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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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Kate Mulgrew, Robert McNeill, And Garrett Wang Revisit “Threshold,” That Infamous ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Episode

| November 25, 2020 | By: Laurie Ulster 33 comments so far

Ask a fan to name one of the worst episodes in Star Trek history, and Voyager ’s “Threshold” is bound to come up almost immediately. This much-maligned second-season episode, later described by its writer Brannon Braga as “ a royal, steaming stinker ,” is famous for what happens after Tom Paris crosses the Warp 10 threshold: He transforms into a monstrous creature, then kidnaps Captain Janeway and takes her to a planet where they turn into salamanders and have babies before they’re rescued and restored. There was even an action figure from Playmates , complete with three lizard babies, described on the package as “mutant offspring.”

Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill finally got to “Threshold” in the latest episode of their weekly podcast The Delta Flyers , where they are making their way through the entire series in chronological order. Earlier this year McNeill told TrekMovie that while he was happy with his work on “Threshold,” it was the only episode he wasn’t looking forward to discussing, but Wang rightly pointed out that fans likely felt the opposite.

Kate Mulgrew joined the pair with some extra commentary in the Patreon-only section of the podcast to reminisce about filming her scenes and speculate on how salamanders might copulate. Here are some of the highlights of their lively discussion, including the audio from the non-Patreon part of Robbie and Garrett’s discussion.

The award-winning makeup had its challenges

Mulgrew asked (sincerely) if the episode had won “a lot of awards,” and while McNeill joked that it won the award for “maybe the worst episode of Star Trek: Voyager ever made,” it did, in fact, win an Emmy for Outstanding Makeup for a Series—and the episode deserved it.

From McNeill’s description of filming his scenes as Tom Paris mutated, it sounds like he should’ve shared in that award along with Michael Westmore and his team. None of it was easy, starting with the menthol that was blown into his eyes to irritate them so they’d be bloodshot.

McNeill reported that when he filmed the scenes where he was losing his ability to breathe in Voyager’s atmosphere, it triggered his sense memories of having asthma attacks. He imitated them as a way to get into the scene, but his body picked up on what he was doing and he started to have the anxiety and tightness in his chest that always accompanied his attacks, so severely that rewatching it brought back all those feelings vividly. (In fact, he had once had an attack so severe during a different episode that they had to delay filming so he could go to the hospital.)

He also said it was difficult to act once the makeup reached its peak.

They had tubes that went down my legs, and they were sitting on the floor, like three feet away from me, literally they were going (blows), blowing these bladder balloons. So all I could hear inside of the rubber, I could barely hear the actors, I looked at their lips moving.

As for the horror movie-type scene where Paris’ tongue fell off:

That tongue was made of silicone. But then they put some other jelly, red, like Jell-O, so that it looked like it was sort of just collapsing or falling apart. So I did have some red Jell-O, and I had that silicone tongue, rubber tongue, had to get in my mouth… it was a lot of stuff for that tongue coming out.

And then for the final touch, he used an inky black mouthwash right before they filmed, so the inside of his mouth would appear black—and his real tongue would be harder to see.

Not just character mutation, but character evolution

Despite the episode’s bad reputation, Robbie and Garrett had some positive opinions on it. Wang thoughtfully pointed out that there was more to the changes in Paris than what was seen on the outside as they discussed how Tom changed over the course of the series. McNeill said he “came into the series embodying a lot of toxic masculinity” and Wang said this was embodied in the scene where Paris monologues from his sickbay bed. “You see the vestiges of the toxic masculinity even in this scene,” he said, bringing up Paris’ memories of crying alone as a kid and being told crying was a weakness by his father. ‘This is definitely a transitional phase for Paris to become more of a complete human being,” Wang summed up.

McNeill agreed, and admitted he relished the opportunity to stretch his acting chops.

My memory of making the episode, because I got to play the Elephant Man in a way, I got to play this transformation, this larger-than-life operatic story of the entire character changing, and dying, and coming back to life, and seeing things, having this acid-trip kind of revelations, my memory was, it was a lot of fun to act in. SO it was really satisfying for me as an actor.

Kate Mulgrew talks salamander copulation

Kate Mulgrew made her Delta Flyers debut (on Patreon only) and started off joking over their choice of episodes to discuss.

