I kind of feel like this comic is suffering from much the same problem as the Voyager episode 11:59. When you watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The City on the Edge of Forever, or Time’s Arrow, you’re invested despite most of the action taking place in what is very distinctly not the setting of Star Trek because the characters you’ve come to know and care about are still about and have been placed in a situation that is not their own, and you want to see how they’re going to deal with it. And typically there is still something relevant to their own setting that they’re having to do (or in Edge of Forever’s case bring themselves to NOT do).
In this case, however, the story is primarily about these two individuals from the past and their struggles, while the only relics from the setting we come to a Star Trek webcomic to read about are a generic shuttle and phaser, and a character we’ve never met before and wouldn’t know from a box of cereal, who is acting in ways that work entirely counter to the notion that she is one of the Federation’s best-and-brightest (even one of the Federation’s best-and-brightest with a head injury). 11:59 had the exact same problem in that we watch Star Trek: Voyager to see the adventures of Captain Janeway and crew of the USS Voyager, not some ancestor of Janeway’s tooling around in the year 2,000 getting sage advice from some old fellow who (along with Janeway’s ancestor) will never be relevant to Star Trek again while the only relics from the thing we’re actually here for are the Voyager crew passively discussing the events of this story for no reason other than to excuse the fact that the writers wanted to slap the “Star Trek” label onto what it is wholly and exclusively a contemporary story (and in 11:59’s case an incredibly boring one at that) about contemporary people doing contemporary things in a contemporary setting.
As much as the criticism, “it’s not Star Trek enough” or, “this isn’t Star Trek” or however you want to phrase it tastes extremely bitter on my tongue, it is, unfortunately, the shoe that seems to fit in this case.
Nothing says badass escape attempt like getting caught cause you had to puke blood.
I kind of feel like this comic is suffering from much the same problem as the Voyager episode 11:59. When you watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The City on the Edge of Forever, or Time’s Arrow, you’re invested despite most of the action taking place in what is very distinctly not the setting of Star Trek because the characters you’ve come to know and care about are still about and have been placed in a situation that is not their own, and you want to see how they’re going to deal with it. And typically there is still something relevant to their own setting that they’re having to do (or in Edge of Forever’s case bring themselves to NOT do).
In this case, however, the story is primarily about these two individuals from the past and their struggles, while the only relics from the setting we come to a Star Trek webcomic to read about are a generic shuttle and phaser, and a character we’ve never met before and wouldn’t know from a box of cereal, who is acting in ways that work entirely counter to the notion that she is one of the Federation’s best-and-brightest (even one of the Federation’s best-and-brightest with a head injury). 11:59 had the exact same problem in that we watch Star Trek: Voyager to see the adventures of Captain Janeway and crew of the USS Voyager, not some ancestor of Janeway’s tooling around in the year 2,000 getting sage advice from some old fellow who (along with Janeway’s ancestor) will never be relevant to Star Trek again while the only relics from the thing we’re actually here for are the Voyager crew passively discussing the events of this story for no reason other than to excuse the fact that the writers wanted to slap the “Star Trek” label onto what it is wholly and exclusively a contemporary story (and in 11:59’s case an incredibly boring one at that) about contemporary people doing contemporary things in a contemporary setting.
As much as the criticism, “it’s not Star Trek enough” or, “this isn’t Star Trek” or however you want to phrase it tastes extremely bitter on my tongue, it is, unfortunately, the shoe that seems to fit in this case.