Doomsought
Well-known member
I remember hearing that Roddenberry originally wanted to make it set in the far future of Star Trek, but couldn't because he no longer had control of the IP.
Television Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
- Start date
I actually know about a fan-made scripted series that tried to do this. It also had some elements of Futurama (especially with the protagonist) and Firefly in it, but I found it pretty interesting. Unfortunately, like a lot of fan projects, it kind of petered out after a while. But I did archive it on one of my websites if anyone is interested in that kind of thing: Star Trek: Avalon
As for Andromeda, I watched it when it premiered, but it never really caught on with me. There were bits here and there, mostly with character stuff, but the overall show came off as boring and corny to me. Not to bash on people who do like it or anything.
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edgeworthy
Well-known member
Also Tyr's comment about how he hadn't had so much fun in years ... Wagner and hand to hand combat!
Back into watching Andromeda again, this time on the Roku Channel.
Got through two episodes today, Season Three Episode 12 & 13.
Like I said in earlier posts, Season Three is getting better and thankfully these episodes were strong enough to hold my interest to the point I might try and continue this series and see where it leads. Episode 12 was one of those time loop episodes that seemingly every scifi show has (most famous example for meperhaps Window of Opportunity from Stargate SG-1 but also 'Cause and Effect' from Star Trek) but this was less humorous and more dramatic then that episode. So it's more 'The Gamekeeper' then 'Window of Opportunity.' The episode was okay, with Trance Gemini trying to find a way through this series of events (with a metaphor of her trimming a bonsai tree as a theme in the episode) in time loop after time loop and while the episode was just okay... the ending bit was what really sold it as solid character development and an almost M. Night Shymalan scale reveal of one of Trance Gemini's character traits.
The next episode was more interesting to me, 'The Risk-All Point' which started off with the crew intending to meet the inaugeral launch of a new High Guard vessel, only to have it mysteriously destroyed by sabotage. With prowling enemy fighters in the area, and only the horribly underarmed Eureka Maru freighter as their asset, the crew has to struggle with rescuing potentially thousands of High Guard personnel as well as Commonwealth citizens including lots of VIP's and bringing them aboard a ship which only has a life support capacity of 400 souls... as well as avoiding the enemy fighters... as well as looking to see if the potential saboteur survived and is on board... as well as trying to reduce the tensions of having a whole lotta desperate people suddenly distrustful of each other crammed aboard the ship.
It was great, lots of action, acting, character moments and whodunnit thriller stuff. There was even some 'technobabble planning' (done fresh and well) and our gallant Captain Hercules getting some action. It was also Nietzschean heavy as episodes go and its always fun getting insight into their culture and philosophy and how it interacts and reconciles with everything else.
Got through two episodes today, Season Three Episode 12 & 13.
Like I said in earlier posts, Season Three is getting better and thankfully these episodes were strong enough to hold my interest to the point I might try and continue this series and see where it leads. Episode 12 was one of those time loop episodes that seemingly every scifi show has (most famous example for meperhaps Window of Opportunity from Stargate SG-1 but also 'Cause and Effect' from Star Trek) but this was less humorous and more dramatic then that episode. So it's more 'The Gamekeeper' then 'Window of Opportunity.' The episode was okay, with Trance Gemini trying to find a way through this series of events (with a metaphor of her trimming a bonsai tree as a theme in the episode) in time loop after time loop and while the episode was just okay... the ending bit was what really sold it as solid character development and an almost M. Night Shymalan scale reveal of one of Trance Gemini's character traits.
The next episode was more interesting to me, 'The Risk-All Point' which started off with the crew intending to meet the inaugeral launch of a new High Guard vessel, only to have it mysteriously destroyed by sabotage. With prowling enemy fighters in the area, and only the horribly underarmed Eureka Maru freighter as their asset, the crew has to struggle with rescuing potentially thousands of High Guard personnel as well as Commonwealth citizens including lots of VIP's and bringing them aboard a ship which only has a life support capacity of 400 souls... as well as avoiding the enemy fighters... as well as looking to see if the potential saboteur survived and is on board... as well as trying to reduce the tensions of having a whole lotta desperate people suddenly distrustful of each other crammed aboard the ship.
