The Return of the Archons, part 2

Writer: Mike Johnson based on the original teleplay by Boris Sobelman

Artist: Stephen Molnar

Kirk discovers the true secret behind Landru – and it won’t be what you think…

Okay, this is just plain annoying. I spent two and a half years as editor of Star Trek Magazine reassuring people who asked that the events of the Star Trek universe prior to 2233, and the arrival of Nero, happened exactly as they did. First Contact, Enterprise – anything from that period was unaffected.

And now we get this officially licensed story which quite blatantly contradicts that. Unless you posit that everything in the original version of The Return of the Archons that Kirk was told was a lie, and Landru wasn’t a six-thousand year old computer at all, of course…

Ignore the names Archon, Beta III and Landru, and you’ve got a nice nu-universe Star Trek story. Include them, and it becomes a real hiccup, and does make me start to wonder whether we’ll next get a version of The Doomsday Machine where it was created by Starfleet officers from the 29th Century coming back through a time bubble. There are those who complain about the Star Trek remastered episodes changing the names of the shuttlecraft; this is much worse.

It’s doubly annoying because this isn’t a bad story in its own right, but if you’re going to do something with a missing Starfleet craft, make it one that vanished post-2233? Unless of course it’s a very sneaky double-bluff and my “time bubble” idea really is connected to what’s going on…

Verdict: Overlook the continuity-busting if you can, and there’s a decent tale here. Trouble is, most fans may not be able to.  6/10

Paul Simpson

 

 

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