I was thinking about this last night as I put my little head on the pillow. Of ALL the episodes you could ask me to join you in conversation about, of everything we did together, every conceivable adventure, confrontation, peril, right? You choose “Threshold.” The story of Lt. Paris and Captain Janeway having lizards.

After their enthusiastic YES, she went on.

I didn’t think it was our finest moment, Robbie, but since we’re going to be talking about it, let’s extoll its virtues, okay? Locked in a turbolift with Robbie McNeill is something akin to delightful alcoholism, I should think. Because no aspect of it was based in reality of any kind.

She says she had fun–not always the case for her, given the grueling schedule–and confessed that her makeup had to be reapplied many times because McNeill kept making her laugh, reporting that it was his entire modus operandi as she was “..trying desperately to give birth to 25 lizards.”

While they made fun of the episode, they all acknowledged their admiration and respect for writer Brannon Braga and director Alexander Singer. Mulgrew’s theory is that the team had had so much pressure on them for the first season and a half that they needed a break of sorts, and that’s what they were trying to do with “Threshold,” but “…in so doing everybody lost their mind.”

Mulgrew asked where Harry was during all of this, since Ensign Kim wasn’t, as McNeill thought he should be, “sobbing inconsolably” in Sickbay as Paris suffered and died; she told Wang he must have been “off on your shuttlecraft, looking for the lizards that had escaped.”

Amidst all their laughter, McNeill said that he thought there was a “grain of a really interesting science fiction idea” in there, about becoming one with the universe simultaneously, describing it as “ kind of like an acid trip, in a way, I would imagine.”

“I think if we’re going to be very frank, I would’ve preferred an acid trip,” Kate replied, cracking up her co-stars. “That’s very lofty thinking.”

Who says romance is dead?

Wang pointed out “Threshold” was significant for being the only episode where Captain Janeway has sex, albeit as a salamander.

This is the first time and probably the only time that she has that. And also later, when you guys are back to human form… you’re both in Sickbay, and he looks at you very sheepishly, and he’s like, “Um, yeah, I’m sorry.” ‘Cause he still has knowledge that he had the intercourse with you. And then you, Kate, you look back at Robbie, you say, “Well you know, it’s  all right, Mister Paris, but you do know that in a lot of different species, it’s the female that initiates the intercourse.” … It was almost, to me, a flirtation.

“That’s exactly right,” said Mulgrew. “Janeway did have a sense of humor, Garrett. And she often expressed it with Lieutenant Paris.”

“But,” she added, “ it does beg the question: I know that scientists will answer this… has anybody actually seen salamanders copulating? Have you guys ever actually witnessed it?”

McNeill chimed in, amidst their laughter, with “I will admit I did not do that research, Kate.”

Mulgrew doubled up.

I don’t think they copulate in any kind of way that could be confused with sexual intercourse. I don’t think there’s a great deal of, shall we say, foreplay.

“Tenderness, no,” posited McNeill, as Mulgrew ran with it:

Romantic pep talk? Erotic suggestions? I think they just slither on, and slither off.

Janeway and Paris, slithering

Listen to The Delta Flyers on “Threshold”

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TOS : Spocks Brain TNG : Shades of Gray DS9 : Fascination VOY : Threshold DSC : * no comment *

ENT: “A Night in Sickbay”

But “Threshold” really isn’t the worst episode of Voyager by far, I’d but quite a few others in its place.

Oh i forgot ENT definitely Storm Front 1 and 2 !

I’d have to say “Once Upon a Time” is the worst.

Agreed on DSC. DSC has been very good so far.

For Enterprise, the Klingon Retrovirus eps were just horrible — the fan service was so obvious and forced.

TNG — Encounter at Farpoint and Unification — not that they were the worst, but given they were hyped so much, they were just such a disappointing letdown that it bothers me to this day.

TOS: Spocks Brain – yeah, that’s really a no brainer! :-D

TNG: why does everyone have issues with Shades of Gray? I loved all the flashbacks when I first saw it. Sure, it’s not the most creative kind of money-saving show, but I didn’t realize it at the time, and so I still like it. I’d probably pick Code Of Honor instead, though even that isn’t totally bad. In fact I’m rewatching season 1 right now, and I don’t find it nearly as bad as I thought it was…

DS9: haven’t watched alle episodes yet, so I don’t know about Fascination right now, but probably something from the first two seasons. Or anything with Sisko without the beard and with hair ;-)

VOY: agreed, there are a lot of episodes that are worse than Threshold. Sure, the salamander stuff is goofy, but the warp 10 concept was interesting, and overall it was done very well, I would say.