It was great, lots of action, acting, character moments and whodunnit thriller stuff. There was even some 'technobabble planning' (done fresh and well) and our gallant Captain Hercules getting some action. It was also Nietzschean heavy as episodes go and its always fun getting insight into their culture and philosophy and how it interacts and reconciles with everything else.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Anyone else imagine the best fix would've been to have Dylan outright die at the start? Rhade wins their fight, Rommie doesn't take it well and she reenacts her trick with her body's artificial gravity controls* then gets stuck for centuries because her entire biological crew abandoned ship or died so she can't go to Slipspace until the Eureka Maru crew show up to try to salvage a supposed derelict which ends up press-ganging them into helping her rebuild the commonwealth.
* We don't actually see what happens, just the bridge control panel showcasing life support systems status with a certain slider bar going way into the red to the accompaniment of squelching noises.
Wouldn't that fail for the same reason Rhade failed? Because Rommie is fundamentally a supersoldier.
Rhade failed because he couldn't see past his Neiztchean nature. Ironically he finally became capable of that but only at the end of his life. He just wasn't the man to build a new Commonwealth in his universe.
Is it still around?
Argent
Well-known member
Lexa Doig in a catsuit.
That is generally my first association when I hear that name.
But it was quite good, it had very nice space combat, and an interesting universe.
It is a shame that they did not do a few spinoffs or a few more book series or a game or two.
For a cheap sunday level sci-fi show it had an interesting Universe. I do wish they would have focued more on the Magog but they made the Planet ship to big of a looming threat.
Overall it would have been better with the planet ship being the end villain with rebuilding of the Commonwealth to stop it. Instead they moved on to what mess the last season was.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Make 'em the Vulcans? They were all in on the Federation so long as being so led to an outcome beneficial to their species and civilization. Once it started putting ideology above practicality with the Magog, cue the Maquis version 2.0.
Get rid of the Ship Made Flesh gynoid body. She's a sentient space warship, she doesn't have hands or the ability to really interact in any manner between talking over the ship's communications system and blowing stuff up with its weapons.
Doomsought
Well-known member
The point of the gynoid is not combat potential. The smartest way to keep an AI from rebelling is to give it a highly gregarious personality, make it desire interpersonal interactions. That is why she needs the gynoid body, it allows her to socialize better and thus prevent her from deciding to bombarding a few planets because fuck the meatbags.
Argent
Well-known member
While the ship made flesh is a lot better for interacting with the world Andromeda does have a drones to help fix the ship and do odd tasks. Overall they are inferior to her gynoid body but it does give her hands.
Four more episodes and I'll finally be done with this thrice cursed final season. It's almost so bad... especially for a space opera.
It's not all bad mind you. But it's mostly bad. Just boring and bland and taking place in lame generic arid post-apocalyptic environments with some exceptionally lame villains and plotlines to the point it all kind of blends together episode to episode. Which makes one of the biggest flaws of this series even more striking, which is taking these big ideas of Science Fiction and just barely scratching the surface of it.
It was an issue before, here it's just falling flat on its face when it comes to lost potential.
We're dealing with evolutionary biology, ancient aliens, energy beings, lost civilizations and a hundred episodes worth of world building coming to a climax as well as the themes Andromeda always just dipped its toes into like posthumanism, artificial intelligence, and predestination etc etc and its all being wasted on these terrible sets and plotlines.
A proper alien didn't even show up until halfway through the Season (Welcome Back Perseids). Coincidentally, it was also the first episode I thought was kinda good the entire season. Mainly because it dealt with a space anomaly as opposed to one of these generic and terrible one off villains played by kinda recognizable SyFy actors who are either hamming it up or phoning it in.
Still... there's a two parter episodic light at the end of the tunnel. Here's hoping it follows the tradition of the other previous seasons in having surprisingly good season finales even if the seasons themselves were kinda middling.
It's not all bad mind you. But it's mostly bad. Just boring and bland and taking place in lame generic arid post-apocalyptic environments with some exceptionally lame villains and plotlines to the point it all kind of blends together episode to episode. Which makes one of the biggest flaws of this series even more striking, which is taking these big ideas of Science Fiction and just barely scratching the surface of it.
