#CBR5 Review #38: Star Trek/Doctor Who – Assimilation^2 by Scott and David Tipton
A crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and
Pond-era Doctor Who? It’s like a super geeky fantasy dream! Written as a short
serial of 8 issues collected into two volumes, this idea totally roped me in,
but in the end was a bit disappointing. There was potential here to do so much,
but inevitably all the conflicts and conclusions felt… easy, I guess? And the
action was very swayed to feel much more like a general 2-part episode of
Doctor Who than a Star Trek story. At the end of the day, however, Assimilation^2 is a fun little story
that combines two worlds that may not otherwise meet, if not in a very
memorable fashion.
The main conflict in Assimilation^2
centers around a combined attack on Federation planets between the Borg and
Cybermen, who are using each other’s technologies in order to co-conquer the
human race. Upon this crossover of threats, the TARDIS chooses to mobilize
between universes and appear on the Holodeck of the Enterprise-D. Why this
crossing-over between universes occurs and what the ultimate ramifications for
it may be are never really explained in this book, which was a little confusing
to be honest. In any case, The Doctor, Rory, and Amy appear to have new
memories of this universe that formed when they materialized in it, and they now
want to help the crew of the Enterprise in eliminating this combined threat.
Soon, however, the threat of the Borg appears to be minimal,
and we see the Borg actually asking Starfleet for help, as the Cybermen have
betrayed their alliance. Captain Jean Luc Picard is hesitant to help out the
Borg defeat the Cybermen, due to past traumas. The Doctor, however, insists
that he helps, and shows Captain Picard just what the Cybermen will be capable
of doing to the future of his universe. Captain Picard reluctantly agrees, and
he and the Doctor lead a strike force into the center of the main Cyberman
vessel in order to defeat them. Although the Borg and the humans now have an
alliance against a single enemy, the question then remains if the Borg will
continue to uphold this, or if they will try to use the new technologies of
time-travel as seen in the TARDIS to overtake humans through all of time and
space.
One issue I had with Assimilation^2
was the characterization of many figures: The Doctor was written true to form
and was very fun, as was the robotic yet endearing Data, but many of the others
fell a little flat or felt like one-note characters (it basically highlighted
the most irritating parts of Amy Pond, while also pushing her to the sidelines,
which is unfortunate). Also, although J.K. Woodward’s artwork would be
beautiful as stand-alone pieces, as a means of telling a story, the artwork
could probably do with some refining. There is one section in the first volume
that flashes back to tell a story of when the crew of the USS Enterprise NC-1701
(Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty) had once met the 4 incarnation of
the Doctor: the artwork in this segment is crisp and energetic, and I almost
wish the whole thing had been done in a similar style.
So I guess in the end, there could have been a little more
thought and work put into Assimilation^2.
I mean, overall it’s a quick and amusing read for fans of the two series being
involved here, I just really think it could have been a lot better.
[Be sure to check out more reviews on the Cannonball Read group blog]
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