ENT: hmm, yeah, probably A Night in Sickbay, though that’s a nice Phlox story. Storm Front was hilarious, though, so probably that.

DSC: almost every episode, sorry.

I’d imagine Shades of Grey works better on the first run through the series but afterthat its utterly pointless and totally skipable. The thing is, a bottle show could have been done in far more original ways without any need for any SFX. Something maybe like a courtroom drama episode or a an episode where Picard sits in his quarters and talks about his life for 40 minutes to Wesley or something lol…

TOS: Spock’s Brain TNG: Code of Honor DS9: Move Along Home VOY: Threshold ENT: A Night in Sickbay DSC: *jury still out*

There, fixed your list “Tim”

Trek Worst List…

TOS: And the Children Shall Lead TNG: Sub Rosa DS9: Profit and Lace VOY: Threshold ENT: Unexpected DSC: Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum PIC: The End is the Beginning LDS: Moist Vessel

Agree with And the Children Shall Lead. Spocks Brain is stupid, but it’s kind of silly good.

But Threshold is the worst

For me, the worst Voyager episode was Tsunkatse. The network was using the show as a blatant promo for The Rock.

So, Warp 9.99 is still the speed limit in the 32nd century, or are anti-mutation shields standard issue?

It looks like they use quantum slipstream technology now.

For me personally, the episode would have been do much better off what they were apparently trying to discuss, really occured. I mean for all these astonishing situations (crossing warp 10, unifying with Universe, dying, resurrection, turning info something completely different) informed character growth. I’m often saying that Star Trek isn’t a soap opera, it shouldn’t rely so hard on characters backstory, romances (like Discovery did on the first season or two), because no matter how good the characters are they shouldn’t be overshadowing what the franchise is (should) be about – you know – STAR TREK. By the way – DS9 is for me not an exception, because I consider it to be a great seria, my beloved one amongst those under ST name, but still – not a good Star Trek. With all that said – if you are having an episode od sci-fi where a single character goes through all those great SF situations, you need some context for them to work to make viewers think about how that could be transitioned to human condition. Threshold doesn’t give you enough of this on this almost Kafka’esque story and this is, in my opinion, why it gets what it deserves on the discussion boards.

This episode was awkward but I liked it.

If Tom Paris’ insubordinations are so-called “male toxicity”, maybe someone can enlighten me what to call Michael Burnham’s far more consequential insubordinations (not to forget her stereotypical inability to keep her emotions in-check, as behooves a professional officer and scientist)? At least Tom Paris didn’t start a mutiny that resulted in an interstellar war…

Um… not his insubordinations. More his constant hitting on women, which started in the very first episode. I recommend you listen to the Delta Flyers podcast, Garrett and Robbie have a great conversation about it.

Other than Thirty Days when was Paris insubordinate? That whole Season 2 arc was all a subterfuge, he wasn’t really being insubordinate.

I love Voyager and her crew to death but Threshold makes Spock’s Brain look like an Emmy winning episode. It’s just SO bad! I’ve only seen it twice to this day.

But these guys, Mulgrew especially, seem to have a good laugh about it. It’s nice they can just reminisce about the more awful stuff and not sound bitter about it.

Well, I’ve never got that hatred for “Threshold”. It was a mediocre, paint-by-numbers episode, forgettable and bland, but it’s not nearly as bad as some people want into to be. The worst episode was “Course: Oblivion”. I simply couldn’t stand the bleak, depressive resolution.

As for TOS: “Spock’s Brain” is campy fun but also by far not the worst of them. I really disliked “The Omega Glory” and “Plato’s Stepchildren”, though that kiss made TV history. But actually I liked “And the Children Shall Lead”. It has a certain “Children of the Corn” feeling, decades before those movies were made.

TNG… I don’t know. “Shades of Grey” was a filler with flashbacks that came for too early to be effective. I would have loved to see this in Year 7 with all of the series being covered. But again, it wasn’t bad at all. There are hardly any superbad TNG episodes. I like “Sub Rosa”. It’s not great but not bad either. I wasn’t a big fan of “Lessons”, but it wasn’t a stinker, just not particularly interesting.

