Andromeda: Any Good?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Were the Nietzscheans as depicted consistent with Nietzsche's philosophy? Invocations of Ayn Rand, social Darwinism etc, Nietzsche might have thought of as perversions of his thought perhaps.

Quote from Gaheris Rhade (a Nietzschean) in "The Unconquerable Man":

"Our people were meant to be living gods. Warrior poets who roamed the stars bringing civilisation. Not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people. They betrayed themselves. "

The next question is perhaps whether Andromeda is better or worse than Lexx.

They're completely different kinds of shows, so I'm not sure one can compare them at all. Andromeda is, or at least tries to be, a serious sci-fi drama. Lexx, on the other hand...basically it's just porn.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Yeah, my comparison with Lexx was facetious. Lexx is pretty gross on the whole, has almost no redeeming features, and I have no desire to revisit it. If Amazon or Netflix ever acquire the rights to show Andromeda again, I might make more of an effort to stick with it for longer but I'd have to have absolutely nothing else queued up to watch.

 

[OCD Geek]

They're completely different kinds of shows, so I'm not sure one can compare them at all. Andromeda is, or at least tries to be, a serious sci-fi drama. Lexx, on the other hand...basically it's just porn.

Correction. Porn with Tim Curry in it. So the best kind of porn.

 

[DigificWriter]

Yeah, my comparison with Lexx was facetious. Lexx is pretty gross on the whole, has almost no redeeming features, and I have no desire to revisit it. If Amazon or Netflix ever acquire the rights to show Andromeda again, I might make more of an effort to stick with it for longer but I'd have to have absolutely nothing else queued up to watch.

Andromeda is available on Amazon Video.

 

[JD]

I actually liked Andromeda up until the last season, but I approach it as just mindless fun (at least after the first season or so).
It is one of the most inconsistent shows I've ever come across. I was especially frustrated when they just suddenly dumped the whole rebuilding the Commonwealth thing and just turned it into a bunch of random adventures of the week.
In like one episode the whole thing was suddenly rebuilt with a full government and everything.
It was also weirdly inconsistent from episode to episode how much crew Andromeda had. One episode there would be a huge crew with tons of extras all over the ship, and then suddenly the next week the main characters would be the only ones on the ship with no explanation.
The last season was just a weird mess.

 

[Christopher]

It is one of the most inconsistent shows I've ever come across. I was especially frustrated when they just suddenly dumped the whole rebuilding the Commonwealth thing and just turned it into a bunch of random adventures of the week.
In like one episode the whole thing was suddenly rebuilt with a full government and everything.

I always felt that Tribune habitually overreacted to audience feedback. There had been some complaints that the serialization was making the show harder to follow, so they demanded that the serial arc be hastily wrapped up and replaced with standalones. And I think that was after they'd demanded more serialization when they heard complaints that there wasn't enough of a story arc. They could never just try to find a healthy balance -- just kneejerk overcorrections to whatever criticisms they heard.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Andromeda is available on Amazon Video.

Not in the UK, it isn't. You're assuming Prime Video offers the same content in all countries. It doesn't. Andromeda isn't even available on Prime Video in the UK to rent or buy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Correction. Porn with Tim Curry in it. So the best kind of porn.

Actually, forget what I just said. Calling Lexx porn is an insult to porn.

Better to just call it Eeeeeeewww and be done with it.

 

[marillion]

The theme music for the first season is the most memorable thing for me... Written by Rush's Alex Lifeson. Truly beautiful.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Best part of Lexx:

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[Anwar]

Correction. Porn with Tim Curry in it. So the best kind of porn.

He was only in one story, unfortunately. I am grateful to Lexx for being made since it gave some Canadian actors some work.

 

[The Wormhole]

I never watched Lexx, but it was filmed in my hometown, so it gets points for that.

 

[Anwar]

I never watched Lexx, but it was filmed in my hometown, so it gets points for that.

Zev's planet was even named after the Postal Code where the show was made...darn shame they rarely use the TV studios out there anymore.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Update: I'm three episodes in and I'm enjoying it so far! The characters are like a mishmash from other series' and the theme song sounds like a demo that comes with a synthesizer program.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

one could also draw comparisons with Iain M. Banks's Culture, another case of a Federation-like civilization that's much, much more alien and vast and ambitiously imagined than the Federation ever was.

Since I caught a few scattered episodes recently on COMET, I think of the Culture every time I see Rommie and think that no Culture Mind would ever put up with Dylan the way that she does.

I agree with the general consensus here. The 1st couple seasons were decent but exceedingly cheap, then I gave up. The scattered episodes that I've seen since then have not made me regret it. What's really strange about the later seasons is that I thought they fired Wolfe from the show so that they could dumb it down but I found the later episodes to be even more confusing. Heck, even when they did a clip show, I was completely baffled!

The only consistently decent thing in the later seasons that I've seen is Seamus Harper. He's just a fun character who can act circles around most of the rest of the cast. Actually, I suspect that nearly all of them could act circles around Sorbo but the guy playing Harper was the only one who still tried. "Trust in the Harper. The Harper is good."

If anyone finds the alternate/parallel universe where this happened, I want directions on how to get there.

First you need a Quantum Slipstream drive. Then you need to put some ditzy purple chick at the helm...

 

[Christopher]

What's really strange about the later seasons is that I thought they fired Wolfe from the show so that they could dumb it down but I found the later episodes to be even more confusing. Heck, even when they did a clip show, I was completely baffled!

Confusing and dumb aren't mutually exclusive. Bob Engels's scripts were confusing as hell, largely because nobody in them talked like an actual human being fluent in English.

There were several clip shows, so I'm not sure which one you saw. If it was "The Unconquerable Man," that might've been confusing to a casual viewer because it was so closely tied into past continuity, building the clips into an alternate-timeline version of the series arc to date. But maybe you saw one of the others, which I don't remember so I can't speak to their clarity.

The only consistently decent thing in the later seasons that I've seen is Seamus Harper. He's just a fun character who can act circles around most of the rest of the cast. Actually, I suspect that nearly all of them could act circles around Sorbo but the guy playing Harper was the only one who still tried. "Trust in the Harper. The Harper is good."

I always found him a bit annoying. And I had trouble with the dated cyberpunk idea that he needed a physical jack in his neck to plug into computers. They don't have wifi 3000 years from now?

First you need a Quantum Slipstream drive. Then you need to put some ditzy purple chick at the helm...

Quantum slipstream is the faster-than-warp drive from Voyager: "Hope and Fear" and "Timeless," and the post-Nemesis Trek novel continuity. Andromeda's drive was just called slipstream, although it was supposedly based on quantum principles.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I’ve seen “The Unconquerable Man” and it’s awesome. The really confusing one was from Season 4, I think. Dylan was put on trial by the new Commonwealth and a bunch of earlier guest stars testified against him. Then Krycek from “The X-Files” helped him escape even after he was convicted. Or something.

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, season 4. That explains it. That was after the last of the original writing staff had left.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Is Andromeda On DEMAND or syndication anywhere? I kept missing the episode with Christopher Judge and Michael Shanks..was it a good one?

Now...did any season 4 writers carry over to season 5? It seemed like season 4 was gettong back to the original premise but then season 5 felt like a slashed budget / fan produced season (though not as jarring as the end of season 4 and the entire season 5 of Earth Final Conflict)

 

[Solariabsg25]

I liked Andromeda, but it has flaws and I think mainly a failure to truly live up to it's potential. As many others have said, a lot of interference from Tribune derailed things.