Threshold: Why we should be proud

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I've been thinking about Threshold recently, and I think we Voyager fans need to be proud of it. Every series has its clunkers but does any other series have something this outlandish? Sure Barclay devolved into a spider but in Threshold we got mutating into creatures AND mating. No other series has mutating and mating combined. No other series had the mutated Captain and one of her crew mating and breeding together with children we actually get to see. Impregnanting Trip in ENT is nothing compared to this.

And all of this happened at the end of a perfectly normal episode about the challenges of achieving a faster warp speed than had been done before.

This all came to mind the other night when I was watching Farscape. Within 10 minutes of the episode starting I knew what the story was.. a non-coporeal alien is feeding on the negative emotions of humans. I was actually yelling at the screen, NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN!! That trope needs to be banned from sci fi. Anyway.. in my extreme irritation it popped into my head that at least Voyager's lowest point was not some over done hackneyed storyline but instead actually shocks people the first time they see it. How often do you watch Trek and think "WTF is this?!?!" Not too often. Maybe at the end of Catspaw, before they remastered it and you could still see the strings.

Threshold has also provided us with endless jesting about the abandoned amphibian babies as well as Janeway and Paris. No one is jesting about Trip's nipple because it was a lowbrow joke about men getting pregnant rather than an absolutely bizarre development that stunned the audience.

People love to hate it.. and we should be proud of that love because most bad Trek people are just meh about.

I know I've posted this one before but it still cracks me up..

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpJ6dVMYuzc&feature=player_embedded[/yt]



I see Threshold is under discussion in one of the review threads, but that threads about to move on to the next ep.. and Threshold deserves a dedicated thread.

 

[Lynx]

"Threshold" was a bad episode-but not as bad as many people think it is.

The story was stupid and unrealistic but the episode was also funny in many ways.

Try to imagine "Threshold" as nothing but a nightmare Paris had after eating too much of Neelix's food. Then it's actually funny.

Not to mention that "Threshold" wasn't insulting in the same way as two other Voyager episodes which I won't go into now.

As for the comparision with other Trek series, I must state that Voyager had fewer really bad episodes than TNG. I love TNG and it was a great series but I must state that there were some really bad episodes in every season. In fact, I just had to start watching an episode where Lwaxana Troi or Worf's son Alexander showed up to start screaming "Oh no, it's gonna be one of those episodes!" Or when Troi (who I actually like) had one of her romances which in most cases ended bad.

Voyager were more even with fewer bum episodes.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I know I've posted this one before but it still cracks me up..

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpJ6dVMYuzc&feature=player_embedded[/yt]

What the hell was that?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Actually, I had Paris and Janeway pegged as a couple from Caretaker.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Try to imagine "Threshold" as nothing but a nightmare Paris had after eating too much of Neelix's food. Then it's actually funny.

A nightmare with this bizarre fantasy fulfillment interlude in the middle when he and the Captain..

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Try to imagine "Threshold" as nothing but a nightmare Paris had after eating too much of Neelix's food. Then it's actually funny.

A nightmare with this bizarre fantasy fulfillment interlude in the middle when he and the Captain..

As lizards, no less. I've had some weird dreams that left me head-scratching upon waking up, but I never dreamed that I had a, er, romantic interlude with my boss after both of us devolved into lizards.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Lizard sex is pretty hot. And scaly. Trust me.

On the other hand, Paris and Janeway turned into salamanders, not lizards. Disgusting little buggers, all of them.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

But moist.

 

[R. Star]

Lizard sex is pretty hot. And scaly. Trust me.

On the other hand, Paris and Janeway turned into salamanders, not lizards. Disgusting little buggers, all of them.

Go figure the episode title wasn't talking about the Warp 10 barrier, but Lizard Porn.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Are there any fanfics about the Paris/Janeway salamander babies growing up?

 

[sonak]

I never got the extreme hatred for "Threshold." It's dumb but highly watchable and entertaining. Episodes like "The Fight" and "Spirit Folk" are much, much worse.

I'll take dumb but entertaining over boring chore to sit through.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Lizard sex is pretty hot. And scaly. Trust me.

On the other hand, Paris and Janeway turned into salamanders, not lizards. Disgusting little buggers, all of them.