ENT… Sickbay is okay with me. The worst disappointment was “These Are the Voyages” but only because they made it the series finale. As a standalone entry, it would have been quite neat.

DSC… Not a big fan of the rushed S1 finale but again, not a total loss. I have no DSC episode I totally dislike though I take issues with some scenes, especially the excessively bloody ones.

PIC… That’s why I hate “Stardust City Rag” for it’s Icheb opener.

Wow. I think Course: Oblivion is excellent. Especially on first watch, when we didn’t know what was going on. Parallel universe? Bad dream? I never saw the link to Demon coming.

Am I the only one who actually really liked this episode? I remember I watched it several times.

Very possibly, yes. I’ve never seen a “worst episode ever” list where Threshold was not near the top.

I loved A Night in Sickbay on ENT, thought it was a fun episode!

It was okay. I never understood the hate for it, either. It is just kinda there, neither good nor bad IMHO.

It’s not completely true that this is the only episode where Janeway has sex. In Fair Haven she most likely has sex with one of the holodeck characters, Sullivan. Chakotay even admits to having sex on the holodeck himself! And now that I’m thinking about this there’s another epispode… Janeway and some of the crew are abducted and brainwashed in two parter Workforce. Janeway meets a co-worker, Jaffen (love that name!), and decides to move in with him. I mean, c’mon! Either way, she has her fun more than once on the show. While sexuality is not required to make a show good, I think it’s good for her character and the show.

Definitely in Workforce! But that hadn’t happened yet, so I guess this is the FIRST time on the show? (I love Workforce.)

As it happens, Salamander “foreplay”, which in this case means things the male does to get the female ready to mate, is much longer than typical human foreplay. But it’s instinctive in nature, we can’t really say it’s “fun” for them.

The dumbest part is that because the condition was reversible, they could have adapted the ship, went home, and reversed it.

Don’t know why Voyager got a bad rep in Trek social circles. Was the best out the lot of them. I even thought there would be a spin off series when she meets the Federation Timeship of the future. Not just boldly going in space but also in time. I would’ve watched that. Big up all the cast and Crew of the USS Voyager.. Cmon guys. Enuf reminiscing. As old as they are now, I’d still watch new episodes any day. 😉

For me, the worst episode of Voyager is “The Fight”. It was the only episode that was such a struggle to get through. Interesting idea, but the execution was just awful. I felt embarrassed for the actors, especially Chakotay

I think I agree with you! I hated “The Fight” and “False Profits.” Those were the weakest ones in my book. “Threshold” is still entertaining, and Robert Duncan McNeill did a great job with it.

How One Of Star Trek: Voyager's Weirdest Concepts Wound Up In Lower Decks

In the first episode of the fourth season of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," called "Twovix," the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos has been given a delicate mission. It seems that the U.S.S. Voyager, having returned from the Delta Quadrant only a few years prior, has now been converted into a flying museum commemorating that ship's many adventures. The Voyager must be accompanied to Earth, where it will be opened to the public, and the Cerritos has to oversee the transport. The old Intrepid-class starship contains mannequins wearing mission-worn uniforms and touts periodic diorama-bound exhibits explaining some of the Voyager's more outlandish shenanigans. "It's Voyager," one of the Cerritos crew members fliply points out, "S*** got crazy."

One of the stranger exhibits features a pair of outsize, orange animatronic salamanders that will be instantly recognizable to "Star Trek: Voyager" fans. In the episode "Threshold" (January 29, 1996), the Voyager crew discovers a way to break the Warp 10 barrier and achieve infinite velocity. This would allow them to pass through every point in the universe simultaneously, and would certainly help the lost ship return home to Earth. However, when Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) tests the technology on a modified shuttlecraft, he returns changed. His body begins mutating like in David Cronenberg's "The Fly." It seems that breaking the Warp 10 barrier caused Tom to hyper-evolve.

After he has partially transformed into an amphibian, Tom kidnaps Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and also takes her on a Warp 10 flight. The pair are later discovered on a nearby planet, having fully transformed into four-foot salamanders ... and having mated.

The director of "Twovix," Barry Kelly, recently discussed the references to "Threshold" with MovieWeb . He noted that turning the old episode's odd story into a new in-universe animatronic was a challenge.

