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Andromeda
Andromeda: A Review
For those of you unfamiliar with the Show, "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" has a lot of exceptionally familiar elements. The broad underlying theme is pretty palatable, 300 years before, there was a grand federa...er...Commonwealth (not unlike Massachusetts or Virginia) that fell when one of its member species, the Nietzcheans, staged a bloody betrayal. During the beginning skirmishes of the war, the Andromeda Ascendant , led by Captain Dylan Hunt (Kevin Sorbo) was attacked by the Nietzscheans, basically got his ass kicked and, after evacuating ship, snuck the Andromeda into the outer reaches of a black hole, hiding himself from the Nietzschean onslaught, ostensibly to keep the Nietzscheans from taking and using the ship against the Commonwealth.
In the Black Hole, time dilates, so to Dylan only a small amount of time has gone by for him while the universe at large gets more chaotic and is reduced to a less ordered, and considerably more dangerous, place. With no one dominating force and the Nietzscheans themselves reduced to intra-pride (as their tribal elements are called) warfare and fighting. In this time, a ship, the Eureka Maru, with her captain Beka Valentine and assorted crew are hired to tow the Andromeda from the Black Hole from which it is stuck. The assumption being, I suppose, that it was dead in space as it had not pulled itself out and, in the post commonwealth world, is a valuable and powerful ship to own.
Hilarity ensues, of course, with the end result being Dylan asking the crew of the Maru to join him in his quest to restore the grand systems commonwealth in all of its justice, fairness and glory. They agree as they figure living on a beautiful ship is more likely to work out for them them living in squalor doing tow jobs, oh, and this commonwealth thing sounds fine too.
It's actually not a bad premise for a show, you have the broad story arc, the plucky and clever crew and a tense universe to fly around in. And to give the producers of the show credit, the universe they created is not the buffed, dusted, windexed and polished one of the Star Trek universe, although they are clearly closely related. (The Andromeda is always very clean, but I digress). The Andromeda universe has one particularly grisly race in it, the Magog. The Magog are a basically very disgusting race which attack by swarming and overtaking any resistance, then, after subduing their foe, using them as nests for their eggs, in a very "Alien" type fashion. They are pretty nasty though.
Andromeda has come under fire, rightly so, for being derivative, "Star-Trek Lite", as it were. I agree with this, as Andromeda clearly has its derivative parts. Where Star Trek has the Federation, Andromeda has the Systems Commonwealth. Where star Trek had Warp Drive, Andromeda has the Slip Stream. And so on...
The question then becomes, are its derivations a problem? I assert that they are not, it's almost as if its creators said "Well, we have to go faster than light, what dopey apparatus shall we use?" , accepting the need for certain concepts to be necessary elements for a science fiction space opera to have.
It should be clear by now that I like Andromeda. Why? It's basically a likeable cast doing interesting things with some pretty okay cgi space battles. In fact, the cast is very strong. I never watched Hercules so I came into it not expecting much from the lead, if anything being surprised at his performance. I mean, we're not talking Sir Lawrence Olivier here, but he's good. You'll recognize his Second-in-command from the short lived second part of Forever Knight, after it had moved to USA, and she's likeable too.
It's worth pointing out that Canada apparently took the lead in the space race, so rah rah to our neighbors to the north! Like many of its syndicated brethren, Andromeda is filmed in Canada using mostly Canadian actors. It's not a criticism at all, but it is funny that the Canadian accent is the one behind each actor.
Andromeda clearly isn't perfect. Whoever was in charge of naming the cast was clearly a mental case. The actors all have names that were thought out way too much: "Trance Gemini", "Seamus Zelazy Harper", "Beka Valentine", "Tyr Anasazi". The names remind me of bad fan fiction. That said, the ship names are pure sci-fi poetry: "Andromeda Ascendant", "Balance of Peace", "Pax Magellanic", "Eureka Maru". So it's a mixed blessing. They are creative people, and sometimes, they get more than enough rope to hang themselves.
