• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Andromeda: Worth watching?

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see a genre show that wants to be a genre show, not afraid of being a genre show, not tip toeing around acting as if it's ashamed of being a genre show.

Oh, like BSG was? Because BSG ran away from sci-fi in the miniseries. At least Andromeda had heroes who were heroes,
and not goldbricks or screw-ups who then turn their backs on technology.
 
I saw very little of Andromeda but the supposedly good Wolfe years.

But I remember the episode where they swiped the CPR scene from The Abyss.

I remember the episode where a far future civilization has no more profound ideas about drug addiction/alcoholism than blaming on character flaws.

I remember the Magog, another weird species evolving an impossible life style. They were basically talking rugs but they were supposed to threaten the entire galaxy. With their teeth.

I remember the "Nietzchean." Only if Keith Hamilton Cobb made you horny could you take that tripe seriously.

I remember the devil girl, who was plainly being written as the true hero of the series. Firing Wolfe for that nonsense was perfectly sensible. This show was floated by people liking Kevin Sorbo, and not knowing it was kind of thick.

The notion the good went away after season 1.5 is crazy.
 
I loved it, Kevin Sorbo was great.

I liked Harper he was pretty cool for the geek of the crew.

I personally love how it was set up and the first like 10 minutes of the Series will stay with me forever. A Ship responding to a distress signal that turns out to be a trap, a captain getting into a slow motion fight with his first officer, and the ship getting trapped in a black hole.....

I want to get this series on DVD again as well but it seems as if it's gone up the prices on the DVD Sets.

And Rommie was hot as heck.
 
One of the many "Andromeda" threads that have come and gone since the series has ended :) I will agree with everyone's statements regarding the show. The first season was probably the best season. Then after Wolfe left and the show's premise seemed to be retooled for them to be adventurers. The final two seasons were just plain awful especially the final season which was...well it was barely tolerable to be honest. I would recommend reading if you can find it on the web "Coda" which was written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe two or three years ago and covers in an almost play format the direction he originally intended the series to go in and its pretty far out there. It is a enjoyable read though.
 
Andromeda, B5, Lexx, I feel like I've fallen into a timewarp.

Or a little like Dylan Hunt if he woke up three hundred years later only to discover nothing had changed.
From what I recall, only Keith Hamilton Cobb was worth bothering with.
Pretty much. He had the benefit of being given a role that had a bit of wry humour that actually worked, though (a muscleman who loves Wagner, Nietzsche and Rand, who treats selfish pragmatism as a code of honour) while Sorbo was the muscleman who loves truth, justice, and the Andromedan Way. It's just the less boring role.

I liked Lexa Doig's acting, though (for some reason I'm sure I can't pinpoint), though only Andromeda's first season was fairly watchable. It went off the rails in the middlle of the second season when RHW left and frankly never recovered. Given the outline he's given of what his big mytharc was the show could have been the next B5; densely arced cosmic battles through low budgets and CGI, but sadly that was not to be.
 
I loved Andromeda, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It's a series I want on DVD myself.

It was space battles, laser gun fights, and attractive people in tight leather. Sure, many of the stories were forgettable, but I think of Andromeda in the same style of formula action-adventure shows like The A-Team and Knight Rider, in which you generally know what you're going to get in each episode--lots of stuff being blown up and someone getting a can of whup-ass.
 
Am I the only person who liked Season 5? If you take it as a different style of show and don't expect space opera anymore, it was enjoyable. At least to me. And maybe only me. ;)
 
Had the potential to be a new Blakes 7 (Tyr as Avon, Harper as Vila, etc) but somewhere round season 2, when they fired RHW and turned it into the Kevin Sorbo Is God show it became suddenly unwatchable...
 
I really like Andromeda!

A definite guilty pleasure show for me.
I actually have the series on DVD by ADV.

It's like a fun B-Movie. Low budget, a very good, likeable cast, and some very wild and out there storylines.

Is it great dramatic cutting edge television? No, of course not. But it was never meant to be. It is what it is, an hour of action and adventure. Its pure popcorn entertainment. And sometimes that's all a person needs. IMO, it was definitely more fun and entertaining than a lot episodes of Voyager or the first couple of seasons of Enterprise.

As already stated by others, seasons one and two are probably the best of the series. But only because you can see glimmers of the show's potential if it had continued under Wolfe's creative guidance.

