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Andromeda: worth the time?

I enjoyed most of what I saw up until the last couple seasons, but there were definitely some strange creative decisions made throughout the show, and some even stranger inconsistencies between episodes.
A couple of these things are a little spoilery, so I'll put them in code just in case.
First of all, the whole premise of the show is that the Commonwealth is gone and Hunt wants to rebuild it, but then had them go from signing a paper to restart it in one of the season finales, and by the next season's premiere it was practically at full strength again.
Then there was also the weirdly inconsisten crew after the Commonwealth was back, one episode there'd be hundreds of people on the ship, but then the next episode it would be just the 4 or 5 main characters by themselves, and then the rest of the crew would be back again the next episode.
 
JD said:
I enjoyed most of what I saw up until the last couple seasons, but there were definitely some strange creative decisions made throughout the show, and some even stranger inconsistencies between episodes.
A couple of these things are a little spoilery, so I'll put them in code just in case.
First of all, the whole premise of the show is that the Commonwealth is gone and Hunt wants to rebuild it, but then had them go from signing a paper to restart it in one of the season finales, and by the next season's premiere it was practically at full strength again.
Then there was also the weirdly inconsisten crew after the Commonwealth was back, one episode there'd be hundreds of people on the ship, but then the next episode it would be just the 4 or 5 main characters by themselves, and then the rest of the crew would be back again the next episode.
Click to expand...

Yeah -- by that point, Robert Hewitt Wolfe was gone and consistency went out the window. The problem is that Tribune's executives were relentless micromanagers, constantly demanding changes and retools and firing showrunners, and so their shows weren't allowed to maintain a consistent vision. I recall thinking back in the day that they tended to overcorrect in response to fan criticisms, so it kept swerving in new directions. Oh, there's too much continuity, ditch the Commonwealth arc! Oh, now there's too little continuity, let's fast-track the Commonwealth! That sort of thing.

And season 3's showrunner Bob Engels was as incompetent at maintaining a consistent vision for the show as he was at writing coherent dialogue that any human being would ever actually say. As I've said, he was writing one show that was a dumb space fantasy, Zack Stentz & Ashley Edward Miller were writing a different show that was an intelligent hard-SF series (pretty much the same one they'd written in seasons 1-2), and the other writers were doing a third show that was somewhere in between. Different episodes of season 3 didn't even follow the same laws of physics, e.g. whether there was FTL communication or not. So some writers remembered they should have a fuller crew and others didn't.
 
Thanks, I've always wondered what the hell was going on behind the scenes in Season 3.
 
I remember being so impressed that a show with such a limited production budget produced such a dramatic WTF cliffhanger--and it had a great resolution the following season. This show had such potential...
 
I am surprised no one bothered to link the recent thread that was posted about Andromeda.

I thought there was some great concepts, such as a galactic alliance where technically, humans were NOT the leaders (like the Federation), and some VERY creative ship names.

But yeah...not the best show, and mid season 2 and 3 were rough for me. I felt like at least the last 1/2 of season 4, they were going back up to what Andromeda was "supposed" to be about.

Then season 5 happened. The budget dropped to zero, and the story was adjusted to fit that cheapness (as well as the Andromeda actress not being available). I mean, there's a lot more stuff that would be more worth your time, as a whole. It was decent sci-fi at the time (and considering how few options we had)...some interetsing concepts that could be used again in different ways.


By the way, I never saw the episode that had Christopher JUdge in it. what was the name of the episode, and where can i stream Andromeda?
 
I think Andromeda is one show that could use a reboot, there was so much squandered potential there, that I think it deserves a second chance.
 
The more I watch, the more I want a Tyr Anasazi spinoff with Harper and Rommie in tow. Gosh...it's sad seeing wild card Tyr steadily being snipped and reduced to Dylan's "yes-man" that only offers token counterarguments.
 
What got me intrigued about Andromeda was the proto-Wikipedia that came out about it (All Systems University) before the series debuted. I loved a lot of the species and ideas and was eager to see it. The reality didn't match, but I still held out hope, and I thought the first season was decent-but as mentioned-the production values were cheap, at times very much so. I really liked Keith Hamilton Cobb's Tyr, so I kept watching. I also thought the Magog were cool, like a mix of the Borg and the xenomorphs. I thought the season 1 finale was great. So that kept me going. I jumped off after Cobb left the show. I would come back from time to time but it wasn't really the same. I sort of wish this series could get a do-over with a good budget.
 
The ideas behind this show were were wonderful. I was a follower of the All Systems University and posted about episodes on the board that existed at the time. It was the only SF board I posted on before I joined TrekBBS. I also belonged to the Delta Quadrant board but that was an rpg.
 
I remember finding all of the characters at least tolerable except when they went into ActionHeroMode!!! which unfortunately happened far too frequently.
 
The idea of slipstream routes being comprehensible to organic minds alone was cool. Also, it was neat how electronic/synthetic life got around that limitation: biological brains slaved to a main computer system.

P.S. This series is not for the lactose intolerant or any practicing Muslims/Jews.
 
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It's a series with little reward however the first season or two are OK to watch if you are curious. It just gets messier and messier after that. I'd also recommend Robert Hewitt Wolfe Andromeda Coda script which explained how later seasons were supposed to go.
 
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