The challenges of an animatronic salamander

Kelly felt that Tom Paris and Captain Janeway did not evolve into salamanders in "Threshold" but into reptiles. Regardless, it's a strange story and one that is made all the stranger by the fact that Tom and the Captain mated while in their animal form. When the two officers are rescued by their fellow Voyager crewmates and transformed back into humans, Janeway notes that she sometimes envisioned having children ... though not quite under those circumstances.

"Threshold" was weird enough that Kelly required references to it for "Twovix." He said:

"There were some challenges in ['Twovix']. In 'Star Trek: Voyager,' there was an episode where Tom Paris and Capt. Janeway hyper-evolve into lizards and it's just such a weird concept. And we couldn't have a 'Voyager' episode without it. So, we wanted to make something like a museum exhibit that has these lizards as animatronics on display. But we wanted it to look like a specific animatronic you see at Disney or something."

This, of course, is a sci-fi anachronism. In a future full of elaborate hologram technology and life-like intelligent machine species, is a quaint, Disneyland-style animatronic really going be to built? Probably not, but it provides for a cute gag and an amusing reference. The future anachronism can be forgiven. Kelly noted that the salamanders had to look artificial, so he made them look clunky, low-tech, and a little, in his words, "dumb":

"We had to give it joints and make it kind of walk dumb. We tried to make it like a dumb robot, and then it gets hacked. So, we have this threat, [then] these holograms that are classic, and then 'Voyager' episode characters come in."

Clarity is key

Of course, clarity was key for Kelly. Unlike in an explanatory article on /Film, he didn't have the space or the time to explain the references or where the salamanders came from. The gag plays better if a viewer is familiar with "Star Trek: Voyager," but Kelly was more concerned with viewers who weren't. As such, when an obscure returning character appears on "Lower Decks," he needed to include quick visual shorthand for who they were and if they posed a threat or not. The "Voyager" references were particularly hard to deal with as "Voyager" was a wild show, complete with 1930s-style holographic villains, sexy Irish boyfriends from the 19th century, and hyper-evolved salamanders. Kelly said:

"For us, it's always about nailing those weird concepts and making sure that when the audience is watching it, they understand what they're looking at. That was one of the challenges, but it was a fun one. I can't always say, like, I need to make an evil robot lizard in every TV show I work on."

One might hope that some of the oddball ideas in "Twovix" might translate to younger viewers wanting to go back and watch "Voyager." Of the extant "Star Trek" shows, "Voyager" had some of the stranger and more ambitious stories. It wasn't always a great show — "Threshold" is often cited as one of the more outlandish episodes of the series — but one can admire its ambition and temerity. When it comes to "Voyager" references on "Lower Decks," the show's writers all must face a similar challenge to Kelly's. Namely: How do we make these weird-ass stories feel natural in the world of "Star Trek?"

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Published Jan 27, 2023

Threshold and the Overlooked Message of Reaching for Success

How Tom Paris demonstrates a vital lesson with the infamous Voyager episode.

StarTrek.com / Rob DeHart

January 29 marks the 27th anniversary of the airing of the Star Trek: Voyager episode “ Threshold .” Just saying the title conjures up images of Captain Janeway and Lt. Tom Paris morphing into salamanders and the babies they leave behind after they are rescued by the crew. Many fans focus on what they consider the absurd aspect of the script, and honestly, I did too at first. After a couple of more viewings, though, I began to see more.

StarTrek.com

Perhaps this isn’t what Michael de Luca, the story’s creator, had in mind when he wrote "Threshold." Maybe he wanted an outlandish episode, or perhaps Brannon Braga, who wrote the teleplay, thought it would be good for the crew to have a rather odd and uncomfortable encounter with their captain and the helmsman of Voyager . But I can no longer overlook the bigger aspect of the episode.

"Threshold" starts with the crew’s discovery of dilithium, which could enable the ship’s warp drive to reach warp 10 capabilities, thus propelling the ship through the Alpha Quadrant almost instantaneously. But someone has to test the possibility; and though Lt. Paris will risk severe side effects in his attempt to travel at infinite velocity, he convinces the captain to let him go. And, surprising everyone, he is successful. Yes, there are disastrous consequences to his success; nevertheless, he breaks the barrier, and that shouldn’t be negated by what follows.