In season three, the serialized storylines were dropped and the series became episodic until the last 6 episodes. But I didn't mind this at all. Sometimes it is nice just to tune in and know what you are going to get and not have to worry about all the continuing subplots. An escapist action hour of laser fights, ship battles and evil aliens!!! Nothing wrong with that. And for people who complain the series became too Dylan Hunt centric, I have to strongly disagree. All members of the cast had moments to shine through out the series. :techman:

But also remember, this show from its very conception and promotion was designed as a Kevin Sorbo starring vehicle. In all likelyhood, if had not agreed to the series, Andromeda may never have happened.

Season Four, saw the return of serialized story arcs with the return of the Magog and Abyss. I really like season four and where they took the storyline. While it is clearly very different from what Wolfe envisioned for the series, it was still very entertaining and highly underrated.:bolian:

As for season five, well... even I had to admit it was sometimes hard to watch. I enjoyed the first and last 4 or 5 episodes, but the middle portion of the season left me wanting. But I applaud the writers/producers for making the best of a bad situation, as my understanding is the main studio (Fireworks I think) went belly-up, causing a massive budget cut to the show, thus forcing the planet bound Seefra storyline.

I think if alot people let go of the whole "what-if-Wolfe-had-not-been-fired-thing", and put aside their anti-Kevin Sorbo schitck, and gave the show another viewing, they would find a fun sci-fi action adventure series about unapologetic and engaging Heroes battling nasty villains and helping the innocent. And what's wrong with that?:)
 
Last edited:
^I'll take your word for it. :)

There are some episodes I'd be open to revisiting...but the ratio of good to bad just doesn't cut it. At all.
 
^I'll take your word for it. :)

There are some episodes I'd be open to revisiting...but the ratio of good to bad just doesn't cut it. At all.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

Everyone has different tastes.

For example, I LOVE TOS and DS9
and thought ENT had great untapped potential,
but found VOY to be horrible and a complete waste of time.

To each their own....:hugegrin:
 
You like DS9 and actually like the travesty that was DROM after RHW left?!

Oh well - diff'rent strokes like you said. :)

For my part - I'll reiterate that first 1 and a half seasons of Andromeda were quite good quality. I, for one, think that the season 1 finale "It's Hour Come 'Round At Last" was just fantastic - relentless and keeps on coming at you! It was a wonder that they were able to get out of that scrap! And the scene had been set for a very interesting arc for the entire series.

It was even then and especially retrospectively a really poor decision to kick out RHW and replace it with the Twin Peaks guy who clearly was out of sorts as to what this genre was. I think I watched the first couple of episodes of season 3 and gave up on DROM for good.

But when it was good, it was quite good and it had so much potential!! Makes your blood boil that it all came to naught...
 
Rommie, Harper, and Tyr were great characters. I remembered Harper from the series "Deep Water Black" with Nicole Deboer and thought it was great in that. Lexa Doig I had the biggest crush on for the longest while was happy when she joined the cast of "Stargate SG-1" even as a reoccurring character. I think one of the things that bothered me most about "Andromeda" was that it had this grand scope (the website and the All Systems Library was just awesome for in universe history and info) of a storyline but then it turned into the Kevin Sorbo look at me I'm a great science fiction starship captain show! I loved the ship though.
 
I'm midway through season 3 and Im struggling to finish it but I really want to. It looked really promising in the first season and bits of the second.
 
Im a fan of the seriies:) Still some season three episodes to watch from DVD.
Its true that its not Star Trek but I find it to be very entertaining, sort of like Hercules in space. Not the least because both the have Kevin Sorbo.
Its fun..and has nice lasergun and space battles..and manages to different enough from other science fiction shows. I like the characers too:techman:
And the universe it created was quite cool also.
Its true that the series looses its way a bit after seasons two and becomes more episodic storywise, plus the last season is quite horrible, but there isnt much scifi action/adventure out there, so Andromeda has its place:cool:
Plus it has Lexa Doig:drool:
 
Hopefully I'm not out of line bumping such an old thread - but with the complete lack of SciFi on television, I have decided to give this series a chance. Having completed the first 7 episodes of season 1, I must say that its been an enjoyable ride so far. I did like one posters description that the show can be a bit like knight rider or the a team in that you know what you are going to get so you just turn your brain off and enjoy 40 minutes of escapism - after all, isnt that what its about in the first place?
 
If it is, then I would say that Andromeda escaped from realism a bit too often and too far for my liking in the long run.
 
man, you guys weren't kidding. i watched the first two seasons over the summer. it was enjoyable. not the best, not the worst. but i've really struggled with the third season. i've only watched the first six or seven episodes...its bad.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top