It was an issue before, here it's just falling flat on its face when it comes to lost potential.
We're dealing with evolutionary biology, ancient aliens, energy beings, lost civilizations and a hundred episodes worth of world building coming to a climax as well as the themes Andromeda always just dipped its toes into like posthumanism, artificial intelligence, and predestination etc etc and its all being wasted on these terrible sets and plotlines.
A proper alien didn't even show up until halfway through the Season (Welcome Back Perseids). Coincidentally, it was also the first episode I thought was kinda good the entire season. Mainly because it dealt with a space anomaly as opposed to one of these generic and terrible one off villains played by kinda recognizable SyFy actors who are either hamming it up or phoning it in.
Still... there's a two parter episodic light at the end of the tunnel. Here's hoping it follows the tradition of the other previous seasons in having surprisingly good season finales even if the seasons themselves were kinda middling.
It is done.
I burned through Seasons One and Two in the span of a few months.
I started Season Three in January of 2021 apparently. I didn't realize it was that long ago.
It is now June of 2022.
Overall though I do appreciate Andromeda more as a series. I remember a lot of jumbling things when I recalled it from my Youth and in some respects, it lost its luster. I didn't realize just how incoherent and blah the CGI Space Battles were (especially Season Three Onwards) where we didn't get much scope of the battle and its geography and what was happening beyond lots of CGI Ships shooting at each other. In comparable series like Stargate, Babylon 5 and Star Trek, you could readily SEE as well as hear what was happening. There were distinct vessels and ships and battles had an ebb and flow that you could follow.
But there were things that I appreciated a lot more watching this series. Andromeda's biggest flaw is having such ambitious scale and scope and THEMES and barely being able to scratch them. One of the beautiful storylines that was able to be competently played out was how Andromeda turned out to be the Angel of Death during the climatic Battle of Witchhead and how it involved time dilation and travel and predestination (this was further reinforced in the AMAZING Third Season Episode 'The Unconquerable Man' involving Gaheris Rhade) and the like.
And it did explore things like Artificial Intelligence including the ship AI focused episode The Knight, Death and Devil in Season Two (starring Christopher Judge!) or how all three Rommie AI's (the android, Ship AI and surprisingly hologram AI) eventually evolved different personalities. The Nature of Various Sentient Species (such as the Magog and pertaining to Rev Bem and his teachings/evolution beyond his nature) such as in the Season One Episode The Devil Take the Hindmost.
Plus you got the ideas of utilitarianism, Darwinist Philosophy of the Nietzscheans and how it translates to various things, lots of foreign relations touched on with pragmatism and realism and idealist themes, terraforming, the dangers and pride involved in scientific advancement, issues with genetic engineering, exploring many worlds theories, and so forth.
I could go on and on... but outside of the Artificial Intelligence, explored a great deal in regards to Rommie and her various personalities, a lot of the Nietzschean Philosophy and some bits with like I mentioned before involving the Witchhead Time Loop... it only scratched these amazing themes and stories that took place in this setting that had sooooooo much potential to explore. The world building was amazing but the show never really dug deep into it like other scifi series did exploring their settings (again I bring up Babylon 5 and Stargate). And Andromeda had just as much potential... if not three galaxies worth of more potential stories, characters, plots, and moreso to explore.
And the fifth season was absolute dreck... I don't even want to talk about how lame it was spending twenty episodes on crappy arid post apocalyptic planets with no space travel, almost no aliens and incredibly, incredibly terrible villains. Some of the stories were ho-hum okay.
OVERALL though.
Two Decent Seasons, One and Two. Extremely watchable.
Third Season was literally hit or miss, started off weak with the first few episodes but then was like 50-50 afterwards.
Fourth Season was like the Third Season but almost the first half of the Season (beyond the opening of the first episode oddly enough) was pretty subpar. But the second half of the Season was again hit or miss/50-50 in quality. It did have some good episodes and ideas.