There are some very good things about Andromeda. For instance the way they handle the ship's artificial intelligence is hugely entertaining. And the ship itself is vast, with a complement of 4000 when fully staffed (which makes you wonder how a crew of 7 can make it work, but hey! It's all about androids.) You also get a feeling that there is more going on that just that one ship with its one crew, and the larger mission is a compelling one.
Whether or not you watch Andromeda will most likely depend on which episode you enjoy (or are subjected too) the first time. There are some episodes that are frankly embarrassing. Beka, for instance, is the daughter of a (now dead) drug smuggler and addict. So of course she is in danger of becoming one herself and in one episode, it details her descent into addiction and her fast, predictable recovery near the end of the episode. It's a hugely annoying episode which makes you want to stab the thumbs down button on your Tivo. But then there are episodes like the "Mathematics of Tears", in which a sister ship of the Andromeda, the "Pax Magellanic" is discovered, which really make you want to see more.
In fact what drove me to suggest this article was the season finale "...its Hour Come Round At Last". In the grandest tradition of golden era Hollywood serials, it is probably one of the strongest episodes to date, the cast comfortable with their characters and each other. I won't say much about this, but it was very good, and almost horrifying.
If you know me and my taste, you'll know that one of the things I judge sci-fi TV by is the quality of its space battles. Andromeda, well, has them. I'm not going to say that I'm disappointed by them, because I think they rock, and they do, but there is some final editing or gamma trick they aren't making, and it makes the battles look as if someone messed with the contrast or something, but the battles are generally very watchable and fun. That said, whoever came up with the slipstream sequences (while in slipstream, mind you, not the transitions into slipstream, which are bad ass), should be kicked in the stomach. The travel sequences in slipstream are cartoonish at best.
In short, Andromeda is derivative and annoying, but you'll like it despite its faults.
For example, I remember hearing years ago about a show that Gene wanted to make about aliens who come to Earth and seem to be friendly and to bring peace and prosperity and the advantages of their technology, etc. etc. But they also have some "evil" enemies that they need humanities help fighting. The premise was, I think supposed to be that humanity realized that they were being taken advantage of, and managed to throw them out with the help of the aliens enemies, who promptly moved in and took up the exact same position. It seems to me that the show idea I heard about was turned into Earth: Final Conflict. Obviously it's changed a lot, but the basic idea seems to be there.
Basically, Gene is producing new TV shows the same way that L. Ron Hubbard is writing new books.
I like it. All SF can't be the cream of the crop, but good journeyman quality stuff is imporant, and this show fits that bill. There is some good SF here, some cheeze, and some comedy...and it beets most sitcoms and drams on the TV today.
And as for Majel, she is a wonderful person. I met her at a convention in Montreal a few years ago, and she really cares about what the fans think of the shows created by her late husband, Gene, and of Science Fiction in General. Back when there was a lot of conflict between Babylon 5 fans and STrek fans, she agreed with JMS do a part in a B5 show to demonstrate that B5 was an O.K. show to like, and both STrek fans and B5 fans show learn to appreachiate each other's shows.
I'm a fan of The Old Series, and of the follow ons, I am also a B5 fan. And I like Andromeda. I am just tired of people who dis things just to make themselves look important, like the Rolling Stone used to do with album reviews.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Yes, there are accents in the US, but it's not one single accent, and most of them do not sound like Dukes of Hazzard hillbilly.
I'm from South Dakota, and within South Dakota there are three distinct accents - Black Hills, East River and Rez (Rex being those from the Indian Reservations). Why I say this, is last weekend I went back to South Dakota for a wedding, and all the major accents were present for the wedding.
I have a bit of the Rez accent, along with some Black Hills, while my sister whom is living East River and on a Reservation, has some East River, Rez and a bit of the Minnesooota to her accent.
The same is true on a broader scale for the entire country. People from the south do not all sound alike. If all the states are as diverse as South Dakota, there's a whole bunch of accents. And I'd hope that in Canada there are as many differences as there are in the US.