Throughout the years of Star Trek , there have been successes and failures, but it was the ultimate achievements that stood up under the scrutiny. Yet, with "Threshold," all eyes remain on the aftermath of Lt. Paris’ success. That’s unfortunate considering Star Trek has always been about exploration, taking chances, and reaching beyond the stars.

Episodes like "Threshold" encourage viewers to take risks even though there may be less than desirable effects as the result. Jumping into the deep end when we aren’t sure of the outcome is better than sitting on the sidelines wondering if we could have achieved something.

Another example is the two-parter “ Scorpion ,” which included far-reaching repercussions when Captain Janeway made a deal with the Borg to assist them in their fight against Species 8472. Of course the Borg proved they could not be trusted, but the end result of the alliance included Seven of Nine’s termination from the Hive mind, her ability to regain her individuality, as well as the retreat of Species 8472.

While there were crew members who disagreed with the decision, Captain Janeway forged ahead just as Lt. Paris did when he took the mission to break the maximum warp barrier. Not everyone was sure it was theoretically possible, but he accepted the risk. Maybe it was to prove to himself he could do it, especially as Paris thought his father didn’t believe he was capable of any success. Or maybe it was to prove everyone else wrong. Whatever the reason, Paris didn’t back down.

We all face decisions in our lives that could lead to success or failure, though probably not as disastrous as being turned into salamanders. Any journey or action we take could have both positive and negative results, but that doesn’t mean the reward isn’t worth the risk. Some of our biggest achievements happen when we know there is a high risk of failure, and we plunge in anyway.

Star Trek metes out successes and failures with equal measure, but there is always a positive in each of the scenarios. And that’s the same way with our lives. We shouldn’t forget our successes when we encounter obstacles that feel like failures.

Lt. Paris had every right to feel jubilant about his achievement even after his foray into the world of amphibians. Even though we didn’t get to see much of what happened after he and Captain Janeway were cured and returned to their human bodies, I’d like to think he still felt a measure of pride in what he accomplished.

I’ve personally experienced large successes that were dimmed by consequences that threatened to overshadow those moments of glory. And it wasn’t always easy to focus on the successes but knowing that we all go through similar situations made taking that next step a little less difficult.

I encourage you to rewatch "Threshold," focusing on Lt. Paris’ achievement rather than the unfortunate side effect of his mission. He had no control over the toll breaking the barrier took on his body, but he did have control over whether or not he chose to accept the mission. And despite the horrific side effects, he still won in the end. As we all can.

Rachel Carrington is a freelance writer and author whose work can be found a Startrek.com, The New York Times, The Writer, and Short-Edition as well as many others. Find her on Twitter @rcarrington2004.

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews
• Episode aired Jan 29, 1996

Tom's attempt to cross the time warp threshold and make a name for himself results in rapid physical mutation. Tom's attempt to cross the time warp threshold and make a name for himself results in rapid physical mutation. Tom's attempt to cross the time warp threshold and make a name for himself results in rapid physical mutation.

• Alexander Singer
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Michael Piller
• Kate Mulgrew
• Robert Beltran
• Roxann Dawson
• 40 User reviews
• 6 Critic reviews

Top cast 18

• Capt. Kathryn Janeway

• Cmdr. Chakotay

• Lt. B'Elanna Torres
• (as Roxann Biggs-Dawson)

• Lt. Tom Paris

• Ensign Harry Kim

• Michael Jonas

• Voyager Computer
• Operations Division Officer
• (uncredited)

• Ensign Culhane
• Hyper-evolved Reptile

• William McKenzie
• Michael Piller (showrunner)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia Robert Duncan McNeill helped refine the episode's conclusion. "I helped them rewrite the episode's final scene. I did not feel the original story ended very well. I was pleased because I got to have some input into how to resolve the story."
• Goofs Tom and Harry try to break the Warp 10 barrier. In the process they say it's a theoretical impossibility and that no one has gone that fast. In That Which Survives (1969) (#3.17) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) the warp 10 barrier is apparently broken.

The Doctor : [examining the unconscious Paris] From what I can tell, he's just... asleep.

The Doctor : Can you wake him?

The Doctor : I don't see why not.

[bends down to Paris]

The Doctor : WAKE UP, LIEUTENANT!

