lead to dire consequences. What I can't accept is the Doctor's explanation that Tom (and later the Captain) are *evolving*, only to turn into hairless aquatic mammals that give birth over a span of only 3 days. And the Doctor can (and does) reverse it! Yay, Doctor!

Don't waste your time on this one.

Star Trek Meets 'The Fly'

[ewaf58 · 3/10 · 17 February 2014]

Tom's eventual change into a slimy lizard like creature had all the hallmarks of the film 'The Fly'.

Bits of Tom start falling off with a real Jeff Goldblum moment when his tongue detaches and he gives a confused yet almost cynical grin to the crew.

After kidnapping Janeway (a la Jeff and Geena) he mates with her (unseen) and this produces some offspring (although the whole process only takes a few hours) on a jungle like planet.

But unlike 'The Fly' the offspring look cute (well anything would compared to a maggot).

Perhaps in some future episode or film the Federation will return to the planet to check on progress. Maybe the lizards will have built their first rudimentary Warp core by then.

Yep it was that bad.

Bad plot, good acting

[fifo23 · 6/10 · 31 March 2024]

I am currently watching through voyager. The plot didn't make much sense and the evolution-talk was non-nonsensical.

I think the acting in this episode is really good. However both the plot itself is a nice premise, but leads nowhere.

The concept of "evolution going it's natural way, but sped up" makes no sense, if you even have elementary school understanding of what evolution implies.

Also that somehow a human turns amphibian and that he turns into a primitive amphibian seems stretched.

Also let's assume that somehow humans get stranded on a planet somewhere and because there is no food, the body shrinks, simplifies and since this is basically time traveling these future events are the ones that will happen to some humans. It doesn't make sense at all that so far in the future both the captain's and his offspring would be that way.

The idea of them producing offspring is hilarious though and a funny little thing to happen.

Again, given the nonsensical plot I think the acting was good compared to some other episodes.

This episode lost its "Worst ST Episode" title

[daxdsnine · 5/10 · 24 April 2021]

That's a weird one. Can't say I'm very fond of the salamanders and offsprings part. So yes, there are some gigantic flaws. But, after suffering throught Discovery S3, I have to say that Threshold now doesn't appear all that bad, and I'm gladly giving Disco the Worst ST Episode Award for... well, many ones deserve it. At least, Threshold managed to be entertaining.

A must-see bad episode

[brianjohnson-20043 · 5/10 · 20 February 2021]

Threshold is really a halfway decent episode for the majority of its runtime. And that makes it all the more entertainingly tragic and bemusing when it goes off-a-cliff.

I didn't first watch Star Trek until around 2012. And I checked the IMDB scores along the way of my viewing. So I was expecting this episode to be much worse when I saw it's low score. And I think the low score is both deserved and not. It depends on the viewers frame-of-mind.

I find a lot of the story ideas in the first 2/3rds of the episode to be interesting. I like the idea of them trying to reach warp 10 and there being some odd consequences to Tom Paris succeeding. And I like Tom trying to achieve some distinctive accomplishment to undo his bad reputation from before he left on the Voyager trip, and him discovering that accomplishing that goal doesn't guarantee his happiness. They showed all of those story elements as if there was nothing odd that also happened along the way. And there are some REALLY odd things that happen along the way.

The main issue with this episode is that they don't explain the glaringly odd story decisions at the end. And it's difficult to understand why reaching warp 10 would cause humans to become lizards. They try to say that it's humans evolving into their future identity millions of years into the future once they've evolved. It's trying to be sort of like the opposite of that TNG episode where the characters de-evolve backwards.

Anyone who understands evolution will say that no one can know what their future ancestors long in the future will look-like. Because species adapt to avoid dying within their changing environment which they're forced to live within. And no one today will know what any species in the distant future will have to adapt-to, or if the species will succeed or go extinction. Also there is the chance of speciation events where our species could go-off in different directions with different populations to form different species. So how could someone's body know what it's ancestors will body will become? It just makes no sense. And what makes obviously even less sense is why the writers decided to entangle the Captain in this issue, and have Tom and the Captain produce offspring in their lizard bodies. They also don't sufficiently explain how the doctor managed to fix this odd problem and bring Tom and Katherine back to normal.