Why was it worth anybody's time to write a review of this horrible piece of crap? I *SO* wish this show would just go away, and everybody could just forget it ever existed, so we could all reflect fondly on the era of the 80's and 90's where Science Fiction nearly gained mainstream acceptance on television.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
*cough*
everyone _has_ an accent. You just don't recognize yours because you are an american surounded by americans who all 'sound normal' - that is, they have american accents...
duh.
man is machine
ROTFL
;P
Silly pubescent teen. Someday you'll stop playing "choke the chicken" to mere TV shows and notice that there are *real* women in the world that will perform that service for you
[ quotes out of order ;) ]
hmm..perhaps its time for some absestos underwear, I feel things getting a little toasty
LOL - claiming that because someone really, REALLY dislikes a show they lack a sense of humor will generally get you some flames, yes =)
I mean come on, there is something strangely humorous about a dead guy, a janitor, a severed robot head, and a chick who was turned into a love slave as punishment, all stuck on a bug looking ship.
Yes, the situation itself could be quite humorous - if it was carried off with any talent at all. I'm not so sure the problem is with the actors though - I'm more inclined to think the reason the series is SO bad is they lack talented writers.
Although, the basic setting (minus the sex) was done before, in a show called Red Dwarf. =)
What's Majel whatshername's involvement in all this stuff? Does she spend all day digging through the attic for lost scripts? Or has 'Gene R.' just become a sort of brand name for random new sci-fi?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
All speech is accented; accent is simply one of the phonic characteristics of speech.
I ask as someone who likes good science fiction - and also quality works from other genres - and is consistently disappointed by 95% of the sci-fi I see. (Last good sci-fi film? Gattaca. And I got bored of the Star Wars franchise when I stopped being a teenager.)
It was a joke I first heard from a Russian friend in the 80s. I've seen it a couple times since, but never found an original source.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
But never retold in nearly as entertaining a fashion as in...
Chelloveck
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I only saw half of one episode, so I was never really sure of the premise before reading this review. Still, of what I saw, much of the dialog was rhetoric about what a great and moral people the Confederation was, and how the captain was going to uphold their ethics at any cost. From that ep, it had sounded like the Confederation was still a going concern.
So, given that the Confederation collapsed n-years ago and Andromeda and her captain seem to be the last remnants of it, what's his goal? Is he trying to rebuild the Confederation? If so, how does he intend to do so by flying around from rock to rock? Or is he just playing interstellar evangelist, pulling into town, moralizing a bit, and leaving again?
That's a serious question, BTW. I actually liked the show (in my own twisted way, much as I also enjoyed "Space Rangers") but knowing what he's trying to accomplish would probably help.
Chelloveck
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
As you might have guessed, I'm not a fan of ... with two legs ...
... speaking english. I also
Star Trek. Largely this has to do with
cartoonish Sci-Fi. I hate all these masked
actors pretend to be aliens
and two hands
dislike Roddenbery's humanist message:
nothing wrong with the message except it
constantly smells of moralizing.
That said, I watched Final Conflict for a while.
The first season was strong because aliens were
kept to a minimum and looked like an excuse to
explore human drama. As well, they had hints
dropped of mysteries and villainous nature of
aliens. There were no good guys and bad guys,
it was all in question. Then they started to
featire aliens more, answered a few key questions,
killed off the most talented cast members
replacing them with people who have no concept
of acting and now the show is unwatchable.
I did watch Andromeda a bit mostly because ny
local station runs the episodes at 2am when I come
home from work. The show displays complete lack
of imagination. Suffice it to say that one alien
species is an overgrown bug and you can see the
plastic costume on a human actor. Character
interaction is mostly a moralizing tripe. In fact
the only characters that look human are the
Nietzcheans. They hold grudges, conflict with
each other and are generally bastards enough.
Tyr is probably the best acted character too.
I guess Dylan Hunt in a totally Nietzchean world
would make for a good show about why Roddenbery's
ideals don't work. But alas, the script makes
Mr. Hunt into a sort of a hero, rather than a
lunatic that he is.
I would be even shallow enough to watch the show
if some hot booty was on display. Unfortunately
the cast is lacking in that department too.
er.... Jesuits...
