ReceptionEdit
This episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 6.2 million homes, and a 9% share. [6] It was the third most watched episode of Voyager's second season (on first airing).
Despite this, the episode proved to be highly unpopular among viewers. Shortly after the installment first aired, Jeri Taylor remarked, "We're taking a lot of flak for that. There's been a real lashing out. I recognize that people who are on the Internet and who write us letters are a tiny portion of our audience, but when it is as overwhelming as it was on this episode, you begin to take notice." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
In 2003, seven years after having written the installment, Brannon Braga said, "It's a terrible episode. People are very unforgiving about that episode. I've written well over a hundred episodes of Star Trek, yet it seems to be the only episode anyone brings up, you know? 'Brannon Braga, who wrote 'Threshold'!' Out of a hundred and some episodes, you're gonna have some stinkers! Unfortunately, that was a royal, steaming stinker." (VOY Season 2 DVD "easter egg")
At the 2009 New Jersey Star Trek convention, Kate Mulgrew remarked to the audience that "Threshold" was the episode of Star Trek: Voyager she was most uncomfortable with, noting that she didn't like the thought of mating with Paris as a lizard. [7]
This episode was also a failure to critics, frequently being voted as the worst ever episode of Star Trek: Voyager and even the worst episode of Star Trek in general. (Delta Quadrant, p. 97)
Cinefantastique rated this episode 1 out of 4 stars. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 92)
Star Trek Monthly also scored this episode 1 out of 5 stars, defined as "Total gagh!". (Star Trek Monthly issue 15, p. 60)
The unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 97) gives this installment a rating of 4 out of 10.
The book Star Trek 101, by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block, cites this episode as the Star Trek: Voyager winner of the "Spock's Brain" Award and states that, of the entire Voyager series, this installment is the one "most likely to give Darwin a migraine."
Indeed, from the earliest response to this episode up to the present day, the episode has repeatedly been accused of being scientifically flawed. Robert Duncan McNeill noted, "Some of the fans sort of questioned the science of it." (Star Trek Monthly issue 37, p. 44) In the interview that Jeri Taylor gave shortly after the episode's first broadcast, she said of the negative initial response to the episode, "Some of this anger was misplaced, I thought. A lot of the ire seemed to be caused by the fact that we stated no one had ever gone warp ten before, and people flooded us with letters saying, 'That's not true, in the original series they went warp twelve and warp thirteen.' We should have had a crawl before the episode explaining all this, but it really was a recalibration of warp speed." Of the depiction of Human de-evolution, Taylor commented, "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." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
In Rick Sternbach's on-line newsgroup (posted on 17 March 1999), Sternbach referred to this installment as "the silly Warp 10 episode" and offered a highly technical reinterpretation of the episode's events. [8]
Despite its lack of popularity, this episode of Star Trek: Voyager was one of only a few that were commemorated by Playmates Toys, with the launch of an episode-specific Voyager action figure release. In this case, the release was an action figure of the episode's hyper-evolved Tom Paris, complete with a phaser and his three mutant offspring.
Furthermore, the episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup for a Series; Robert Duncan McNeill noted that putting on his makeup here "helped them win an Emmy." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #11) This episode beat out DS9: "The Visitor", which was nominated in the same category.
During the fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager, Robert Duncan McNeill hoped for more opportunities where, like in this installment, he could expand his range as an actor. "I'd actually like to do more of that kind of thing; I'd like to see Paris have some really wild experiences in the future." (Star Trek Monthly issue 37, p. 44)
i'm gonna get you that action figure, tarrant.