What we see at the end has a completely ridiculous tone that contradicts a lot of the serious human messaging that they were trying to convey through the rest of the episode. And that's what that makes the episode a failure and entertaining. Because they present the message and the distraction as if it's completely compatible and not really too odd or distractingly.

Unlike other bad Star Trek episodes which one should skip, this one is genuinely worth watching. It is entertaining and bizarre to watch in the best way possible. Other bad episodes like the season 5 boxer episode from voyager or the season 2 flashback episode for TNG are boring and best skipped. I'd argue that this isn't even the worst Tom Paris episode given that the Alice episode later on is bad and boring.

Threshold is a bad episode which is fun to watch and wonder, "what were the creators thinking?

It's sort of like the cult bad movie The Room which is also both bad and entertaining and a cult fun movie to see. This is fun bad cult episode that gets discussed far more that other episodes which Star Trek fans do their best to pretend don't exist.

The fact that some art is bad, but can also be entertaining unlike other bad art which is generally not entertaining or worth experiencing is sort of an interesting topic of discussion when it comes to what makes art good. At least it's an interesting question to me.

Because it's so clearly bad and entertaining I gave this episode a 5. But depending on how one is looking at the episode, one could easily give it a 10 stat or a 1 star score because it is both truly bad at what it's aiming to be, but entertaining anyway. And that's an odd combination to pull-off by mistake.

It's interesting too to note that Brannon Braga who wrote this episode, wrote a lot of top notch Star Trek episodes for both Voyager and TNG. And has had an overall very successful career. This episode is an obvious exception to his creative talent. And it's a reminder that sometimes the difference between brilliant and laugh-out loud bad is finer than we'd often like to recognize. Especially when it comes to trying to create original engaging art while dealing with deadlines. So keep that in mind before being too negative toward everyone associated with this episode. I also think it's unfair to criticize a lot of the acting or directing on this episode. I think the production team did a good job given the task of bringing this story life. The pre-production is where this episode failed to deliver what they were going-for.

Did they steal the idea for this episode from a 5 year old?

[laurensjean · 2/10 · 28 August 2018]

This episode is really bad. Let me try to explain so without giving too much away. First of all, there is not so much suspense and it feels quite boring, but okay; that can happen, and suspense has never been the primary focus of star trek. However, no interesting moral questions are raised, nor are any interesting scientific/futuristic concepts presented. In fact, the concepts presented sound like those of a 5 year old. Let me summarize these concepts (I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler): if you travel past warp 10 (a threshold this episode suddenly came up with; and is not adhered to in some other star trek canon) you are everywhere, but apparently also at different points in time. Slowing down will make you miraculously pop up very close to where you left when you went to warp 10. Rather than traditional evolution which happens over many generations, if you are everywhere and at ever moment in time, your DNA suddenly changes to whatever a human ancestors or successors DNA looked/will look like at some specific time in the past/future. Even my dreams are more logically consistent than this episode. Everything that happened in this episode feels completely random.

Tom's bout with the Measels

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 16 June 2019]

Brannon Braga always says "what was I thinking" when he discusses this episode. No way! In fact I liked it, quite a bit. But not for the reasons you are thinking.

Tom is a pilot first and foremost, on top of being a jerk most of the time. In this episode, it appears that he is spearheading a team that has been planning hard designing a shuttle that can do something extraordinary, and he is the man that will pilot this. This is the flight that will give him something that he has wanted since he was a child, a feeling of accomplishment by doing something nobody else has. He is very sincere in all of his efforts and his arguments with Captain Janeway award him the chance to do this thing. But he is almost prevented from doing it because The Doctor thinks he has developed some form of brain-measles. Fortunately, and because we know Tom Paris' character well by this point, he is able to talk himself back into the pilot's seat.

However, what begins as a quest to break an ultimate speed barrier, takes a sharp twist and "devolves" into insanityland.

And I have never laughed so hard for a Star Trek episode, ever!

