Oh boy. I haven't written one of these in awhile, and I thought that diving head-first into "Threshold" might be the inspirational jump-start that I need. It's difficult to go into this episode with an open mind, because I remember so clearly my initial reaction to watching it. It's also almost impossible to discuss anything Trek without the topic of just how awful "Threshold" is coming up. But I tried my best to give it a fresh look, and honestly I had forgotten what the rest of the plot that didn't have to do with lizard babies even was, so it wasn't that hard. But still...knowing what was coming may have skewed my view a bit. At any rate, here we go....
Thanks to finding some magical space juice in the Delta Quadrant, Paris and Torres are working on taking a shuttle craft to warp 10. Previously, crossing this threshold (see the title there?) had been impossible because of reasons. The theory is that once you get going that fast, you will simultaneously occupy all space in the universe at once. Wait! What? I know this is science/fantasy fiction, but this makes no sense. Warp 10 in a space shuttle is just as arbitrary a figure as 88 miles per hour in a DeLorean, and every bit as silly. Why would reaching a certain speed make matter omnipresent? I guess I should be happy that no explanation is offered, because I can't even image the level of technobabble it would take to make this seem plausible. And haven't we already seen space travel at faster than warp 10 in Trek? I'm pretty sure we have somewhere along the way. Anyway, after an annoying chat with Neelix where they give him credit for the final adjustment, they're ready to try it.Janeway tells Paris that his name will be in lights. He will go down in the history books as one of the greats. "Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, Zephram Cochrane......Tom Paris!" She really gets him pumped up for the flight. Then cut to next scene, and she's telling him that oh ya, about that...you can't do the flight because The Doctor suddenly decided to look at your medical records and it turns out you could die. Bummer. Even worse news is that now we get to hear more Paris backstory. Apparently being the son of an admiral (combined with being just so dreamy) put a lot of pressure on him to do something with his life. The kids in the playground used to marvel at what second-grader Tom Paris would achieve when he grew up. Really? Jeez. So all this pressure and daddy issues led to his self-destruction and winding up in prison. You know what? I really hate Paris's back story. It just never works for me. I don't buy him as a rebel or a bad guy, and I don't want to hear him whine about how being privileged has ruined his life. UGH. But Janeway buys it, and gives him the green light for the flight.
The flight goes well, he reaches warp 10 and then backs off and returns. He's unconscious, and feeling a bit confused. Here we have The Doctor pulling things together for the show once again by adding his charm to the episode. It's honestly the only bright spot. After he hilariously wakes Paris up by shouting at him, Paris confirms that he did indeed occupy all space, and then just kind of willed himself to come back to this location. The ship's logs confirm this, as there is an extra 1.21 jigawatts of map information on file. All that information will be completely ignored for the rest of the series, of course.But soon we realize that Paris is not ok. The Doctor finds that he is now allergic to water, and has lost the ability to process oxygen. Tough break Tom, it looks like you're dying. And he does. Die. Paris is dead. Seriously, you guys we're not just screwing around with you. Ok we were, he's alive again. But he's still miserable and horribly disfigured. They determine that he's evolving at a rapid pace. Millions of years of human evolution are occurring before their eyes. He begs to be let off the ship, and eventually escapes, taking Janeway with him. They once again cross the trans-warp threshold and disappear. The crew searches, and eventually find them on a nearby planet.
Alright, here we go. This is painful. The crew finds them in lizard form, apparently mated, just as their lizard baby offspring scurry off into the water. On so many levels this is horrible. For one, why would the ultimate human evolutionary form be a lizard that can't even communicate and mates indiscriminately with former shipmates? They seem to have de-volved to me. The crew must agree because they clearly don't see the offspring as any kind of threat and decide to just leave them there. So the organization that values non-interference above all else has just decided to allow highly evolved humans to inhabit a planet? Shouldn't they have gotten them back at all costs, and then decided what to do with them? They could easily cure them like they did Janway and Paris, and then they would just be human babies. Or kill them. Or raise them. Or whatever, but you don't just leave a new species that you created from your own DNA to roam someone else's planet!
What's worse is the creepy way that Janeway and Paris discuss the matter afterwards. Janeway jokes that she's always wanted to have kids, but never considered having them with Paris. He apologizes for probably lizard-raping her, and she reminds him that it's the female of many species that is the sexual aggressor. I feel icky just relaying this conversation to you, I can't believe that someone actually wrote this and thought it would be a good idea to put in the episode. Sigh.This episode is, of course, Horrible. The last bit is just unforgivable. I remember the first time I saw "Threshold" I was just shocked at how they left it. I am no less shocked today. Spawning human-lizard babies on a random planet and just leaving them? If you cared at all about the whole trans-warp plot, you've forgotten about it when you see this. The episode is really two different plot lines, with the first half dealing with the warp threshold, and the second with Tom's evolution. The warp idea may have had merit on its own to form a complete show around. And you know what? The evolution thing, although not a new idea, may have made for a decent episode as well. Neither concept was done well here, but we might have been on track for a meh or even adequate episode, but then that ending. I just...wow.
Published August 23, 2017
FIX THE EPISODE, BABY!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading other’s reviews, I feel that this episode is perhaps being unfairly judged. It is NOT the worst episode of Star Trek ever. It is, of course, horrible. But there are definitely worse in my opinion. There are horribly dull and boring episodes out there that I don’t even remember that are certainly worse to view than Threshold. The thing that makes this episode so bad is strictly the bizarre ending. But I can’t even say that it’s the worst ending in all of Star Trek, because The Omega Glory is a thing that exists. That ending was just ridiculous and actually angered me, this ending is merely odd and baffling. But you have to admit that it’s a bold choice. The other criticisms I’ve read focus around the evolution aspect, and how it’s unrealistic because evolution happens to a species as a whole over time, and not to an individual. Fair enough, but let’s remember that this is a work of fiction. Furthermore, the term “mutate” is what is most often used to describe what is happening to Tom in the episode, and all evolution begins with a mutation that is then naturally selected. There are still problems, yes. But that could all be overlooked if the ending hadn’t ruined the whole thing. As for a regression to lizard form, I read where Brannon Braga had said that he hoped to show that evolution does not necessarily form a straight line toward advancing to a higher state. Which makes sense, because an Amoeba is still an Amoeba however many millions of years later, right? Unfortunately this explanation never made it into the episode, so it all just seems nonsensical. I guess what I’m saying is that this episode is salvageable, and I’ll give it a shot, keeping in mind that all we need is a new ending:
They figure out that in order to stop the mutating and put Humpty Dumpty Tom back together again they need to send him back to warp 10, but then pull him back less abruptly. They do this, and it uses up all the rest of the space juice. The end.
See? It’s not good, but you wouldn’t call it the worst episode of Star Trek ever made, would you?