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Just How Bad is S2E15 "Threshold?"

Orion's Belt 27

Ensign
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First time watching VOY due to the H&I channel broadcast; "Threshhold" is on for tonight and I'm just curious as to how bad it really is, given it's widely ignored.
 
I actually thought the first 20 minutes of the episode was pretty good. Still, more often than not it's how you finish, not how you start. Because Threshold lost it's way half way through, that's the aspect that fans remember the most.
 
It's someway watchable and it's kinda funny. It's superior to some of the early episodes on TNG, Voyager and DS9. So whilst we do have to prep up for some cringin', it ain't that big a deal really and it's not that fundamentally inferior to alot of Voyager episodes tbh imo.
 
I just watched it yesterday and forget how laughable it was. Oh my.

To be fair, it's probably more like Spock's Brain in watchability. It's definitely bad but I did laugh along to it.
 
The best way I can put it is that threshold leaves you laughing at the end in that "how could they have greenlit that?!" Sorta way, as opposed to just frustrated and bored. So there's that...
 
I'd have no problem re-watching it. (unlike TNG's Outrageous Okona which I would skip over for example)The dialogue isn't conspicuously clunky or anything. They just inserted some very daft stuff at the end of it.
 
I simply love it! It's a Tom Paris episode, you know ... even if aesthetically he is not the most attractive on this one.
Although that scene when he is wearing his bathrobe ... made it worth watching it ... :lol:
 
Some other users discussing it another thread said it was like, "WTF did I just watch"? If you've ever seen the original series episode Spock's Brain, well Threshold is worse.

On the other hand, there might be someone, somewhere that likes it because it is so bad. Like a "B" movie that is a cult classic.
 
I simply love it! It's a Tom Paris episode, you know ... even if aesthetically he is not the most attractive on this one.
Although that scene when he is wearing his bathrobe ... made it worth watching it ... :lol:
McNeill delivers his range here. Paris oscillates between anger, longing and despair in a way that's persuasive. If you are a fan of McNeill, this is the episode to watch as Paris is genuinely put through the mill. It's not Datalore, for example, where every actor clowns around, the dialogue is clunky from start to finish and daftness abounds from the intro to the credits. The issue here is the lunacy that has Paris and Janeway having a tryst as salamanders and producing an unwanted family of said salamanders. That has fandom not unreasonably howling with embarrassment but the legend of the "worst episode" is unjust. I had a good cackle at that as well but there's genuinely good parts that is lacking in the episodes that actually are clangers up and down and from beginning to end. The whole Warp 10 thing doesn't bother me particularly as Trek science is lacklustre at the best of times and if accept we that premise the way the characters involve themselves in the project with Paris' desire to lead it as pilot, is done pretty well.
 
I simply love it! It's a Tom Paris episode, you know ... even if aesthetically he is not the most attractive on this one.
Although that scene when he is wearing his bathrobe ... made it worth watching it ... :lol:
That's what I always said too. Love that robe
 
It depends on how you watch it.

If yo try to see it as a normal episode, you'll find the whole episode utterly rubbish.

But if you imagine it as some nightmare Paris had after eating too much of Neelix's food or being drugged by some halluciogenic stuff by the same Neelix as som sort of prank, then it's actually funny.
 
But if you imagine it as some nightmare Paris had after eating too much of Neelix's food or being drugged by some halluciogenic stuff by the same Neelix as som sort of prank, then it's actually funny.
Isn't that one of your head-canons for that episode?

Well, he did drink that coffee that Neelix made, but it turned out it was the water he was having a reaction to.
 
I like to pretend it was literally all just a dream.

After the simulation achieves "Warp 10" the flash is actually a computer feedback loop (like when you hold a microphone too close to a speaker) due to simulations overlapping simulations that activate a neural-synaptic cascade that overload's Tom's consciousness and knocks him out, and the rest of the episode is all in Tom's head.
 
Ludicrous "science", huge plotholes, yes.

But at least, it's not a boring episode. It can be quite entertaining if you manage not to get annoyed by the above.

Feels a bit like the writers were doing some drugs when making this one.


This is a good description of it. It's awful. Truly awful. But it is somewhat entertaining and is not dull at all. If you can turn your brain off it is quite watchable in a sense...but is still awful. For example, I could make a pretty decent case that 'Sub Rosa' is a worse episode [tedious, dull,...].
 
Some other users discussing it another thread said it was like, "WTF did I just watch"? If you've ever seen the original series episode Spock's Brain, well Threshold is worse.

On the other hand, there might be someone, somewhere that likes it because it is so bad. Like a "B" movie that is a cult classic.

It's the kind of entertainment Tom Paris would enjoy. It makes me wonder if it's a self-insert holodeck fan fiction of his.
 
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