Threshold

* (1 star out of 5)

This is your brain. This is your brain on speeds above Warp 10. Or, if you like, this is 'Spock's Brain' on speed.

Finally, the answer to the question no one ever asked: what happens if you accelerate beyond Warp 10? Screw the Warp 5 speed limit! What if you break the speed limit of infinite velocity?

Well, stupidly, you see everything everywhere all at once. Then you become everything everywhere or something. Followed by death, some slight Time-Lord-ism, and moderate to extreme flakiness. In every sense of the word. Thomas Paris sheds his skin and tongue, or as they call it in the business, "Going Full Brundlefly".

In short order, Paris has "evolved" into a giant salamander, kidnapped the Captain to salamanderize her as well, followed by a whirlwind courtship and pregnancy. I use the word "evolved" because the episode does, though I'm unclear on how stumpy, useless limbs and atrophied sense of parental responsibility could possibly be good for species survivability.

I'm not prejudiced against mutants. Ninja Turtles? Like 'em. Monster stories? Like 'em. Not all of them, but a lot of them. This is not one of them. It's a horrible mess, and if there's something to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, it's that Star Trek doesn't make appalling episodes like this one all that often.

It's hard to say what's worst for me about "Threshold". The blasphemy? The Scientific Balderdash? Heroes abandoning their offspring from a one-night stand without a second thought or backward glance? I had to seriously consider adding a rating LOWER than one star. But I usually like Braga's writing, the make-up got an Emmy, and somebody had to build those fucking catfish puppets. Plus I can't fault the acting: they are chewing all the scenery they're supposed to. Sometimes it's nobody's fault: sometimes big, unfixable, glaring, brain-melting mistakes just happen.