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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.
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
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You've GOT to be kidding - *please* tell me you're kidding...
LEXX was, perhaps, the WORST "sci-fi" show I'd ever seen (which is saying a lot) I'd take 5 EFC/Andromeda-type series over that tripe...
MHO, anyway.
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.
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It doesn't hurt that hologram personifying the ship is pretty hot.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Of course, that transporter involved a black hole being nearby and all the computer power the ship could muster, which was the show's way of saying "This isn't going to happen on a regular basis". The time travel stuff also established the model of "history as we know it was a result of time travel in the first place", so it kinda removes that whole screwing with the time line worry.
Overall a lot of the tech expositive episodes seemed to establish the limits and differentiate itself from Trek's stuff, and often (but maybe not always) does it in a much more plausible manner. About the only thing that's really a stretch from real physics is the artificial gravity stuff, and by extention the slipstream (which is explained to be poorly understood in theshow's context anyway, it just works). I epecially like how the slipstream's randomness removes takes out the geography of everything, the lack of it in Star Trek was something that always bothered me.
Anyone who wants to give this show a chance should definitely check out http://allsystems.org, which has a lot of background info that helps establish some familiarity with the show's universe, and goes a lot more in depth to stuff that gets a passing mention in the show or seems to be written out of thin air.
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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
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...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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