/bit/ silly.
They are a
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
Worf-alike? Buddy, just because he's tall, has long hair, doesn't smile a lot, and just happens to have a dark skin-tone doesn't mean he's a Worf-alike. :)
> There's way better stuff on TV.
I enjoyed the "other" Herc spin-off, Jack of all Trades. Kinda corny, but it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately it got terminated before the writers found their stride.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I agree with you 100%. Loved the show. Unfortunately, I stopped watching it, as the local station bounced it around to about 6 different time slots in a two year span. Couldn't keep up with it:(
Sad thing is that the Andromeda station (different station) is doing the same thing:(
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I realize this is offtopic, but I agree!
:)
Stargate SG-1 rocks. I didn't watch it for the first time until about a year ago, mainly because of Richard Dean Anderson... but I sat through an episode, and I'm hooked now. I'm now catching up on reruns, and I find that the last season will start soon. Aak! Why didn't I find out about it sooner!?
As for the ontopic discussion... Andromeda didn't do this for me at all. I'm annoyed most of the time by the actors. Maybe it isn't them, maybe it's the writers... but they annoy me. 300 years after the commonwealth collapsed, Harper can still find t-shirts and hawaiian shirts to wear. ugh. And don't get me started on Worf-alike.
Or, "pizza boy falls into suspended animation unit and awakens 1,000 years later."
But at least it has Bender!
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
True enough.
But it's on FOX (broadcast TV) where I live. I don't watch enough TV to justify the cost of cable.
Sure, Andromeda is cheezy, but compared to [each month's variant of] "Survivor" and "Millionaire", I hope they drag Gene's name through the mud a few more times.
Better cheezy sci-fi than no sci-fi at all.
So I was sitting here reading these messages, 'Androm is a hash of [insert 5 household name scifi shows/books, etc here].' And I thought, 'So? Where's the suprise?'.
In music there is a long tradition of being influenced by other peoples works and doing your own riffs off of an existing work. Noone points a finger and says, "You're ripping off Louis Armstrong!" when they go to listen to a jazz artist.
I vividly recall in school during english class when they explained that every book is based on one of essental conflicts. Man vs Man, Man vs himself, Man vs Nature, or Man vs Machine. (Yes, you can animorphize something else, but it still has man-like qualties, or we would not be able to relate to it. The truly alien is, well, alien.) I was devistated. What point was there in reading books anymore? I mean, they were all the same in the end. Eventually I learned to celebrate the differences in books, even books that were very close to each other had huge differences in the details. And that's one of the reasons I read, to be absorbed into a captivating universe. If I'm lucky, I might see 12 completely origial books in my life (arguably original. I personally believe when something's original enough to be considered a new genre, it's original. I know a lot of lit majors who'd disagree. So be it.) does that mean I should forsake all non orignal books? Of course not. Does that make the orginals better? Nope. I know a lot of people who can't stand Neuromancer (admitably, probably not a lot in this crowd, but still), and by my previous definition it was Original.
The point of this rather roundabout naritive is that something does not have to be totally original to be enjoyable. Take delight in revisiting an old friend, looked at from a slightly different angle.
This is the same problem we have with intelectual propiety. There are a finite number of good ideas in the universe, the longer we go aorund saying, "this good idea is mine!" the smaller the remaining solution space for the function H(idea_number) becomes, the the more likely that n is going to hash close enough to n-1 to infringe. Common sense.
Common sense isn't. -- Voltaire
--
Remove the rocks to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Like, with trek, how many nose and forehead prosthetics can we dream up? Plots good for one sitting.
... open ended, nothing canned.
Andromeda's not bad. Different feel without the intellectual depth of Zena. [grin]
I guess sg's cool because the good guys don't have the technical advantage and have to scrap it out. Just like real people. The cultural diversity (alien species) angle is handled way better, more variety, more depth and always a sense that there's more to an alien society than what can be told in a single episode
I guess that's a good point too, about serialized dramas. The set up needs to be such that enables the writers to tell a variety of stories.
