Thirty years ago, Star Trek: Voyager aired one of its most controversial episodes ever: “Threshold,” the episode now known as “The One Where Captain Janeway and Tom Paris Mutate Into Amphibians and Have Baby.” Over the years, revisiting has allowed the opportunity to reframe “Threshold” from one of the worst things that Star Trek already done in a charming memetic moment of camp to an episode that, while deeply flawed, still there are sparks of potential.

So to mark 30 years this time walking so bad, we’ve decided to put aside the amphibian sex jokes in space (except for what we’ve already done—please, we’re only human) and look back at one of the sparks of potential, a bright spot in a silly episode: what “Threshold” had to say VoyagerRebel conn officer, Tom Paris.

In the early times of Star Trek: Voyagerone of the few recurring arcs that the show consistently does from episode to episode is the transformation of Lieutenant Paris. Tom joins the show with a shockingly chaotic background: an ex-Starfleet officer who was fired for covering up a pilot’s error, imprisoned for running a small arm of the Cardassian resistance group known as the Maquis, and then paroled by Captain Janeway for what was intended to be a short test run for his new ship rather than a 70,000 year trip from a galaxy trip.

Almost everyone is there Voyager in its early days moved with a sense of sadness that their lives and the future they had planned were destroyed in the blink of an eye, but not Paris. Paris fulfills his wish, piloting a top-of-the-line starship, even biting his thumb at the Maquis who joined VoyagerThe crew is in dire straits, and the only Starfleet authority to answer to is the woman who trusts him enough to give him a second chance at first. It is often seen in a particular way in those early days: Tom is a big, arrogant asshole, even if he is sincerely trying to prove that the faith placed in him is justified.

That brings us to “Threshold” and Tom’s totally excited, but desperate, idea to find a way to break the titular Warp 10 threshold—the long-established one. Star Trek Know that warp drives cannot reach faster than light speeds above that maximum. It’s an interesting idea that a show with a premise like Voyagerabout an isolated Starfleet ship stranded tens of thousands of light-years from Federation space, ready to face off, especially when one of its main characters is a cocky ace pilot with a chip on his padded uniform shoulder. That in and of itself is a brilliant way to show off Star TrekThe wider heritage even if it is isolated from it.

But that’s not the moment we’re talking about. That moment comes after Tom’s first experimental test flights successfully saw him manage a sustained speed above the warp threshold—and then there were medical complications as his body underwent what was ultimately revealed to be a rapid-onset acceleration of the evolutionary process. Tom’s body began to break down little by little, requiring constant medical treatment: his hair fell out, his eyes were glowing, his skin and skin were mottled, and his joints and limbs began to fuse. The spirited young hero of the moment turns out to be this broken, thriving-but-changing wreck of something.

It is in this form that “Threshold” gives the best chance. It’s an interesting grotesquerie: body horror is especially effective for walking and felt Voyager Building on its awesome effects worked with the Vidiians last season, which makes the fact that it’s one of our heroes so awesome. But it is the destruction of Paris’s persona that is most effective. The wild changes she went through almost felt like dropping a mask, both metaphorically and literally, as parts of her face wore off.

For a moment, he blamed Captain Janeway for taking pity on his monstrous form; the next, because he tries to minimize what he did to break the previous warp 10. His ego, often prevented by his strong desire to prove himself to the world and especially Janeway, is widespread, making a scene that cools and saddens in equal measures while he hesitates between the person we know and this unfortunate person. It is a good defeat of character for Paris to find himself again in the heart of an accident caused by his own hubris and to respond to it by compulsively striking the world around him-this time the ugliness that marks his soul, and the filters he has built while he is trying to redeem himself. VoyagerThe first days up to this point were stripped of his despair and pain, now visible outside.

Of course, that’s when we get to him kidnapping Janeway, forcing her to go through the same process, and they had space amphibian sex before. Voyager trying to move on from this, without bringing back the millennial dream workplace ethics. But before that moment would seal the infamous legacy of “Threshold” for decades to come, it shone for a moment of true brilliance. A good example of even some of the Star TrekThe lowest low with the least one thing worth thinking about.

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