The best Star Trek fan event of the year joyfully celebrates the franchise’s worst episode

Star Trek fans celebrate a lot of holidays. There’s Star Trek Day on Sept. 8, the anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series. There’s First Contact Day on April 5, the anniversary of the fictional date on which humanity made first contact with Vulcan visitors. One might even celebrate Captain Picard Day on June 16, the Gregorian calendar date that corresponds with a yearly tribute put on by schoolchildren living on the Enterprise-D. But none of them are quite like Threshold Day, a yearly social media extravaganza — primarily held on Tumblr — that features gifs, memes, and lots and lots of fan art of three enormous, juvenile salamanders. Because Threshold Day, held on Jan. 29, joyfully celebrates the anniversary of what’s widely regarded to be one of the worst episodes of Star Trek ever made. With this year’s ninth annual Threshold Day gaining acknowledgement from sources as diverse as Tumblr’s official trends blog and Captain Janeway actor Kate Mulgrew herself, Polygon reached out to Sif, who originated Threshold Day through their Trek-themed Tumblr blogs, to see if we could discover the true meaning of Threshold Day season and better keep it in our hearts year round. [Media: https://bsky.app/profile/thekatemulgrew.bsky.social/post/3lgvpqlkxgk2x] “[Threshold Day] really started as me being a contrarian,” Sif told Polygon via email. “I was in a Voyager rewatch late 2015/early 2016 and I found the negativity surrounding Threshold to be bothersome. There is room for as many opinions in a fandom as there are Trekkies, of course. But the general consensus seemed to be that the episode was so bad that we should scrub it from canon. As the 20th anniversary was coming up [on Jan. 29, 2016], I instead decided to have a day only about Threshold. “It was a bonkers idea — spending a day blogging only about an episode that creator Brannon Braga himself called ‘A royal, steaming stinker’.” We asked Sif if they could sum up the plot of “Threshold” in a single sentence and they replied: “Local man experiences rapid personal and physical growth — does not care for it.” That really sums it up, but let’s go into the details anyway. “Threshold” is the 15th episode of the second season of Star Trek: Voyager, written by staff scribe Brannon Braga and directed by Alexander Singer, that premiered on Jan. 29, 1996. It largely focuses on hotshot pilot Lieutenant Tom Paris, who devises an untested method to allow Voyager to reach warp 10, thought to be a “threshold” too dangerous to cross. (The definition of warp 10 has changed over time, and this writer, while a big Trek fan, is simply not of the specific variety of Trek fan who can unpack why reaching warp 10 is dangerous.) The potential of this discovery is particularly important, given that the entire conceit of Voyager is that even at its maximum speed, the titular ship faces a 70-year-minimum journey home to Federation space. Paris’ breakthrough could potentially allow the crew to return home instantaneously. And so, against medical advice, Paris outfits one of Voyager’s shuttles as a test craft and successfully breaks the warp 10 barrier. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/215-threshold-474.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] Which is where things start to get really, really weird. Apparently, breaking warp 10 has some knock-on effects on an organism, and Paris begins to undergo a grotesque transformation. His tongue and hair fall out, his skin grows sallow and spotted, he becomes allergic to water, he stops being able to breathe oxygen, and he begins behaving irrationally. Later, the ship’s doctor outright calls this a natural, albeit accelerated, arc of human evolution, saying, “It’s possible that Mr. Paris represents a future stage in human development, although I can’t say it’s very attractive.” At the climax of the episode, an unrecognizable Paris abducts Captain Janeway, hops into the test shuttle, and zips off at warp 10. In the final five minutes of “Threshold,” the Voyager catches up with them in the jungles of an unnamed planet and uncovers shocking results: Paris and Janeway have not only both transformed into enormous salamander/lizard-type creatures, they’ve procreated. First Officer Chakotay recovers Paris and Janeway, the doctor reverses their transformations without ill effects, the Voyager leaves three evolved human-salamander-lizard… infants? behind on the planet, and none of the characters ever talk about this again. [Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22crRx9DH5Y] Braga, who wrote the teleplay, famously (well, Star Trek fan famously) shared his retrospective take on “Threshold” in the special features of a Voyager home video release. “People are very unforgiving about that episode. I’ve written well over 100 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.” But hey, the reception wasn’t totally bad. “Threshold” was awarded one of seven Emmys given to Voyager over its run, for Outstanding Makeup for a Series for the prosthetics that gradually transformed actor Robert Duncan McNeill into a half-man half-salamander. And Braga is right to note, as he does in the same special feature clip, that the episode has some solid ideas at its foundation. Star Trek is no stranger to wild transformations sparked by new discoveries. It’s in the execution where “Threshold” earns its ire: paper-thin justification for Paris’ transformation, the episode’s far-out climax, its whiplash-inducing conclusion, and the way it hangs together (that is to say, it doesn’t at all) with the broader conceit of Voyager. “Threshold” struggles with evolution in more ways than one — all television was evolving in the late 1990s. Occupying a messy place between Star Trek: The Next Generation’s strict episodic nature and Deep Space Nine’s overarching continuity, Voyager was still largely an episodic series where