Threshold (Star Trek: Voyager)

Voyager's crew discovers a rare, more stable form of dilithium that they postulate could power a warp drive beyond Warp 10. This would allow Voyager to reach the Alpha Quadrant near instantaneously. Although holodeck simulations prove disastrous, Lieutenant Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) comes up with an idea after an off-the-cuff discussion with Neelix (Ethan Phillips). The next simulation is successful and a shuttlecraft, dubbed the Cochrane, is prepared for a full test flight. The Doctor (Robert Picardo) identifies a rare medical condition in Lieutenant Paris indicating a 2% chance that he will suffer lethal effects from the test-flight and recommends assigning Ensign Kim (Garrett Wang) as test-pilot. Paris convinces Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to allow him to fly the shuttle despite the small risk.

Paris successfully breaks the Warp 10 barrier with the Cochrane, rapidly disappearing from Voyager's sensors. The crew begins to try to track the shuttle, but soon the Cochrane reappears, Paris unconscious at the controls. Once awake, Paris explains that he had already seen everything at every point in space, and the shuttle's database similarly contains a massive amount of information about the Delta Quadrant. However, Paris starts to suffer allergic reactions, and he is raced to Sickbay, where the Doctor determines that Paris is now allergic to common water. Paris's body soon changes again, and no longer can process oxygen, forcing the Doctor to create a special environment that Paris can exist in.

Paris's body continues its strange transformations, the Doctor postulating that he is becoming a new form of life. Before the Doctor can use an "anti-proton" treatment to return Paris to his human form, Paris escapes, disrupts Voyager's internal systems, and kidnaps Janeway on the Cochrane. By the time the crew restores the damage Paris had done, the Cochrane has taken off to Warp 10. As Voyager follows the shuttle's trail, eventually coming to a planet covered with swamps, the Doctor explains that the mutation patterns in Paris' DNA are consistent with those of evolution. Near the shuttle, they discover two amphibian beings, with trace DNA of Paris and Janeway. The two have mated and have had three offspring. The crew-members recover their transformed crew-members to be returned to human form by the Doctor, and leave the offspring behind.

• The mutated Tom Paris was made into an action figure, with his three offspring as accessories.[3]
• The writing staff was dissatisfied with the quality of the episode, to the point that Brannon Braga later called it a "royal, steaming stinker" on the commentary for the DVD release.[4]^{:1, 7}
• Jeri Taylor commented that the fans were appalled at the episode, mainly centred on the implausible idea that the two stars were turned into salamanders. "It is not one that took with the audience. The fact that we were turning people into salamanders was offensive to a lot of people and just stupid to others."[5]
• After Robert Duncan McNeill read the script initially, he had trouble understanding it. He later referred to it as bizarre.

Star Trek has been analyzed by real world scientists.[6] In The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss, which includes a foreword by Stephen Hawking, the show's presentation of faster than light travel, what the show calls "warp drive" is discussed including going warp 10.[6] According to the scale presented in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Warp 10 would be infinite velocity.[6] However, they note that in other cases fictional spacecraft are reported to be going faster than Warp 10 and recommended, "One shouldn't concern oneself unduly with the details."[6] For warp drive in general, it was noted that it may not be impossible, calling it a "nonimpossibility", however there was some concern for repercussions of such a technology in regards to the equations of General Relativity and in particular travelers are implied to have negative energy.[6]

Similarly, Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Genetics, Evolution, and Life on Other Worlds[7] by Mohamed A. F. Noor discusses how such extreme mutation is more likely to result in cancers or death than transmutation, the genetic mutations were too repeatable, and the speed of change was remarkably fast. The book suggests some of these problems may be allayed very slightly if the changes were epigenetic rather than genetic, but the premise is an extreme stretch in the biology either way.

In 2018, a biologist and fan of Star Trek wrote up a research paper based on this episode. He submitted it to 10 open-access journals known or suspected of charging fees without providing services such as peer review and vetting of the paper's claims. Four accepted the paper and one, the American Research Journal of Biosciences, published it.[8] The science in this episode, as well as this journal publication, are discussed in an educational video.[9]

In 2015, "Threshold" was included in Geek.com's 35 greatest moments in Star Trek— they ranked Tom Paris hitting Warp 10 as the 30th greatest moment of all Star Trek.[10]

In 2018, CBR included this episode in a list of Star Trek episodes that are "so bad they must be seen".[11] In 2012, Den of Geek listed this as the worst episode of Star Trek: Voyager.[12] Fox ranked this episode as the fourth worst episode of all Star Trek up to 2018.[13]

Den of Geek included this episode on a binge watching guide that included a roadmap of episodes, that although not typically achieving high ratings were still entertaining.[14]

In 2017, Screen Rant ranked this episode the 5th worst episode of the Star Trek franchise.[15]

In July 2019, Screen Rant ranked "Threshold" as one of the top five worst of the series, despite what they felt was a good start to the episode.[16]

• Shuttlecraft (Star Trek)

Wikiquote has quotations related to: "Threshold"

• "Threshold" at IMDb
• "Threshold" at TV.com

• "Threshold" at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• "Threshold" at StarTrek.com
• "Threshold" reviewed in The Agony Booth