Another nice thing about stargate is that they aren't stuck on some damn spaceship forever.
I found Andromeda more entertaining than any of the Star Trek series. They got very boring after there first seasons. It is one of the few shows I watch on a regular basis.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
The show's production company has a local listings page. Good for U.S. channels only.
Proud to be / Smiley-free / Since Nineteen / Ninety-Three
Oh yeah! She can ride my rocket any day of the week.
Yes. To be precise, those two things are:
It's good that they're not relying on boguson particles to save the day, but that by itself does not mean they have good science.
quantum slipstream? I could have sworn I had heard the term beforeYes. You heard it before on Star Trek. I'm pretty sure that Voyager even phase modulated the quantum sliptream at some point. The horror!
That detail being that the Magog character has found "the Way" to overcome his beastly nature and wears a pendant with the AA symbol around his neck. This counterpoint between his nature and his conscience while in some ways similar to the early struggle that the Vulcan race was said to go through, differs in this case because the battle is being won by spiritual means rather than pure reason.
The closer to your soul you choose your goal, the nearer to your heart the work can start.
I watch Andromeda and Earth Final Conflict for two reasons...
1: Theres almost NO sci-fi on right now, its all lawyer, doctor, or sex shows.
2: While they aren't that great -- these shows really are the best thing on television during the saturday afternoon CRAPORAMA. Saturday afternoon is really a wasteland for quality programming, and even something like Andromeda and EFC where they've made 3/4ths of an effort really stands out amongst the "Private Benjamin" saturday movie and the body by jake infomercials.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
My problem with these shows is, first of all, they're targeted towards women and gay men with all their touchy feely crap :) Second of all -- Most of the shows are just about sex. I've had sex, I don't need to see a show about it. If I wanted to see T&A I'd pop a porno and watch that.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Her involvement with EFC has been variable over the lifetime of the show, and I don't know what her current involvement level is with Andromeda, but my understanding in general is that she wants to ensure that the shows stay true to Gene's vision.
JMS is really talented guy, scripting entire series of B5 and finding time to answer his fans through all of it.
On the other hand, Roddenberry is a producer who had one good idea his whole life and milked it for all its worth. Other than Star Trek, he's produced nought but scores of second rate, short lived sci fi series.
3 series but one idea - Star Trek. Most of his other ideas whether alive or dead at the time have amounted to little.
Forgive me I meant season. He wrote an entire season though I can't recall offhand which one.
One thing I've personally enjoyed about Andromeda is that the writers seem to know a thing or two about science. For example, look at the episode with the teleporter. The big argument against Trek's transporters has always been the uncertainty principle. Usually everyone just shrugs and points out that mainstream TV audiences don't know anything about physics, so just let them be dumb and happy.
On Andromeda, when Harper proudly announces that he's constructing a teleporter, the first thing Beka says is "don't look now, but Dr. Heisenberg wants to have a word with you." No long explanation of the principle, they just figure we're intelligent enough to get it. Nice to be treated as an intelligent person by prime time television for a change.
They did take a bit of time to explain quantum entanglement, though. I had recently read the Slashdot story about it, and thought it was interesting to see that show up. The whole time travel thing got a bit weird, though.
Anyone know about quantum slipstream? I could have sworn I had heard the term before this show started. I want to say it's a real theory, but I'm not sure.
Overall, the way I describe Andromeda to people is "good writing, crappy production". Too much T&A factor for my taste (like what TNT did to season 5 of B5), and I think the space sequences could use some improvement. Like the episode where another ship was destroyed 5 light minutes away, and the AI had to remind the captain that he couldn't do anything to help, since the images they were seeing were 5 minutes old. (Yes! Writers who know about the speed of light!) But I think the exterior animation showed them considerably closer than 5 light minutes apart. sigh...
But, for me, ANdromeda has failed to not suck for the most part. Or, to be clearer, it has not declined to prevent itself from avoiding not being the opposite of not blowing.
Or something.