nothing in last week’s show would be referenced in this one’s — like that the original Harry Kim had died and been replaced by an identical Harry Kim from another timeline, for example. [Media: https://www.tumblr.com/lilvoyagercomics/773997597100851200/happy-threshold-day-to-all-who-observe?source=share] But Voyager also wasn’t strictly episodic: Its characters did grow, change, start new relationships, and experience lasting consequences. It’s not for nothing that one of the most popular ways Threshold Day celebrants have found to participate in the holiday is to make fan art and fanfiction imagining what would have happened if the salamander babies hadn’t been abandoned — up to and including drawing them as cadets at Starfleet Academy. “I think imaginations about Paris and Janeway raising their salamander children also speaks to one of the most glaring plot holes that the episode represents — its lack of permanence,” Sif told Polygon. “[The warp 10 drive] had to be swept under the rug because it presented the crew with a viable way to get home, albeit temporarily salamandered. So when people imagine the babies on board, it is also a poke at how none of what happened in the episode is ever mentioned again, despite logically having huge ramifications. Not the least for Paris and Janeway’s personal relationship. How do you move on from having salamander offspring with your boss? I know my next day at the office would be awkward. “The idea of Janeway and Paris from season 2 onwards having 3 salamander children to care for is silly, but if we view it as a stand-in for imagining permanent change on Voyager it makes sense.” As of 2025, Sif has seen nine Threshold Days to completion, and watched the celebration grow from their own blogs and mutuals to something so large they can no longer keep track of all the memes and art. “Multiple people over the years” have told them that Threshold Day convinced them to start watching Star Trek: Voyager, and “that warms [their] heart.” [Media: https://www.tumblr.com/carpblu/740860282554007553/hi-everyone-happy-threshold-day-i-did-a-pottery] Sif told Polygon that Threshold Day has trended in top 3 on Tumblr every Jan. 29 since 2021 or 2022. The official Star Trek X account posting Threshold Day art in 2022 also felt like a big milestone of just how far the celebration has come. [Media: https://www.tumblr.com/theartmeg/773993550108114944/its-that-magical-day-of-the-yearhappy-threshold] “Around 2021 I started spending less time on Tumblr and I thought that the holiday might not survive my absence, but much to my delight it has grown way beyond me,” Sif said. “The first few years it was me and a few other people doing our thing, but now there is such a myriad of memes, crafting projects, pictures of people’s pepperoni pizzas, tattoos, art and various polls, that I leave every Threshold Day completely overwhelmed by all the love for this one silly little episode.” As a Trek fan, Sif came to the franchise between 2005, when Star Trek: Enterprise aired its final episode, and 2009, when J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek hit theaters — a dormant time for Star Trek productions, but not Star Trek fandom. “It was such a joy finding a huge, vibrant community that had been going for 40 years and did not care at all that there was no new content in the pipeline,” Sif wrote. “Of course, the upcoming 15 years flooded us with content. But time and ‘new content’ is irrelevant in the Star Trek fandom. When you realize that you have found people willing to spend 29 years obsessing over the same 2 minutes of grainy footage of an amphibian creature speculating over whether it is a salamander or a lizard, you will never want to go anywhere else.” They pointed out that while Threshold Day has started to trend on Tumblr on every Jan. 29, Star Trek Day, Trek’s most officially embraced holiday, does not. “The allure of Threshold Day is that it is about shit posting. It is about being silly. Official Star Trek holidays are great to talk about the franchise as a whole and what we love about it. But while Star Trek Day is someone holding a beautiful speech about a hopeful future — Threshold Day is the rager next door where people blast loud music and swing from the ceiling lights. Of course people will want to join the party. That is the duality of the Star Trek fandom, that I know and love.” Taken as one star in the broad constellation of fandom holidays — like May 4’s Star Wars Day, Nov. 23’s Doctor Who Day, Bilbo’s birthday (The Lord of the Rings), N7 Day (Mass Effect), Oct. 3 (Fullmetal Alchemist, Mean Girls) — Threshold Day stands boldly apart, not as a celebration of what’s great about its subject, but of a time when it truly took an enormous, silly pratfall. And in the opinion of this writer, at least, a fandom that’s comfortable admitting that its franchise doesn’t have a 100% hit rate is a healthier community than not. Threshold Day doesn’t just admit, Star Trek falls down sometimes, and that’s OK. It says, Star Trek falls down sometimes — let’s throw a party about it. [Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tssvdg0e_qQ] “Of course it never occurred to me when I first [started] celebrating Threshold Day that it would become that big,” Sif told Polygon. “I was just having fun. But it turns out, people like having fun. And several people over the years have shared that Threshold Day helped them through dark times, having something to look forward to. That it helped them through January. They tell me they look forward to this day all year. It makes people smile and nothing can be more worthwhile. “Fandom is supposed to be fun. We can have serious discussions as well, of course. I once wrote a post about the similarities between Threshold and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. But it is about enjoying ourselves. So if I want people to take anything from Threshold Day, it is that we can create the fandom experience we want to have.”