# Andromeda: Does It Get Better?



## WayneLigon (Jun 13, 2005)

I'd seen Andromeda (AKA Gene Roddenbery's Andromeda) around but I'd never watched even one episode. So I rented the first disc. The pilot episodes were pretty good, with only one real science hiccup I couldn't quite swallow but I let it go: it's a fun ride and I can give almost anything a pass if I'm having fun. Not too bad at all. I didn't think I'd really enjoy seeing Sorbo in anything, but he was pretty good as the captain. The other cerw members are nice as well. They seem to mesh well. 

Then... then we get to Episode Three (each disc has just three episodes, also something that irks me). For those of you who don't know. the premise of Andromeda is that there was this big - really tremendously big - organization called the Confederation that met it's end while the Andromeda was caught in the time dilation effect of a black hole. Fished out, the captain discovers they were in the effect for 300 years while only a second passed for them. The Confederation is dead and gone for 300 years. He decides to recreate it, all by himself, with the aid of the Andromeda which, thanks to the general backsliding of civilization, is like 200 years ahead of everything else in the sky. Got that?


So we get to episode three. They go to this space station that the captain knows was around in his time, and hey, it's still there. I can buy that; things have been messed up for a long time. Space is big and records get lost.

Hoping to find some mothballed supplies and such, they dock. They are met by a station full of kids who don't get older than about 20 before they die from genetic damage caused by a reactor leak they can't fix. They have an entire civilization based on corrupted passages of High Guard procedure manuals that they've turned into a religion and cute misinterpretations of said texts ('frequency swiitching' becomes 'freak witches' or something like that). Didn't we see this before? Oh, yeah, it was called 'Miri' way back in ST: TOS, as well as being a standard cliche of _every single_ 70's after-the-crash episode of any genre show. Jesus Christ, Majel, didn't you have anything better to do than approve revisions of 40-year-old scripts?

I mean, I don't even mind seeing some cliches, but.. man. This is an ancient one and just possibly one of the stupidest ones. 

Before I go any further, does Andromeda get any better or does it stay stuck rehashing the same things as every show before it?


----------



## jtone (Jun 13, 2005)

Actually, it gets worse.  In the next season, they abandon the plot so that the Dylan can do his own imitation of Kirk.  Continuity within the series is dropped.  Don't waste your time.


----------



## Hand of Evil (Jun 13, 2005)

Nope, it is down hill.


----------



## WayneLigon (Jun 13, 2005)

I looked at an episode guide. Episode _Six_: time travel back to just before the beginning of the war that destroyed the Commonwealth. OK, I'm done.


----------



## takyris (Jun 13, 2005)

Well, it depends on what you're looking for. I don't think that hard science fiction was ever one of the advertised benefits of the show. And any cliche can still be good if done correctly. (_Farscape_ turned several cliches on their heads simply by having Chrichton well aware of the cliche and pissed off about it.)

That said, Andromeda never grew on me. It always struck me as pretentious but not actually good enough to handle its level of pretention. It's okay to be stuck-up and high-falootin' with your premise and way into taking yourself seriously, provided you can execute. While it seemed to get even worse once Sorbo was put in charge (or once he got the writers who defined the original vision of the show kicked out), it wasn't great to begin with.

I think it gets points for campy, so if you're into campy, go for it. But it never got points for much else on my end.


----------



## Aeson (Jun 13, 2005)

Its just like any of Firework's productions. Not Good. I don't blame Sorbo for everything wrong but I do blame the production company for most of it.  

If you like Xena and Hercules you might like it.


----------



## mojo1701 (Jun 13, 2005)

First Two and a half seasons were good.

After that, it DID go downhill after RHW left and exhausted all his ideas.


----------



## WayneLigon (Jun 13, 2005)

takyris said:
			
		

> Well, it depends on what you're looking for. I don't think that hard science fiction was ever one of the advertised benefits of the show. And any cliche can still be good if done correctly. (_Farscape_ turned several cliches on their heads simply by having Chrichton well aware of the cliche and pissed off about it.)




Oh, I agree on both points. I certainly don't go into any SF show expecting a huge load of pure science. I was talking about the 'bomb the black hole with enough firepower to destroy 40 suns and it'll temporarily become a white hole' trick they used; that took some skin with it when it went down but I swallowed it. It certainly wasn't a deal breaker by any means.


----------



## Mad Hatter (Jun 13, 2005)

It goes downhill rapidly.  The sacrificed good character in Rev Bem, Tyr, and Beka just so that Dylan gets more airtime because he happens to be an executive producer.  I think around season 3 the most productive members of the writing staff left the show because Sorbo was exerting undue pressure for them to write how he wanted them to write.  The storylines just got painfully bad.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 13, 2005)

Mad Hatter said:
			
		

> It goes downhill rapidly.  The sacrificed good character in Rev Bem, Tyr, and Beka just so that Dylan gets more airtime because he happens to be an executive producer.  I think around season 3 the most productive members of the writing staff left the show because Sorbo was exerting undue pressure for them to write how he wanted them to write.  The storylines just got painfully bad.



AFAIK, the actor playing Rev Bem quit because he got allergic to the makeup, before Sorbo became the Evil Overlord of Andromeda.

But personally, I'd say that the first two seasons are OK - not B5-level or SG-1-level quality, but OK. From what I hear, it's downhill after that.


----------



## Sir Brennen (Jun 13, 2005)

Eh... they lost me as soon as they got rid of the rockin' intro music from season one     (and substituted it with something more... pretentious.)


----------



## Wolf72 (Jun 14, 2005)

it doesn't get better, but the last season was bearable (they ended the show too) ... 

