Andromeda.... Wow!

[Urge]

The show is better after the pilot.

Keep watching. The show is pretty good until Trance changes color. Abandon it after that.

That's pretty much my opinion, too. It was never awesome, but it was entertaining enough.

------------

Too late now, I exchanged it for the second season of TOS. Its kind of odd though, the woman at the shopped liked Andromeda as well. It is as if I saw something else than the other people, Its a mystery really.

The plot of the commonwealth-dude being stuck at the edge of a black hole, frozen in time is a good idea, allthough poorly done. (It follows the laws of physics, and it could have been used to create some very dramatic scenes, had it not been for the extreme hurry that the script-writers where in, as with everything else, we never have time to get to know the black hole properly). Also, the thing about the captain trying to rebuild the commonwealth when pulled out 300 years later, is essentially good (didnt see it, read it of the internet).

It is very weak however, that they pulled the collapse of the Empire, the stuck-in-time-orbiting-black-hole, and the rescue into one single episode. If I had made this series I would have slowed down conciderably, using the first season to get to know commonwealth, the main caracters, the ship and everything. (Sending them out to some not-too dramatic missions on behalf of commonwealth authorities perhaps) and then I would build up a conflict with some strong-willed and powerful anti-commonwealth enemy, ending with the epic battle. The main caracter and his ship would then fall into the black hole at the end of the first season (probably doing it in the episode after the epic battle that they lost, splitting that up as well) where they failed at pulling out and away, seemingly falling into the the dark spot at the end.

At this point people wonder if everyone are dead. Will there be a second season? Isnt the ending to lame and depressive? Everybody lost everything? And so - Daadaa! New and fresh season, cool treasure-hunters find the ship and pull them out. The audience loves it, the captain starts his attempt at rebuilding past glory, past glory that the followers of the show have detailed knowledge about thanks to season one.

Why did the script writers rush the commonwealth into destruction when it was the foundation of the plot? Very, very odd.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Too late now, I exchanged it for the second season of TOS.

So?

Why did the script writers rush the commonwealth into destruction when it was the foundation of the plot? Very, very odd.

The show wasn't about the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was backstory to the universe that the show was about. Its existence was dealt with as economically as such pooh-bah ought to be, and any further dwelling on it would have been a waste of the show's premise. If one wants to watch a show about the Commonwealth one can watch any Star Trek series or Babylon 5 - that's a whole lot of TV.

 

[Checkmate]

The show had a lot of promise in the beginning. Its biggest problem was the casting, particularly Kevin Sorbo and Lisa Ryder. Sorbo's just a twat with the acting skill of a wet noodle, and Ryder didn't have the moxie or charm to play the smugglery Han Solo-esque type of character she was clearly meant to be. The rest of the cast wasn't much better, but at least they seemed to be having fun with it which goes a long way.

The concepts were pretty cool though, and I still love the look of the Andromeda Ascendant quite a lot. I also enjoyed the fact that Rommie had three distinct manifestations that each had their own personalities; that had to be a fun role. Tyr Anasazi was really cool, too, even if the reality of their movement was a bit odd.

But with the cast it had, the production values, and the lack of commitment to keep the story flowing well, it didn't stand much of a chance. I really wanted to enjoy it, and I kinda did at first. But it quickly went down the shitter.

 

[Checkmate]

Why did the script writers rush the commonwealth into destruction when it was the foundation of the plot? Very, very odd.

Because that was basically the entire point of the show. If you take a step back and really look at the themes, it's clear that it was a "what would the Star Trek universe look like in the distant future after the Federation falls?" Change the Nietzscheans to Romulans, the demon dudes to the Borg, and so on and so forth, and you pretty much get the same net effect.

 

[backstept]

Actors, costumes, plot, design, special effects, dialogue, absolute everything was as bad as it is possible to make it.

Well maybe not as bad as possible - that's Starhunter - but overall, yeah. I can remember when the show was announced and how cool it sounded. But I couldn't even get all the way thru the premiere episode. Kevin Sorbo was the final straw - the most unwatchably putrid actor in TV history. With another lead actor, I might have stuck it out.