People simply don't appreciate the humor of this episode, especially the non-standard and possibly unintentional (but probably, actually intentional) comic acting by Robert Duncan McNeil. He nails this, if he had not pulled out all of the stops, the episode would have been perceived worse than it has been. But I never have thought of this episode as bad, only as drastically insane. Which was something that we needed at the time due to the serious turns in Trek during this period, with the Dominion and the Founders and Maquis and other threats in Deep Space Nine, to the destruction of the Enterprise D and the Borg Attack in the Next Generation movies of the period. With all of the seriousness of the state of the Federation on the Alpha quadrant side, we really needed something totally crazy to happen in the Delta quadrant side. And this was simply the first time they did it in Voyager, they had some other totally whack episodes after this, but nothing as crazy as this episode. It set a new standard for insanity. Which is why I personally love it.

And the ending is just way beyond the pale, when you think it can't get any crazier, it does, and then it even gets more absurd and insane after that, up until the very last scene which is the most incredibly crazy thing that we've ever seen any Star Trek, ever.

Y'all simply don't have a sense of humor, enjoy this for what it is, high comedy and absurdity, Star Trek style. Get out the popcorn when this episode plays, pretend like you are watching mst 3000, and enjoy it. I always make a point to watch this at least once every six months, it really lifts me up when I am in the dumps. Whaddya think this is? The last episode of Game of Thrones or something? (Which I also liked).

Not even bad in a funny way

[Ar_Pharazon_the_golden · 2/10 · 11 February 2019]

This really is pretty horrible. Even though the entire episode is not homogeneously stupid - at first, there is some minor interest. I mean, sure, infinite velocity is wrong in so many ways, and the way an impossible thing is achieved by some guy who found a special rock and got good advice from an obnoxious chef in a matter of hours is laughable. But still, the effects of "I was everywhere at once" could be interesting. If they were psychological. But no. Travelling at infinite velocity de-evolves you (to a leper goblin, apparently). Of course there are people whose complaint is that other star treks have shown warp 12 and 13, not that, but clearly, understanding anything is not the point in any aspect of this episode.

After all this, the only thing that could half-save the episode would be if they just killed Paris. But no. Both he and the captain turn into salamanders, and are easily transformed back to humans because DUH, why not go full bananas at this stage?

From all the star trek I've seen, this was definitely the stupidest episode - but maybe not the worst, I save that for DS9's Rapture, for being both very stupid and going against everything Star Trek stands for.

PS: since the effects are so easily reversible, why can't they go back and fix themselves afterwards?

Can this be as horrible as I just read?!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 14 February 2015]

According to IMDb, this is among the most hated episodes of the series. And, when I read through the six reviews for the show, one was lukewarm and the other five totally hated it. So is this really that bad? After all, there have been so many horrible episodes of the various Star Trek shows! Mind you, I love the shows but I also am honest enough with myself to admit that on rare occasions the Trek shows and films let down the viewers. I am a fan but I am NOT a fanatic!

When the show begins, Paris and a few other crew members are working on trying to achieve warp 10. We are told that in theory this would allow for instantaneous travel ANYWHERE...but is it possible? Well, eventually they are ready to test this outside the holodeck and Paris insists that he be allowed to pilot the shuttle on the attempt. At first, it seems to work...but of course it cannot work perfectly, otherwise the series would come to an end and they'd all be home in the middle of the second season!

What follows reminds me a lot of the remake of "The Fly" but with a lot less coherence. It also wasn't bad...that is until the end. Then, it became completely bat$&#* crazy...as well as stupid! You really have to see this one to believe it...but I can see much of why folks disliked this episode...it was kooky indeed! But is it the worst? I don't think so, as the final episode of the original series featured Kirk getting a sex change and suffering a HUGE menopausal mood shift, a terrible "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" episode involving a baseball game in the holodeck and much of season one and two of "Star Trek: Voyager" at least give it a run for the money as worst episode!

UPDATE: By the way, it isn't just me who hated this episode. At the 50th anniversary Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, this was voted as one of the 10 worst of all episodes from every Trek franchise! That is some ignoble designation!