Fifth season is all shit. Don't do what I did. Just skip the entire season and watch the final two episodes. Curiously enough Andromeda actually has some solid season finales. Each seasons finale, including the actual finale, was pretty good. Even if Dylan Hunt's final victory was kinda phoning it in.
Andromeda is a series.... or a setting... that has incredible potential for a reboot or a revisit with a responsible creative team.
I burned through Seasons One and Two in the span of a few months.
I started Season Three in January of 2021 apparently. I didn't realize it was that long ago.
It is now June of 2022.
Overall though I do appreciate Andromeda more as a series. I remember a lot of jumbling things when I recalled it from my Youth and in some respects, it lost its luster. I didn't realize just how incoherent and blah the CGI Space Battles were (especially Season Three Onwards) where we didn't get much scope of the battle and its geography and what was happening beyond lots of CGI Ships shooting at each other. In comparable series like Stargate, Babylon 5 and Star Trek, you could readily SEE as well as hear what was happening. There were distinct vessels and ships and battles had an ebb and flow that you could follow.
But there were things that I appreciated a lot more watching this series. Andromeda's biggest flaw is having such ambitious scale and scope and THEMES and barely being able to scratch them. One of the beautiful storylines that was able to be competently played out was how Andromeda turned out to be the Angel of Death during the climatic Battle of Witchhead and how it involved time dilation and travel and predestination (this was further reinforced in the AMAZING Third Season Episode 'The Unconquerable Man' involving Gaheris Rhade) and the like.
And it did explore things like Artificial Intelligence including the ship AI focused episode The Knight, Death and Devil in Season Two (starring Christopher Judge!) or how all three Rommie AI's (the android, Ship AI and surprisingly hologram AI) eventually evolved different personalities. The Nature of Various Sentient Species (such as the Magog and pertaining to Rev Bem and his teachings/evolution beyond his nature) such as in the Season One Episode The Devil Take the Hindmost.
Plus you got the ideas of utilitarianism, Darwinist Philosophy of the Nietzscheans and how it translates to various things, lots of foreign relations touched on with pragmatism and realism and idealist themes, terraforming, the dangers and pride involved in scientific advancement, issues with genetic engineering, exploring many worlds theories, and so forth.
I could go on and on... but outside of the Artificial Intelligence, explored a great deal in regards to Rommie and her various personalities, a lot of the Nietzschean Philosophy and some bits with like I mentioned before involving the Witchhead Time Loop... it only scratched these amazing themes and stories that took place in this setting that had sooooooo much potential to explore. The world building was amazing but the show never really dug deep into it like other scifi series did exploring their settings (again I bring up Babylon 5 and Stargate). And Andromeda had just as much potential... if not three galaxies worth of more potential stories, characters, plots, and moreso to explore.
And the fifth season was absolute dreck... I don't even want to talk about how lame it was spending twenty episodes on crappy arid post apocalyptic planets with no space travel, almost no aliens and incredibly, incredibly terrible villains. Some of the stories were ho-hum okay.
OVERALL though.
Two Decent Seasons, One and Two. Extremely watchable.
Third Season was literally hit or miss, started off weak with the first few episodes but then was like 50-50 afterwards.
Fourth Season was like the Third Season but almost the first half of the Season (beyond the opening of the first episode oddly enough) was pretty subpar. But the second half of the Season was again hit or miss/50-50 in quality. It did have some good episodes and ideas.
Fifth season is all shit. Don't do what I did. Just skip the entire season and watch the final two episodes. Curiously enough Andromeda actually has some solid season finales. Each seasons finale, including the actual finale, was pretty good. Even if Dylan Hunt's final victory was kinda phoning it in.
Andromeda is a series.... or a setting... that has incredible potential for a reboot or a revisit with a responsible creative team.
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Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
I have actually been rewatching Andromeda these past few days and the whole comments about the captain looking like a Greek god caused me to have a chuckle. For you kids who don't know that actor played Hercules back in the day.
Oh yeah, Kevin Sorbo made jokes like that all the time. Meta humor done right.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
I sort of wish Gene went through with his post Federation collapse vision for Star Trek that later became Andromeda. That would have made the setting infinitely more interesting.