Tea Time

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	Tea Time
Author(s):	Jon Aiken
Date(s):	1977
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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Tea Time is a gen Star Trek: TOS story by Jon Aiken.

It was published in Stardate: Unknown #3.

Reactions and Reviews

A black hole catapults the Enterprise into Earth's past, where the gang must retrieve a dataprobe by eluding both colonial and British capture to join in at the Boston Tea Party. Good fun, though the plot could have used some tightening.

Although for me #3 wasn't quite up to #2, this issue of SU is not too bad. There is a bit of Bicentennial action in Jon Aiken's competently done 'Tea Time,' which purports to tell da troof about the Boston Harbor Tea Party.

Tea Time, by Jon Aiken (unless that's a pen name this story may be unusual if only because it's written by a male fan ... but hold judgement for just a bit ... details what happens when the Enterprise follows a data probe into a black hole and is snapped backward in time ... and just guess what planet they're circling when they pop out? Go on, take a wild guess. Earth, you say? Aw, shticks, you guys are getting too good at this. Too bad Jon couldn't've done better than to steal the first 5 minutes out of Tomorrow is Yesterday. So much for oriinal fanfic, ah, but a glimmer of hope exists in the plot when instead of plunking down in the mid-60's, the Big E is thrown back to colonial days, wherein they find themselves in a variety of dilemmas. Suspiciously, they manage to be in all the right places at all the wrong times, and eventually end up on a British ship in Boston harbor throwing crates of tea overboard (thus the reason for the title. See what I mean about creative fanfic?) The whole story might have been saved if the visit to the past could have contained a slightly more normal "feel" to it, as it is the events and plot follow courses that could only be shaped by pure dumb luck or divine providence. Either way it's just a bit too neatly served on an ever too shiny silvery p1atter. A little more realistic history next time Jon, please.

"Tea Time," After launching a data probe into a black hole, the Enterprise is pulled towards the black hole. In escaping, the ship is hurled into Earth orbit, and back into time as well. Before returning to their own time, Kirk and Co. must recover the data probe... Spock, McCoy, Kirk, and Chekov beam down to discover that the probe has been taken on board a ship in the Boston harbor and resolve to recover it, on the night of the Boston Tea Party. Although the dialog and characterizations are a little off at times, this story is short and amusing. The art is adequate.

Thish gets off to a good-humored start with Jon Aiken's "Tea Time," a Star Trek/Bicentennial story. It consists of a series of unlikely coincidences that would be disastrous in any tale that insisted on taking itself seriously; since this one doesn't, there's no problem.