Talk About Idiotic

[Hitchcoc · 2/10 · 18 August 2018]

Tom Paris outshines all the technology that has come before him and in an afternoon breaks the warp barrier. But it causes him to evolve into a large salamander and impregnate Janeway (also a salamander). Of course, the science is beyond belief and the whole involvement of the crew really stupid. This is the worst of the series, just when it was improving.

Without a doubt, the worst episode ever!

[ryangcassidy · 1/10 · 6 August 2018]

This is THE worst episode of Voyager without a doubt, and probably the worst ever episode of any incarnation of Star Trek; it's even worse than TNG's first season and that takes some beating!

The plot is ridiculous, the dialogue is atrocious and the actors spend most of the episode looking like they're fantasizing about killing their agents for landing them in this steaming pile of poop.

The basic story sees the hapless Voyager crew use an experimental engine design (tested in the Holodeck no less!) to break the Warp 10 barrier (there goes decades of Trek continuity, not to mention the very, very vague scientific basis for the physics of Trek). Tom Paris is the lucky, lucky chap piloting the test shuttle. More by accident than design, the contraption seems to work, then Paris disappears (cue much false jepordy) before miraculously reappearing right next to Voyager (how kind of fate to drop Paris off right here in the suspiciously crowded Delta Quadrant - seriously half the Alpha Quad seems to land here in Voyager's run!)

Following all this 'excitement' the writers then have what appears to be a moment of absolute madness - the Warp 10 jump seems to cause Paris to die (yay!), revive (boo!), kindnap Janeway (eh?!) before taking her back onto the test shuttle through the W.10 barrier where they promptly both de-evolve into oversided Samalanders, mate and produce muntant amphibious offspring (Wtf?!?!) Yes folks seriously that's what happens.....no amount of alcohol or hallucinogenics could produce a script this bad, the only sane conclusion is that writer Brannon Braga secretly hated Trek and set out to sabotage the show with this intergalactic turkey (actually based on his later writing on Enterprise and Voyager's later years that's not an unreasonable hypothesis)

There is nothing remotely redeemable about this episode, Voyager itself was a show which was riddled by internal inconsistencies elaborated on by other reviewers, one of its worst being the 'reset button' phenomenon - at the end of each episode everything just reverts to normal, everyone plods on trudging their way through duff scripts and stock nebula footage hoping a passing Borg or some wayward Romulans to put them out of their misery, and actions very rarely have consequences. This episode is one of the most egregious examples of this (Paris turned into a weird lizard thing, kidnapped Janeway and mated with her!!) Yet the following week everyone acts like nothing ever happened!!

In sum - dreadful and avoid at all costs!!

Non Canon but Interesting

[classicstormd · 4/10 · 27 March 2016]

*Contains Spoilers* Okay, this is a terrible episode for many reasons. I and many consider it non-canon because it confuses many topics. So many questions and might go beyond the description "Weird is part of the job". Why leave the babies behind? Why do multiple ST series deal with warp 10 differently? (Maybe there are unpredictable and different effects in the ST universe?) It also has awkward dialogue. The episode pace seems to simultaneously go too quickly and too slowly.

However I still gave it 4 stars because the idea behind this episode is fascinating. The idea that evolution might be cyclical and that we could evolve into something that is less advanced. I feel this is a comparison to our current society. Our society is getting sicker, lazier, and probably less intelligent as we "evolve". What are we transforming into?

At the end of the day, isn't that what we all love Trek for? Philosophical discussion and comparisons to our society? (Wow, I almost just convinced myself to give it more stars)

Unbelievably insane Trek episode

[bgaiv · 10/10 · 26 June 2022]

It's hard to believe how off the wall this goes, but It earns some credit for that. The whole cast takes the insane premise dead serious.

Robert Duncan McNeil's performance is so earnest it defies belief, including trying to talk after he spat out his own tongue. This isn't a cute slam on his acting, he took completely ridiculous material and worked his butt off to make it work.

It's truly astonishing and includes a Voyager officer trying to sell this technology to the Kazon, Tom kidnapping Janeway to produce salamanders and, of course, the Doctor curing Tom and Janeway with some magical DNA thing.