Where the first issue was a successful swing for the fences this one is… A bunt.
This issue picks up with immediately showing us what happened to the lower decks cast: The Excalbians have returned from TOS’ episode The Savage Curtain to once again kidnap four starfleet officers and have them deal with manifestations of their heroes for entertainment and learning. Only this time they face manifestations of favorite past trek characters (Boimler’s choice of Picard is funny) who all immediately turn into violent and conniving versions of themselves (Kathryn Janeway wanting to separate everyone’s dna ala Tuvix was a nice use of the overplayed Tuvix trope… Janeway did the right thing, get over it!)
I’m one of those Trekkies who wants Star Trek episodes that go back to worlds and aliens from the past and I love when that happens, but Excalbians seems like an odd choice, the TOS episode intro’ing them wasn’t great and never left me wanting to revisit the Excalbians, and this one really just proves that we don’t need to see them ever again.
If that was the bunt then the second plot is the saving hit when we come back to the Bonaventure and in classic Lower Decks fashion we see that Ransom saved the day and the original crew of that ship when our LD cast is returned to the ship. This would be the better story here as it was all just the sort of Trek thing that would happen and be solved by the usual technobabble that also reveals the Bonaventure’s original crew weren’t far behind.
Also not sure how kicking out the viewscreen and jumping into warp space is a good thing, wouldn’t that just spread Ransom across the galaxy from going immediately out of warp, or is the spacesuit just that sturdy?
It wasn’t a bad issue, but it wasn’t the issue I was hoping for, but everything wrapped up neatly in the end so on to issue 3!
The Savage Curtain was not a good episode and I refuse to pretend otherwise. This comic was better than that episode. 6/10
