On January 29 , 1996 , the humanity was introduced to two bizarre , vaguely humanoid , lizard - alligator - catfish creatureson Star Trek : Voyager . Only these were n’t the newest aliens to be encountered by the Starfleet crew . Instead , they were Captain Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ) and Flight Officer Tom Paris ( Robert Duncan McNeill ) . And they ’d just had lizard babies .
“ Threshold ” is considered one of , if not the , worstepisodes of Voyagerand it ’s candidly a minuscule voiceless to refute . thing start well enough in a traditional Star Trek - ian manner : Tom Paris film an data-based voyage in an effort to become the first being to ever cross the Warp 10 roadblock . He briefly succeed , find it essentially send his cognisance to every point in the universe of discourse simultaneously for a tiny bit . When he recoalesces , he ’s a minuscule befuddle , and then he start mutate , and experience much more discombobulated .
( Just in case you did n’t watch the entire TV above , I do need to inform the mutation do Paris to vomit out his tongue , which is quite something ! )
“Captain’s orders—get me 40 lbs. of insects and a half-filled aquarium built for two.”Image: CBS/Paramount
During a potential handling to turn back him to human form , Paris breaks out , grabs Janeway , steal a ship , and escapes at Warp 10 again . A few days afterward , the Doctor ( Robert Picardo ) finally has a theory about what ’s happening to the former flight officer , which is substantive to understand why this “ Threshold ” is so infamous : The Doctor believes that achieving Warp 10 has n’t cause Paris to mutate , but evolve at an astonishing pace — he might be reach out an evolutionary apex that the rest of humanity wo n’t accomplish for millions of age . It ’s weird to think human beings would eventually grow out of a penury for tongue , but development can be wacky that way . Still , when the stolen craftsmanship is regain on a removed major planet , evolution has been far , far wackier than anticipate :
Yes , humanity ’s futurity will be as amphibious , four-footed lizards . Not lizardmen , lizards . With catfish whiskers . But there ’s one affair phylogenesis has n’t changed : The desire to keep one ’s species alive . So lounge lizard - Janeway and lizard - Paris lounge lizard - fucked , lizard - Janeway had lounge lizard - sister , and the non - lizard on the Voyager crew grabbed their former fellow officers and forsake those lizard - babies as quickly as humanly possible .
I ’m an super chance Trek fan at best , but it does strike me that leaving beast that are technically children of two Voyager crewmembers on a satellite that they ’re not from — and could be in danger of getting kill or destroying the native eco - organisation — shot with the Prime Directive . It ’s even eldritch when you wonder that , since Janeway and Paris can be ( and are ) turn back into humans , those are three potentially human tike being ditched on the side of the galactic road . Then there ’s , you know , the whole fact two main characters on the show turned into lizards and had sex of extremely dubious consensuality .
But the gaga part to me is the show ’s utterly banana possibility that these thing are humanity ’s evolutionary future tense . It turn out that was n’t primitively the idea for the episode , though . Longtime Trek producer and film writer for the episode , Brannon Braga said in Captains ’ Log Supplemental : The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages ( as recorded byMemory Alpha ):
It ’s very much a classic Star Trek story , but in the revision process I took out the account , the idea behind the ending , that we evolve into these footling lizards because peradventure evolution is not always progressive . Maybe it ’s a cycle where we revert to something more rudimentary . That whole conversation was take out for various reason , and that was a disaster because without it the episode does n’t even have a peak . I think it suffered greatly .
Yeah , that probably should have been made exculpated . Still , happy 25th birthday to Steve , Debbie Jo , and Slitherbert Janeway - Paris , wherever you are .
https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-voyagers-must-watch-episodes-1843052360
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