If people actually like it, then that is a even bigger mystery for me, than the show being produced in the first place. Are we humans really that different? TOS was charming, and Im sure it was okay effect-wise for a 1960s-show.

Any show as well written and acted as TOS that came on nowadays would get plenty of leeway from me for terrible SFX (assuming it was still at the level of the 60s even though produced today rather than being top of the line for its time like TOS actually was). I'd even ignore the 1/3 of the episodes that were horrible for the 2/3s that were decent or great. There's no comparison between the two shows.

I enjoyed Starhunter because it was so bad
I also enjoyed Andromeda because I seem to like just about any scifi TV

I would have like it a lot better-
if Dylan was not played by Sorbo
if Gaheris Rhade survived and was originally named Telemachus to get rid of that whole genetic reincarnation thing
if less emphasis was put on restoring the commonwealth, and more emphasis on finding the Vedrans and the mystery surrounding them
if the Nietzscheans were more Nietzschean and less Darwinian
if they stopped before season 5

come to think of it . . . Season 5 reminds me a lot of season 3 of Lexx

 

[C.E. Evans]

I liked Andromeda alot. Plenty of spaceship battles, laser gun & fist fights, aliens, and very attractive people in very tight leather blowing a lot of stuff up. Yeah, the stories were forgettable, but I thought it was fun show nonetheless, IMO.

 

[Brent]

One aspect I really liked about it was the idea that the "Commonwealth" wasn't perfect, and was taken down from the inside, and this great "federation" that existed over several galaxies, fell. It wasn't a perfect utopia like Star Trek.

I like the ships and the fact there aren't transporters, it seems more real somehow, and the warships like Andromeda are pretty darn sweet, and large, and carry very large crews. Then there is the whole AI thing very advanced, the interaction between the Ship Andromeda and the android Andromeda and the Hologram Andromeda was fun to watch. It is set in the 51st century, so way ahead of us, yet still not so alien, humans act like humans still.

 

[clint g]

Anything with Lexa Doig in it can not possibly be the worst thing one has ever seen.

 

[broberfett]

I just bought a box named "Gene Roddenberry`s Andromeda" because I wanted to check out another kind of space-opera universe filled with spaceships, worlds and aliens. Well... I watched the first episode with a friend of mine, and both of us got completely shocked! This is undoubtedly the worst thing I have ever seen.

Actors, costumes, plot, design, special effects, dialogue, absolute everything was as bad as it is possible to make it. I dont understand how anyone could allow this to happen, much less make season after season of it. "Planet 9 from outer space" becomes a wonderfully good film compared to this stuff, even though it is (somewhat unfairly) been branded "the worst film ever".

Andromena episode 1 (I dont dare to watch any othe others, as it made my eyes and soul hurt) kicks planet 9s ass when it comes to competition for worst film ever made, even though it perhaps competes in a different category, being a series. I Mean... Wow! Is it possible to make anything worse? I got embarrased on behalf of humanity while watching it, I sat there blushing while simultaniously laughing tensely, hoping that all the bad-acting and horribly sharm-less caracters would die. I almost got my wish, but the captain of the ship made it through, and he even got picked up by a bunch of even worse folks, inncluding some aliens who where the ugliest kind of aliens I have ever seen. Who wants to make such faces a permanent and important part of a series??!

Roddenberry would probably spin in his grave if he ever saw this. According to the web it is a spin-off from things he had been working on, but never finished.

I mean, huh?

Words doesnt quite express how bad it is, My English vocabulary is not big enough, so I try with zombie-faces instead.

And some of these perhaps

And a mix of some others:

Wow... Just wow. I am COMPLETELY SHOCKED!

You're just not feeling the Sorbo goodness.

 

[Silvercrest]

Anything with Lexa Doig in it can not possibly be the worst thing one has ever seen.

What about Jason X?

