VOY: “Threshold”

Date: September 29, 2020

Season 2, Episode 15

Musical Accompaniment: Some autumn porch ambience on this rainy night

Interstellar News: Why can’t it already be mid-October? WHY?

TL;DR: Paris makes it to warp 10, passing the warp threshold, but then he’s suddenly allergic to water and can’t breathe the ship’s air. Paris dies and then isn’t dead because he developed a second heart. He goes through millions of years of evolution in a 24 hour period, kidnaps Janeway, and they disappear in a shuttlecraft at warp 10. Voyager eventually finds them but they both look like catfish with arms and apparently procreated. Chakotay stuns Paris and Janeway, catfish edition, and takes them to the EMH for fixing but HE LEAVES THE BABIES TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES LIKE SOME KIND OF MONSTER. The EMH works his magic and Janeway and Paris are back to their usual, human selves.

Favorite Quotes:

EMH: Hmm. It looks like he’s having an allergic reaction. What did he ingest?

Torres: Just a cup of Neelix’s coffee.

EMH: It’s a miracle he’s still alive.

The EMH providing us with more sass than one could ever hope for.

Chakotay: I don’t know how I’m going to enter this into the log.

Tuvok: I look forward to reading it.

Chakotay reacting to the three babies that emerged from the cave and Tuvok giving us the best response ever, in his Vulcan deadpan.

“Wake up, Lieutenant!”: Every time the EMH speaks, it’s magic. He’s got sass and snark for days and he delivers it with such authority. Aside from the EMH, though, this episode bounced around a hell of a lot. We start off with Kim, Paris, and Torres trying to solve what amounts to a Millennium Prize problem and Neelix saves the day with a story that helps the team achieve transwarp, along with the new dilithium they found. Suddenly the story turns into a horror medical mystery surrounding Paris who made the test flight and he evolves or devolves or something, and it’s gross and weird but okay I can deal with it. BUT THEN HE KIDNAPS HIS CAPTAIN AND THEY PROCREATE AND HAVE BABIES in the span of like three days, which is stupid and wrong and did I mention stupid?

Oh, but that’s not the “best” part. CHAKOTAY LEAVES THE BABIES TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES on an uninhabited planet. Will they be able to live without their parents? Are there predators on the surface? Does Janeway or Paris want to raise them? What an absolutely awful decision. I mean maybe the EMH can de-evolve them or something… they did that in Super Mario Bros. Oh and then there’s this one dude who keeps sending stuff to the Kazon but it’s like one line last episode and one line this time in the middle of everything so it’s so easy to forget. Though it was about the warp 10 stuff so I’m now giggling over the thought of a Kazon starfish or something silly. Anyway, after the medical stuff it turns into a kidnap-rape-evolution story that I have no idea how we got to or why. In the end Voyager is still stuck going warp 9.9 or slower, poor babies. I give this 3 paper flower bouquets… but only because of the EMH and in memory of those poor baby fishy things.

TA Out!