"Some of you may not know what a contingency analyst does. I deal in worst case scenarios - the unthinkable - and this definitely qualifies." - Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey (Carla Gugino) at the first meeting of Threshold, the emergency response plan she has designed to deal with the arrival of extraterrestrial contact
Threshold: The Complete Series DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey (Karen Sisco's Carla Gugino) is a contingency analyst with the Blackfoot think tank. As she tells a gathering of local law enforcement officials, her "job is to scare you and hopefully prepare you for the worst imaginable catastrophes," including avian flu, Katrina-esque hurricanes, and other disasters. She has also written up detailed contingency plans for the United States government detailing protocols for dealing with specific types of threats. Most of the scenarios are unimaginable, but when the unimaginable turns into reality after the appearance of an alien spacecraft in the North Atlantic, her top secret plan named Threshold is put into motion.
Deputy National Security Advisor J.T. Blaylock (Roc's Charles S. Dutton) quickly assembles Molly's Red Team from the top scientists in a variety of fields. Molly and the team will be responsible for investigating the sighting. Dr. Nigel Fenway (Star Trek: The Next Generation's Brent Spiner) is a microbiologist and a former NASA medical officer. Fenway is a former hippie, and his easygoing philosophy is sometimes at odds with the team's strict rules and strong-arm tactics. Lucas Pegg (Felicity's Rob Benedict), an astronautical engineer, is the team's youngest (and least confident) member. Diminutive Arthur Ramsey (The Station Agent's Peter Dinklage) is a master of both linguistics and applied mathematics. He is also passionate about women and alcohol. Special Op Sean Cavennaugh (Black Hawk Down's Brian Van Holt) is charged with protecting Molly and the team as they investigate whether aliens have actually made first contact, and whether they mean us harm.
The investigation begins aboard the Bighorn, the U.S. cargo ship that encountered the UFO and then went mysteriously silent. When the Red Team arrives at the boat via helicopter, they make several horrifying discoveries. All of the ships instruments display an unusual fractal pattern - sort of a three-legged starfish. Many of the crewmen are dead, their bodies mutated into torturous shapes. Six members of the crew are unaccounted for, and the sole survivor, Gunneson (Lost's William Mapother), tells a tale of how the crew changed after seeing the UFO. Some went crazy and killed themselves. Some killed each other. Still others simply exploded. Molly, Cavennaugh, and Lucas watch a videotape of the encounter. What they see is incredible - a round object that seems to continuously fold in upon itself. But what they hear will change their lives forever: the object emits a sound not unlike a thousand knives being sharpened, a sound so piercing that it causes their noses and ears to bleed. Fenway will later discover that the dead crewmen and Gunneson all have mutated triple helix DNA. Molly, Cavennaugh, and Lucas do not have mutated DNA because their exposure to the videotape was so brief, but they do have elevated theta wave activity in their brains. They also begin to have the same extremely vivid dreams.
When Gunneson develops superhuman strength and escapes, the race is on to find him and the other missing crewmen before they can spread the alien signal to the population at large. Of course, it's not really that easy. The team soon discovers that the triple helix DNA can also be spread through the food supply, sexual contact, and even forms of mass technology (like ATMs and cell phones). And what exactly do the aliens expect to achieve? Do they plan to download their personalities and memories into our bodies? Do they mean to "improve" us? Or are they simply trying to kill us?
Sci-fi fans are sure to recognize the names of Threshold's creative team, as several previously worked on the Star Trek franchise, including Enterprise. But while Enterprise often became mired in Star Trek lore, the creative team reinvigorates sci-fi with Threshold, injecting it with a heavy dose of horror, dread, and government mistrust. The series can be downright creepy. The first episode alone contains more jolts than many series achieve in entire seasons, including hundreds of roaches doing a Busby Berkley routine over a group of dead bodies, a creepy dream sequence that ends with a vision of "trees made of glass" watched over by a terrifying creature, and the reappearance of a believed-to-be-dead character that manages to be simultaneously predictable and jarring.
Also scary is the ease with which captured infectees are effectively removed from their families and their lives. The lies told to families aren't even elaborate. The government simply reports that their loved ones died a heroic death, and grieving families simply accept it as fact.
With its malevolent aliens and far-reaching government conspiracies, The X-Files is easy comparison, but there are several major differences. Threshold has a forward motion that The X-Files often lacked. Threshold's narrative arc seems well thought out. (Of course, to be fair, Threshold lasted for only thirteen episodes while The X-Files had to chug along for nine seasons.) In The X-Files, Scully and Mulder fought against a government conspiracy. Threshold, however, takes the unusual stance of following the creation of a conspiracy.
Threshold was cancelled after only eight episodes had been aired. This set includes four episodes that were not broadcast in the U.S. The final episode, "Alienville," was being filmed when the series was cancelled. It was too late to create an episode to wrap the series up, but the ending of the episode was tweaked to add a tiny bit of closure. Even so, there is no real resolution.
Television history is littered with shows that were cancelled prematurely. Threshold is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and it is easy to imagine that it would have gotten better had it continued. Thanks to its bad timeslot (Friday night at 9 Eastern, which has become a TV dead zone) and indistinct marketing, the series never got a chance to find an audience. As much as I enjoyed watching this set, it never even occurred to me to watch the series when it initially played on CBS. Why not? Because it seemed like yet another rip-off of Lost. It also seemed indistinguishable from two other sci-fi shows that premiered in the 2005-06 season: Invasion and Surface. Incidentally, water featured prominently in all three of those shows, adding an extra note of sameness. Note to TV execs: tell us what makes your shows unique, not what makes them similar to other series.
Guest stars include Cliff DeYoung (Relativity), Raphael Sbarge (The Guardian), Joe Penny (Riptide), Elizabeth Berkley (Saved by the Bell), and Catherine Bell (JAG).
The twelve episodes that make up Threshold are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in two clear, slim plastic cases, each of which holds two discs. The front covers of the cases include the fractal pattern and publicity shots of the cast. The backs list the episode titles, original airdates, and brief synopses of the episodes. The interiors contain the fractal pattern covering a cityscape. The disc art also includes the fractal pattern and publicity shots of the cast. The two cases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve.
The static menus allow viewers to choose between individual episodes. There is no "play all" option. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
The packaging notes that "some music has been replaced for this home entertainment version." Chances are, most viewers will never notice these replacements.