I still kept watching it just because it reminded me of how someone's d20 SW game might go all the way to epic type stuff. (core group of characters with some changes kick but all across the galaxy ... and they were heroic compared to the BG's)

if you could get the DVD's real cheap or rent them cheap they'd give you lots of ideas for some additions to any space opera game (SW comes to mind, lots of things you could add from the show)

also think Andromeda would be a better RPG/setting than a TV show (season 2 as _Sorbo in Space_ is kinda painful ... season 3 was just bleh, season 4 seemed to have some promise)


----------



## mojo1701 (Jun 14, 2005)

Wolf72 said:
			
		

> it doesn't get better, but the last season was bearable (they ended the show too) ...
> 
> I still kept watching it just because it reminded me of how someone's d20 SW game might go all the way to epic type stuff. (core group of characters with some changes kick but all across the galaxy ... and they were heroic compared to the BG's)
> 
> ...




I tried running a post-NJO campaign based on this show, but it didn't pan out.


----------



## Umbran (Jun 14, 2005)

They retread a couple of werll worn plots, yes.  But only a couple.

And that time travel episode isnt' as bad as you think - it isn't just timehopping.  That episode is all about moral dilemmas inherent in time travel, and well framed given the characters situation.

All in all, I liked the first two seasons of Andromeda a lot.  It is only after that point, the point where Sorbo exterted his Star Power to run the thing, that it gets pretty sad.   It takes the standard Star Trek moral sledgehammer, and uses it to play on the steel drum fromed by a cast of characters with widely varying moral codes. 

And yes, they did not sacrifice Rev Bem.  He was lost to allergies before the fall of the show.


----------



## Aeson (Jun 14, 2005)

I thought while not the best show it would make a good RPG.


----------



## Cthulhudrew (Jun 14, 2005)

I never thought the first season episodes were great- they were mostly okay, with some stinkers and gems intermixed. What I liked about the concept was that the characters all had such wildly different (and at times opposed) goals and motivations, and the idea of putting them all together and watching them interact was really interesting. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, this all too quickly degenerated into "The Kevin Sorbo Hour", and the abandoning of long term story arcs in favor of more self-contained episodes meant that any character development (my only interest in the show) was dropped and the characters became just cliched stereotypes.

I'd say the first season is the only one really worth watching, though I seem to recall a couple of interesting episodes in season two (was the Tyr/Hunt kingmaking episode in season two or later? That was kind of interesting, at least up until the end.)


----------



## mojo1701 (Jun 14, 2005)

Also what I liked is that the main cast (excluding Sorbo and Cobb) were all Canadians.


----------



## Mad Hatter (Jun 14, 2005)

I know that the guy who played Rev Bem was allergic to the makeup and so had to leave.  What I meant by that Rev Bem comment is that even before then his character was relegated to just cardboard platitudes.  Andromeda would have been fine if they just let it remain an ensemble cast instead of Kevin Sorbo action hour.  It's ok to highlight one character but that was just ridiculous.


----------



## Aeson (Jun 14, 2005)

I think Rommie kept me coming back.


----------



## Chain Lightning (Jun 14, 2005)

I hear ya Aeson.  Lexa Doig is the reason why I even borrowed my friend's first Andromeda disc to check out in the first place. But the quality wasn't high enough for me to want to watch more than about 4 episodes, even with Lexa Doig's beauty appearing on the screen every now and then.

Someone needs to make a show just for Lexa Doig. Make a female main character for her and get her out of Andromeda. Man, what a waste having her on that crappy show.


----------



## Aeson (Jun 14, 2005)

she was on the 4400 last night. Nice surprise. She will be on SG-1.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jun 14, 2005)

Aeson said:
			
		

> She will be on SG-1.



Sadly, she will be starring alonsgide her hubby, Michael Shanks, who both have a baby (explains her less-than-frequent appearance on the final season until the very end).


----------



## Aeson (Jun 14, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Sadly, she will be starring alonsgide her hubby, Michael Shanks, who both have a baby (explains her less-than-frequent appearance on the final season until the very end).




Not a Michael Shanks fan?


----------



## Kesh (Jun 14, 2005)

I think he's just sad that she has a husband at all.


----------



## Hand of Evil (Jun 14, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> I think he's just sad that she has a husband at all.



And she has, hmmmm, filled out a bit too.


----------



## Umbran (Jun 14, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> And she has, hmmmm, filled out a bit too.




Yeah, well, let's see _you_ have a baby and retain the same shape as before!


----------



## Aeson (Jun 14, 2005)

yeah don't expect her to be so full in the future.


----------



## Umbran (Jun 14, 2005)

Aeson said:
			
		

> yeah don't expect her to be so full in the future.




And, even if she is, so what?  It isn't like she's drifted into the zone of unhealthiness.  Or does our notion of beauty no longer include actresses who aren't emaciated?


----------



## Hand of Evil (Jun 14, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> And, even if she is, so what?  It isn't like she's drifted into the zone of unhealthiness.  Or does our notion of beauty no longer include actresses who aren't emaciated?



She was always hot, got hotter when found out she was a gamer, and is hot now.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jun 14, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> I think he's just sad that she has a husband at all.



Ditto.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jun 14, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> She was always hot, got hotter when found out she was a gamer, and is hot now.



To me, she got hotter when I found out she has Filipino blood in her, like Tia Carrere (aka "megababe").


----------



## S'mon (Jun 18, 2005)

jtone said:
			
		

> Actually, it gets worse.  In the next season, they abandon the plot so that the Dylan can do his own imitation of Kirk.  Continuity within the series is dropped.  Don't waste your time.




It gets much much worse.  I actually thought the first few eps, even the first season, of Andromeda were really good.  But it gets much much much worse.  If you didn't like even the early eps, stay well clear.


----------



## Orius (Jun 19, 2005)

Seasons 1 and 2 aren't too bad.  Not great, but entertaining.  Don't bother with anything after that.


----------

