In the fifteenth episode of the second season of Voyager, what the fuck is wrong with the people who wrote this. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For talk of rape, consent, body horror.
I’ve never seen an episode go from spectacular to awful in such a quick span of time. This has to be a record. It has to be! Because until the scene on that unnamed planet, I was transfixed by Tom’s transformation, by the unknown horror of break Warp 10, by Tom’s desperation to prove himself and deal with the consequences, by this very personal story that concerned one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs we’ve ever seen on a Star Trek show.
I’d like to talk about that but I’m not going to. I’m going to tell you all that if you are going to write a show – be it fantasy or science fiction or some other genre – you need to stop doing this thing that “Threshold†does. Stop writing sex scenes without considering consent. The end of this episode is so atrocious that I feel like I’m wasting my time even giving it any critical attention, but here goes:
THERE IS NO WAY JANEWAY CONSENTED TO BEING KIDNAPPED, FORCIBLY TURNED INTO A SALAMANDER, AND HAVING TOM PARIS’S SALAMANDER BABIES. The fact that I had to type that horrific sentence is your fault, Voyager, and I hate you for it. Let’s put aside the fact that Tom’s transformation takes days to complete, and yet Janeway transforms in what seems like an hour or two. Let’s also discard the completely unexplained notion that humans breaking Warp 10 would de-evolve or evolve into weird salamanders. Let’s also ignore the fact that there is no species ever that can procreate, gestate, and have children in the span of minutes.
I am merely going to focus on the asinine trope that constantly pops up in genre shows where a person cannot consent to sex, and yet the writers play it off as just an awkwardly humorous event. NO. NO. AND THAT BULLSHIT LIKE JANEWAY GIVES WHERE SHE SAYS “oh maybe i initiated it, ha ha, wink wink, nudge nudge†IS UTTER BULLSHIT AND YOU KNOW IT. SHE WOULD NOT HAVE INITIATED THIS IN ANY UNIVERSE, I HATE IT SO MUCH, OH MY GOD. This is rape. The end!!! If Tom was controlled by other forces, then fine, state that, but don’t just pretend like they kissed for a brief second in a wacky mix-up. JANEWAY HAD SALAMANDER BABIES.
I’m so disappointed in this episode, y’all. It started off so good, but now I’ll forever associate it with sexual assault salamanders. GREAT.
The video for “Threshold†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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