• Connections Featured in The Toys That Made Us: Star Trek (2018)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: Voyager - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Jerry Goldsmith Performed by Jay Chattaway

User reviews 40

• gutsmcd-42398
• Sep 1, 2022
• January 29, 1996 (United States)
• United States
• Official Site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Star Trek | Voyager’s ‘Threshold’ and Why Janeway Can’t Evolve into a Newt

Star Trek: Discovery science consultant Mohamed Noor and biologist Dr. Charles Foster help us to understand the Star Trek: Voyager episode ‘Threshold’.

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Say “Threshold” to any Star Trek fan, and you’re bound to get a reaction—a laugh, an eye roll, a scream, an exasperated sigh so loud you could hear it from the outer edges of the Alpha Quadrant.

Fans celebrate its anniversary on social media—#ThresholdDay is on January 29—and have had tattoos honoring it. When I asked people I know their opinions, I heard the whole gamut, from “oh, it’s fun” to “it’s annoying”, “it’s the worst kind of Star Trek ,” and “You can never truly recover after seeing it,” and “I remember yelling.”

For the uninitiated, ‘Threshold’ (S2, Ep15) is the name of a Star Trek: Voyager episode that’s bonkers, divisive, and appears on almost every ‘the worst episodes of Star Trek ’ list I’ve read.

Transwarp Speed and Infinite Velocity

In ‘Threshold’, Lieutenant Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) takes an experimental shuttle for a spin. He hits Warp 10, a speed so mind-bogglingly fast that it breaks the ‘transwarp barrier.’

Transwarp is discussed several times throughout Star Trek ’s history, but the meaning changes a bit each time. If we dissect the word, it simply means the other side of warp—but what’s there?

Going by the explanation in ‘Threshold’, Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) says that achieving transwarp speeds would mean you’ve reached “infinite velocity”.

Paris further explains—or confuses—things by saying: “It means that you would occupy every point in the universe simultaneously. In theory, you could go any place in the wink of an eye. Time and distance would have no meaning.”

As you might expect, smashing the laws of Star Trek physics to pieces with your shiny ship has some unexpected consequences.

Upon returning to Voyager, Paris begins to change—he can’t drink water or process oxygen, dies briefly, comes back to life, has two hearts, loses his hair, his skin is peeling, vomits out his tongue, and becomes really aggressive.

Paris breaks free, attacks Janeway, and takes her with him back onto the shuttle before whizzing off again at Warp 10.

A little while later, the crew finds the shuttle abandoned on a planet with no sign of Paris or Janeway. All they see are two huge space newts. Yep, you guessed it. That’s what they’ve turned into. And, if that wasn’t daft and deranged enough, they’re surrounded by what appears to be their offspring. (The Vagina Museum in London once published a fantastic Twitter thread about the details of space newt mating.)

On 29th January 1996, "Threshold", the Star Trek: Voyager episode where Captain Janeway and Tom Paris turned into giant space newts and had babies first aired. In advance of #ThresholdDay we aim to answer a burning question: did Paris and Janeway fuck? If so, how did they fuck? pic.twitter.com/Hp3sA4Ix2W — Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) January 28, 2022

I know what you’re thinking. Was it a mutating disease laying dormant in the shuttle’s environmental systems activated by transwarp travel? Or maybe aliens lurk in the bits between space and time, waiting to replace the two Voyager crew members?

Nope, it’s revealed that all of the transwarp adventurings accelerated the natural course of evolution—those giant amphibious creatures Paris and Janeway become are all of us in the future.

“The mutations we observed are natural,” The Doctor (Robert Picardo) explains. “The changes within his DNA are consistent with the evolutionary development of the human genotype observed over the past four million years.”

I’m confident I could write a whole book unpicking this one episode’s many confusing and nonsensical threads and still wouldn’t get anywhere. Asking questions like, why did they evolve into space newts? Isn’t the delicate balance of life on the planet that big space newt Janeway and big space newt Paris were found on fundamentally destroyed? And, crucially, what about their damn kids?

Before my blood pressure hits Warp 10, let’s bring things back down to a more manageable Warp 3 and find out the answer to the question at the core of ‘Threshold’. Is it really possible to speed up our evolution?

The Speed of Evolution

I spoke to Mohamed A. F. Noor, the Professor of Biology and Dean of Natural Sciences at Duke Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, author of Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution, Genetics, and Life on Other Worlds , and a consultant on Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 3 and 4, who told me that first, we need to clear up a few things about evolution. “Evolution does not occur in an individual,” he explains. “So I didn’t ‘evolve’ from a baby into an adult – that’s just development.”