Go figure the episode title wasn't talking about the Warp 10 barrier, but Lizard Porn.

Why had this never occurred to me before! That's excellent. It's great how after all these years someone can post something which enhances your appreciation of an episode.

I never got the extreme hatred for "Threshold." It's dumb but highly watchable and entertaining. Episodes like "The Fight" and "Spirit Folk" are much, much worse.

I'll take dumb but entertaining over boring chore to sit through.

Exactly.

I think the extreme hatred is mostly embarrassment.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Lizard sex is pretty hot. And scaly. Trust me.

On the other hand, Paris and Janeway turned into salamanders, not lizards. Disgusting little buggers, all of them.

Go figure the episode title wasn't talking about the Warp 10 barrier, but Lizard Porn.

Why had this never occurred to me before! That's excellent. It's great how after all these years someone can post something which enhances your appreciation of an episode.

"Can I get through your threshold, Captain? I promise I will be gentle."

"Nobody asked you to be gentle, Lieutenant."

 

[Alpha Flyer]

Are there any fanfics about the Paris/Janeway salamander babies growing up?

There's quite a bit of fan fic about that, mostly as awful as the whole kizzard part of that ep. And one very promising but not finished (yet) piece, by Runawaymetaphor (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7678405/1/The-Becoming).

But as I said in the review thread teacake mentions, there are some good bits about the episode that people tend to throw out with the swamp water -- some quite good Paris character parts, about insecurity and high expectations. Unfortunately most people don't bother to look, and that's a shame.

Early on in my "career" as a fanfic writer I wrote a smutlet called "Questions" -- my major venture into the whole idea of Janeway-Paris as a potential couple. You can find it at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6862860/1/Questions. I most deliberately did NOT address the kizzards as such, because those last 15 minutes wrecked what could have been a really good episode. So I simply chose to ignore that part...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The most disturbing part of Threshold is that Janeway and Paris didn't seem to care about their children. Troi cared about her begotten in a weird and alien way child.

 

[Xhiandra]

No other series had the mutated Captain and one of her crew mating and breeding together with children we actually get to see. Impregnanting Trip in ENT is nothing compared to this.

You probably meant no other Trek series, but, even so it's close enough: Red Dwarf combines both for awesome results: Lister gets impregnated by his mirror-universe female counterpart.

 

[Alpha Flyer]

The most disturbing part of Threshold is that Janeway and Paris didn't seem to care about their children. Troi cared about her begotten in a weird and alien way child.

Nobody seems to have cared about those kids. I mean - Tuvok and Chakotay (supposedly the most ethical of people) made the decision to just leave them there, when the supposed parents weren't in any position to consent or object. One of the reasons I simply ignore those last 15 minutes of the show.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

No other series had the mutated Captain and one of her crew mating and breeding together with children we actually get to see. Impregnanting Trip in ENT is nothing compared to this.

You probably meant no other Trek series, but, even so it's close enough: Red Dwarf combines both for awesome results: Lister gets impregnated by his mirror-universe female counterpart.

I must have missed that one

Does he have the baby?

The most disturbing part of Threshold is that Janeway and Paris didn't seem to care about their children. Troi cared about her begotten in a weird and alien way child.

Nobody seems to have cared about those kids. I mean - Tuvok and Chakotay (supposedly the most ethical of people) made the decision to just leave them there, when the supposed parents weren't in any position to consent or object. One of the reasons I simply ignore those last 15 minutes of the show.

I prefer to wonder why rather than ignore it. One thing that never gets addressed is if the salamanders are even sentient. Is the peak of evolution actually a devolution? Since Janeway was hellbent on determining sentience in all kinds of stuff it seems that they must have decided these were nothing more than salamanders.

 

[R. Star]

The most disturbing part of Threshold is that Janeway and Paris didn't seem to care about their children. Troi cared about her begotten in a weird and alien way child.

You'd think the technobabble whatever that reversed them could be applied to the babies too.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The most disturbing part of Threshold is that Janeway and Paris didn't seem to care about their children. Troi cared about her begotten in a weird and alien way child.

You'd think the technobabble whatever that reversed them could be applied to the babies too.

Maybe that's what happens in the fanfics.

And yes you would think they would want to save these babies from dying alone in the mud, eaten by some predator. You would think they would want to reverse them into human babies.