They had a limitation to the Slipstream that I found neat: only an organic pilot could navigate it. This keeps it from being all magical like in Star Trek. They made a loophole to that in the tenth episode. And I think that they started the series with no transporters, but they invented one in episode three or four which, by the way, also lets you travel through time. And of course it was the second time travel episode so far.
I don't know. Maybe I'll catch a particularly good episode one of these days and get back on the wagon... but not today.
"The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes. In a freak mishap Ranger 3 and its pilot Captain William 'Buck' Rogers are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems and returns Buck Rogers to Earth 500 years later."
cue cheesey theme music
The actors all have names that were thought out way too much: "Trance Gemini", "Seamus Zelazy Harper", "Beka Valentine", "Tyr Anasazi". The names remind me of bad fan fiction.
At least the names don't have random apostrophes insert into the name. Memo to frustrated writers out there: If you have a name with an apostrophe, that's a good indicator that your novel sucks. I don't think it's a coincidence that Star Trek Voyager had a major character with an apostrophe'd name. You could've predicted the series was going to be lacking just based on that.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This pilot failed to sell (in an era dominated by Planet of the Apes and Bionics), but the series concept was tried once more as Planet Earth which also did not sell. Majel starred in both of them.
So they are sort of like superhuman, militant slashdot readers?
There's also the small fact that Star Trek itself is derivative of the sci-fi influences in Gene Roddenberrys life. I mean, was Star Trek really the first sci-fi concept with space ships that "warped"? Or energy beam weapons? Or dematerializtion devices? Or computers that talked? Or alien races? Or "federations" of space faring creatures?
People who think so, clearly don't read much classic sci-fi.
And I'm not saying this to knock Roddenberry, to this day I rewatch the original and the next generation(I can't stomach Voyager, although Deep Space 9 had it's shining moments). Star Trek was/is a cool and innovative concept, both in it's original form, and in the next generation incarnation, but the technologies and elements that each one was built on were far from ground breaking or unique, from a sci-fi perspective. From a tv perspective, of course it looks like the father of all sci-fi.
Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
I think that the Heechee saga (about 4-5 books) would make a really cool movie or series. Wonder why nobody's picked it up?
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
I had a similar reaction to the X-files (thought it was dumb but got into it several years after it started).
Anyway I think I've seen the whole third year and still like it a lot. In fact, I'm thinking about getting the original trilogy of movies on DVD.
I think they've got a really interesting cast of characters with the cowardly security guard, the sweet/lizardly sex goddess and cool dead-guy.
The only thing I think sucks is the damn robot head. They should edit that out!
Besides they have cool CGI.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
To sum up rambling: Ok show, if I run into it again I will give it a go.
--
--hongpong.com
I agree, Tyr is one of the best characters in thes how. However, i'm wondering if anyone out there has read(and understood) much Nietzsche? I seem to remember a philosopher friend of mine once telling me that he is quite often misunderstood, and i'm wondering if his philosophies have been bastardized for the purpose of this "race" in the show...
I'm sick to death of darkly brooding, overly simplified alien characters who are dominated by their need to struggle over their particular cultural/religious heritage. They are supposed to be complex and interesting because they have these complex, interesting ethnic problems. But whether it's Worf the brooding Klingon, or the brooding sword-wielding guy on Farscape, or the brooding guy on Andromeda always trying to out-macho Sorbo, they're just as boring as darkly brooding people in real life.
If I did have to choose an oversimplified alien from tv it would be Quark. He may have been predictable, but at least he wasn't brooding.
/. is a funny place. Decent sarcasm gets modded down for "trolling", and the oblivious jackass who misses entirely and responds indignantly the point gets modded up for being insightfull.
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___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
What network is this on? I've never even heard of this show. I'm very interested in seeing it, and yes thats just because of the Gene R. branding. Final Conflict wasn't quite star trek but was still cool; i have high hopes for this. So where can I see it?
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___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
OMG! It's Hercules in space!
