Threshold - The Worst Episode Ever

I hadn't seen this episode for many years, but I have enjoyed SF Debris' hilarious and damning criticism of it, and it really is as bad as they say it is: Tom Paris breaks the Warp 10 barrier, and then evolves into the next stage of human evolution (a salamander) and mates with Captain Janeway (also a salamander).

I've heard it said that the episode is so bad, it should be struck from canon (and no doubt has been in many fans' minds) but it is still available on Netflix, apparently, and no doubt elsewhere for others to endure its cringeworthiness.

I'm actually wondering why they would write such a bad episode? I figure that it was a way of stopping the writers from exploring the many ways in the first season that Voyager was on the brink of returning home, but being denied at the last second. Many episodes in the first season had ways of returning home made available, only for some twist to prevent that at the last moment. Maybe it was a flaw with the show's premise, especially since they were mostly under no real threat in those early episodes and lived in relative comfort, but maybe fans complained about those episodes and that the writers thought this storyline could silence any further debate on Transwarp or any FTW (Faster Than Warp) technologies. Of course, that never happened, but I do wonder why they would write such a bad story, other than as a deterrent to investigating such new technologies.

In any case, I wonder at the scene where they discover the space salamanders, whether anyone on the cast or crew could keep a straight face during filming. I would love to see the outtakes with the following lines:
CHAKOTAY: I wonder which one's the Captain?
TUVOK: The female, obviously.
and at the sight of the salamanders' offspring slithering away into a pond:
CHAKOTAY: I don't know how I'm going to enter this into the log.
TUVOK: I look forward to reading it.
You can just see Robert Beltran and Tim Russ were going to burst into laughter, and it took all their willpower to remain composed!

All in all, a BAD episode! I might just watch the SF Debris review of it again, in fact.