diff --git a/apps/api/src/python/query/bigquery.ts b/apps/api/src/python/query/bigquery.ts
index 72f684e4..67aca364 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/python/query/bigquery.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/python/query/bigquery.ts
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ export async function makeBigQueryQuery(
 
   const code = `
 def _briefer_make_bq_query():
+    from datetime import datetime
     from google.cloud import bigquery
     from google.cloud import bigquery_storage
     from google.oauth2 import service_account
@@ -48,6 +49,7 @@ def _briefer_make_bq_query():
     from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
     import threading
     import queue
+    import pytz
 
     def get_columns(df):
         columns = []
@@ -86,8 +88,19 @@ def _briefer_make_bq_query():
                 if bq_type in ['DATE', 'DATETIME']:
                     df[col] = pd.to_datetime(df[col], errors='coerce')
                 elif bq_type == 'TIMESTAMP':
-                    # Convert to timezone-aware datetime, preserving the original time zone
-                    df[col] = pd.to_datetime(df[col], errors='coerce', utc=True).dt.tz_convert(None)
+                    # Define fallback and maximum possible date
+                    # This is useful because timestamps that are too small or large for pandas are converted to NaT
+                    fallback_date = datetime(1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=pytz.utc)
+                    max_date = datetime(9999, 12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999999, tzinfo=pytz.utc)
+
+                    # Replace large values with the maximum possible date
+                    df[col] = df[col].apply(lambda x: max_date if x > max_date else x)
+
+                    # Replace small values with the fallback date
+                    df[col] = df[col].apply(lambda x: fallback_date if x < fallback_date else x)
+
+                    # make sure timezone is in utc and preserve timezone info
+                    df[col] = df[col].apply(lambda x: x.astimezone(pytz.utc) if x.tzinfo else x)
                 elif bq_type == 'TIME':
                     df[col] = pd.to_datetime(df[col], errors='coerce').dt.time
                 elif bq_type == 'NUMERIC':
@@ -158,7 +171,7 @@ def _briefer_make_bq_query():
             return df
 
         bq_storage_client = bigquery_storage.BigQueryReadClient(credentials=credentials)
-        df_iter = query_result.to_dataframe_iterable(bqstorage_client=bq_storage_client)
+        arrow_iter = query_result.to_arrow_iterable(bqstorage_client=bq_storage_client)
         df = pd.DataFrame()
 
         initial_rows = []
@@ -166,15 +179,18 @@ def _briefer_make_bq_query():
         last_emitted_at = 0
         chunks = []
         rows_count = 0
-        for chunk in df_iter:
+        for chunk in arrow_iter:
             if not os.path.exists(flag_file_path):
                 print(json.dumps({"type": "log", "message": "Query aborted"}))
                 aborted = True
                 break
 
-            chunk = rename_duplicates(chunk)
-            rows_count += len(chunk)
-            chunks.append(chunk)
+            # make sure that to_pandas does not crash for dates out of bounds
+            chunk_df = chunk.to_pandas(timestamp_as_object=True)
+
+            chunk_df = rename_duplicates(chunk_df)
+            rows_count += len(chunk_df)
+            chunks.append(chunk_df)
 
             if len(initial_rows) < 250:
                 df = pd.concat(chunks, ignore_index=True)
diff --git a/apps/api/src/python/query/index.ts b/apps/api/src/python/query/index.ts
index 91268fea..e593f583 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/python/query/index.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/python/query/index.ts
@@ -272,11 +272,13 @@ export async function makeQuery(
 
     const code = `
 def _briefer_read_query():
+    import pyarrow.parquet as pq
     import pandas as pd
     retries = 3
     while retries > 0:
         try:
-            return pd.read_parquet("/home/jupyteruser/.briefer/query-${queryId}.parquet.gzip")
+            table = pq.read_table("/home/jupyteruser/.briefer/query-${queryId}.parquet.gzip")
+            return table.to_pandas(timestamp_as_object=True)
         except:
             retries -= 1
             if retries == 0:
@@ -347,8 +349,9 @@ export async function readDataframePage(
 
 if not ("${dataframeName}" in globals()):
     import pandas as pd
+    import pyarrow.parquet as pq
     try:
-      ${dataframeName} = pd.read_parquet("/home/jupyteruser/.briefer/query-${queryId}.parquet.gzip")
+      ${dataframeName} = pq.read_table("/home/jupyteruser/.briefer/query-${queryId}.parquet.gzip").to_pandas(timestamp_as_object=True)
     except:
       print(json.dumps({"type": "not-found"}))