 

[Kelthaz]

I didn't care for the first season very much, but I have a feeling I will like the later seasons much better. Andromeda tried so hard in the beginning to be a deep, serious sci-fi epic, but it failed miserably. "Hercules in Space" may be said in mockery of the later seasons of the show, but as a huge fan of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys that sounds pretty damn appealing to me. I really need to finish that show soon.

 

[broberfett]

Anything with Lexa Doig in it can not possibly be the worst thing one has ever seen.

What about Jason X?

I enjoyed that movie. Lexa Doig is hot. The movie is funny too. I really enjoy that line about how a war they fought was so bad that they were beating each other with their severed limbs.

"It's okay! He just wants his machete back!"

 

[Harvey]

Kevin Sorbo was the final straw - the most unwatchably putrid actor in TV history. With another lead actor, I might have stuck it out.

I'd say Sorbo is probably the second most unwatchably putrid actor in TV history. Because there's still David Caruso.

 

[Pauln6]

It's worth watching for Keith Hamilton Cobb in a chainmail T-shirt and maybe for the Magog.

 

[DarKush]

I didn't care for the first season very much, but I have a feeling I will like the later seasons much better. Andromeda tried so hard in the beginning to be a deep, serious sci-fi epic, but it failed miserably. "Hercules in Space" may be said in mockery of the later seasons of the show, but as a huge fan of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys that sounds pretty damn appealing to me. I really need to finish that show soon.

I don't think Andromeda was trying all that hard to be a serious show in the first season. It certainly had some serious episodes and subject matter, but it never did a good job of carrying that off like Trek or Babylon 5. Also, I think there was some cheese/humor from early on and the production values/costuming, didn't lend much to it being a serious show. However, I did enjoy the interesting episode titles and the little quotes at the start of the episodes which made the show at least appear to be deeper than it was.

But I don't think it did a great job of developing its premise, at least in a logical manner and it seemed to constantly undercut that premise until eventually it just had the Commonwealth reestablished largely off screen.

I would love to see a revival of the concept, though actually be more serious, with an exploration of how exactly can you build or rebuild a civilization, especially using gunboat diplomacy.

 

[JRS]

I liked Andromeda alot. Plenty of spaceship battles, laser gun & fist fights, aliens, and very attractive people in very tight leather blowing a lot of stuff up. Yeah, the stories were forgettable, but I thought it was fun show nonetheless, IMO.

Im a fan of the the show and I have the DVDs and I liked it because of the above reasons. Its good Scifi fun..Hercules: The Legendary journeys in space, basicly
And yes, there is Lexa Doig also..

 

[Mysterion]

Andromeda might not have been a "great" series, but it wasn't quite as bad as some folks seem to think, either.

I believe that if they had left Robert Hewitt Wolfe to run the show for the whole run, and also had the sort of per-episode budget that a series like your average Star Trek or Stargate series seems to get these days, Andromeda would be remembered a lot more fondly.

As it is, I respect the effort that went into making what they did with the constraints they had doing it.

 

[label]

Andromeda might not have been a "great" series, but it wasn't quite as bad as some folks seem to think, either..

This is about what I thought of the series until Sorbo pushed RHW out the door. It was pretty cheesy in places and the effects were pretty lame but there was a nugget of goodness buried underneath the crap that I think based on a few episodes like the Angel Bright, Demon dark episode that it could have grown into a worthy Sci-Fi show. After RHW was canned though I finished season 2 and gave up on the show. From what I've read, I didn't miss much.

 

[Admiral_Young]

"Andromeda" was fine until they abandoned the original concept and Sorbo started taking over on the creative end and wanted the series to focus more on Hunt. If no one has yet I would highly recommend reading Robert Hewitt Wolfe's excellent "Coda" which is a conversation between Harper and Trance about the direction he wanted the series to go in, very ambitious imo.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Lexa Doig is the reason to see "Jason X."

Sorbo was definitely the weak link in the cast, and agreed that Ryder was pretty uninteresting. Everyone else was pretty good. Stait (yeah, her brother) struggled with a makeup that was both uncomfortable and badly designed in terms of what he could communicate facially, but I liked him. I didn't have the averse reaction to Woolvett that some do; he was one of my favorites from the beginning.