So what we see in ‘Threshold’ isn’t really evolution. But, fascinatingly, evolution, which is the spread of new inherited forms throughout a population, can happen pretty quickly—well, pretty quickly by real-world standards.

“Many people are aware of the classic example of the peppered moth in England,” Noor tells us. “In the early 1800s, all the moths were white-peppered colors, but following the blackening of trees and lichens on which they hid, fully black forms became much more common by 1900.

“The opposite then happened after the passage of the clean air acts in the 1950s and 1960s—now, the white-peppered form is by far the most common,” he explains.

Granted, the moths didn’t evolve to become a different color as quickly as Paris evolved to become a different species, but the changes happened within human lifetimes. By Trek terms, that’s slower than one-quarter impulse. In real-world terms, it’s remarkably fast.

When evolution happens rapidly, it’s often due to an external factor—in this case, the color of the trees. I spoke to Dr. Charles Foster , a Bioinformatics Research Associate in the Virology Research Lab at the University of New South Wales and Prince of Wales Hospital. He explains that evolution occurs more ‘neutrally’ in a stable and safe environment—changes are not good or bad for the species, they just happen.

“But if strong external pressures are applied to a population—or experienced by a population—one would expect there to be ‘sped up’ evolution,” he says. As well as the moths, Dr. Foster points to examples of domestication, where species of animals have changed over time based on human intervention.

Other examples of rapid evolution here on Earth tend to be problematic. “Some of the best examples come from pathogenic bacteria and viruses,” Dr. Foster says.

“When these organisms are treated with antibacterials and antivirals, it’s possible for ‘superbugs’ to emerge because of acquired immunity and resistance to the treatments,” he explains. “This process can also arise when treatments are applied at a suboptimal dose, so the ‘bugs’ are not all killed.” Individual organisms then develop beneficial mutations, and that’s how we get antibiotic-resistant bugs.

Evolution vs Mutation

‘Mutation’ and ‘evolution’ are words often used interchangeably in movies and TV shows. But Noor urges us to be cautious when mapping science fiction onto real-world science.

“Yes, it is true that new mutations are the raw materials for adaptive evolution across generations,” Noor explains. “But the fraction that allows this is extremely low, and any process just accelerating mutations overall in an individual is far, far more likely to be bad than good.”

He also tells us that mutations wouldn’t be “coordinated” among all of the cells in your body. “So, if Dr. Crusher or the EMH or whoever says ‘they’re experiencing a high rate of mutation’, best not to expect any superpowers or transformation to alien form,” Noor says, bringing our hopes of developing X-Men -like mutations crashing back down to our boring old Earth.

“If someone suddenly has a high rate of mutation in their body, it’s FAR more likely they’ll die or have terrible cancers than acquire any fantastic ability,” he says.

But Why Space Newts, Though?

Those incredibly stressed out by ‘Threshold’ might be comforted to learn that the creators knew they were doing something unconventional with this episode—but claim it was intentional.

In Captains’ Logs Supplemental: The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , Jeri Taylor, a Star Trek scriptwriter and producer, explains that the inspiration for ‘Threshold’ was breaking the Warp laws and asking: “What happens if you do go Warp 10, how does that affect you?”

“So we all sat in a room and kicked it around and 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,” Taylor explains. “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.”

I hear you if you still fundamentally hate this episode and everything it stands for. But it did show us a kind of evolution we’ve not seen much of before—there were no large-brained, glowing people with superpowers, that’s for sure.

And Taylor’s right. Who’s to say space newts don’t have some inconceivable, advanced consciousness beyond our wildest dreams? And who knows how we’d evolve if we were simultaneously at all points in space—talk about external pressure.

After all, some theories suggest that our futures won’t be filled with super-advanced creatures, space newts, or humans with superpowers and big brains, but due to a process called carcinization, everything on the planet might one day become a crab.

This reminds me of a scene in The Time Machine (the book, not the movie) when H.G. Wells’ traveler takes a trip tens of millions of years into the future. What does he find at the outer limits of time? Crabs, loads of them.

Although ‘Threshold’ might not rate highly for what we know about evolution today—or, for many, enjoyment—I don’t think we can knock this fresh and creative approach to evolution too hard.

This article was first published on June 29th, 2022 on the original Companion website.

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