They could at least have cut his hair, sheesh
"read nothing but Nietzche and Rand"
You don't mean Ayn Rand, do you? What a bleak and horrible future they live in! And before I get downmodded, I'd like to point out that I read - voluntarily - all of Atlas Shrugged, including the 40-page monologue on the evils of anything other than pure cutthroat capitalism, so I do know what I'm talking about when I say that Rand was evil. Evil I say! I still have a hangover from that book, and I read it two years ago.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Is he amoral then? Or is he simply passive? I seek clarification.
I'm the stranger...posting to
But the plot stank, and was a cruddy form of propaganda for objectivism. I never impugned the philosophy.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The other reason Atlas Shrugged appeals to teens (and this is why I read it) is that the female lead is hornier than the entire population of Slashdot combined.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Do you know who said it? Just curious.
I'm the stranger...posting to
One big difference with Star Trek is that on Andromeda they don't solve their difficulties by "magic", i.e. they don't suddenly realize that they can 'convert their deflector array into an ice cube maker & chill out the attacking aliens'. Also Andromeda isn't as concerned with the characters personal lives---it's an action/adventure show.
p.s. the official web site for the show is http://www.andromedatv.com
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Andromeda is one of the few shows I will skip out of work early for. I'm impressed by the dialog wrt military conduct and discipline. Sounds like it's been ripped right out of the Senior Leadership manual....the Canadian Senior Leadership manual, of course.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
It doesn't hurt that hologram personifying the ship is pretty hot.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The series has not disappointed me too much. I has weaknesses, but I'll still watch it. One of the great weaknesses of Star Trek was the infalibility of the federation and the perfection of the technology (to the point where they had to dream up inplausable problems to fause failures in unbelievable technology...). The ST:DS9 series sort adressed the political infalibility of the federation, but Andromeda, has a highly falible set of characters, political climate, and technology. It makes for much greater potential for good storylines, which raises the question, Why fall back on the Rodenbury standby of Time Travel?
Having said that, by far the best part of the Andromeda series is Lexa Doig. What can I say? she's really cute.
--CTH
---
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
...and the jury is still out. I was just getting to the point of not really being interested in it, but then the season finale came out and really kicked some butt. There is some interesting character development going on, and things are starting to come together.
I'm going to give season two a chance. But as I think back, I think that Star Trek TNG's first season: LAME, Star Trek: DS9 First Season: Oh, my god, this is LAME. Voyager: Took a few seasons and Seven of Nine (not for her boobs) to drag it out of the LAME pile to the passable pile.
It always seems that the syndicated Sci-Fi shows always suffer from budget crunches the first season or so, and then take off. Then just as they reach their break even point for syndication is when they are getting good.
Babylon 5 and Farscape are the only two I can think off that don't fit that mold.
TomAs a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Andromeda is based on a concept of Gene Roddenberry's originally intended for the Star Trek universe. It's 300 years after the Federation has fallen.
I guess Paramount wasn't interested, so somebody else did it.
(In case there are a few people that don't realize it, Gene Roddenberry is the creator of Star Trek. Majel is his widow, the voice of most computers and Deanna Troi's mother.)
Utterly so.
But in defence of the scriptwriters, any large socio/political group that misunderstands Nietzche is likely to turn out exactly as the show's Nietzchaens did.
Which is to say, yeah, the Nietzcheans in the show have Nietzche all wrong. But they're pretty much what I'd expect a bunch of Nietzche-misinterpreters to act like, so IMHO the scriptwriters got it right.
(Of course, whether the scriptwriters intended to get it right, is another question entirely. My hunch is that it's just an accident ;-)
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"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Or perhaps I see where the writers misinterpreted Nietzche accidentally. Nietzche was an advocate of something he called "the will to power", especially when carried out by something he called the "overman" or "superman". The problem is, first of all, that "the will to power" does not neccessarily mean power over other people, but also over oneself. It refers to a high degree of self-control, something /. would benefit from. :-) Compare that with the Nietzcheans, who are hardly restrained in their interactions with each other.
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Furthermore, I thought that the "overman" had a higher degree of moral development, but not necessarily physical development, according to Nietzche. I could be wrong on that one, though.
If anyone wants a quick overview of Nietzche, Encarta actually has a nice little article. ( http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&
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