This is THE worst episode of Voyager without a doubt, and probably the worst ever episode of any incarnation of Star Trek; it's even worse than TNG's first season and that takes some beating!
The plot is ridiculous, the dialogue is atrocious and the actors spend most of the episode looking like they're fantasizing about killing their agents for landing them in this steaming pile of poop.
The basic story sees the hapless Voyager crew use an experimental engine design (tested in the Holodeck no less!) to break the Warp 10 barrier (there goes decades of Trek continuity, not to mention the very, very vague scientific basis for the physics of Trek). Tom Paris is the lucky, lucky chap piloting the test shuttle. More by accident than design, the contraption seems to work, then Paris disappears (cue much false jepordy) before miraculously reappearing right next to Voyager (how kind of fate to drop Paris off right here in the suspiciously crowded Delta Quadrant - seriously half the Alpha Quad seems to land here in Voyager's run!)
Following all this 'excitement' the writers then have what appears to be a moment of absolute madness - the Warp 10 jump seems to cause Paris to die (yay!), revive (boo!), kindnap Janeway (eh?!) before taking her back onto the test shuttle through the W.10 barrier where they promptly both de-evolve into oversided Samalanders, mate and produce muntant amphibious offspring (Wtf?!?!) Yes folks seriously that's what happens.....no amount of alcohol or hallucinogenics could produce a script this bad, the only sane conclusion is that writer Brannon Braga secretly hated Trek and set out to sabotage the show with this intergalactic turkey (actually based on his later writing on Enterprise and Voyager's later years that's not an unreasonable hypothesis)
There is nothing remotely redeemable about this episode, Voyager itself was a show which was riddled by internal inconsistencies elaborated on by other reviewers, one of its worst being the 'reset button' phenomenon - at the end of each episode everything just reverts to normal, everyone plods on trudging their way through duff scripts and stock nebula footage hoping a passing Borg or some wayward Romulans to put them out of their misery, and actions very rarely have consequences. This episode is one of the most egregious examples of this (Paris turned into a weird lizard thing, kidnapped Janeway and mated with her!!) Yet the following week everyone acts like nothing ever happened!!
In sum - dreadful and avoid at all costs!!
The plot is ridiculous, the dialogue is atrocious and the actors spend most of the episode looking like they're fantasizing about killing their agents for landing them in this steaming pile of poop.
The basic story sees the hapless Voyager crew use an experimental engine design (tested in the Holodeck no less!) to break the Warp 10 barrier (there goes decades of Trek continuity, not to mention the very, very vague scientific basis for the physics of Trek). Tom Paris is the lucky, lucky chap piloting the test shuttle. More by accident than design, the contraption seems to work, then Paris disappears (cue much false jepordy) before miraculously reappearing right next to Voyager (how kind of fate to drop Paris off right here in the suspiciously crowded Delta Quadrant - seriously half the Alpha Quad seems to land here in Voyager's run!)
Following all this 'excitement' the writers then have what appears to be a moment of absolute madness - the Warp 10 jump seems to cause Paris to die (yay!), revive (boo!), kindnap Janeway (eh?!) before taking her back onto the test shuttle through the W.10 barrier where they promptly both de-evolve into oversided Samalanders, mate and produce muntant amphibious offspring (Wtf?!?!) Yes folks seriously that's what happens.....no amount of alcohol or hallucinogenics could produce a script this bad, the only sane conclusion is that writer Brannon Braga secretly hated Trek and set out to sabotage the show with this intergalactic turkey (actually based on his later writing on Enterprise and Voyager's later years that's not an unreasonable hypothesis)
There is nothing remotely redeemable about this episode, Voyager itself was a show which was riddled by internal inconsistencies elaborated on by other reviewers, one of its worst being the 'reset button' phenomenon - at the end of each episode everything just reverts to normal, everyone plods on trudging their way through duff scripts and stock nebula footage hoping a passing Borg or some wayward Romulans to put them out of their misery, and actions very rarely have consequences. This episode is one of the most egregious examples of this (Paris turned into a weird lizard thing, kidnapped Janeway and mated with her!!) Yet the following week everyone acts like nothing ever happened!!
In sum - dreadful and avoid at all costs!!