Andromeda.... Wow!

[Urge]

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!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That's nice.

I enjoyed the first season of the show for its high points and without regard to its lows, and a few episodes of the second until the influence of the original creative mind behind it, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, was diminished to nothing.

But then, I grew up on skiffy shows that were produced with resources that weren't equal to their ambition...like Star Trek TOS, for example. And even within those limits, Andromeda was not as creaky as Babylon 5 (while being considerably more lively and less of a trudge).

Plus, of course, Andromeda featured the world's second-most perfect human being, Lexa Doig.

 

[Silvercrest]

You'll find a lot of people who agree with you, although usually the pilot episode isn't panned THAT badly.

But really, you don't like it when the aliens are ugly? What's the alternative?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

But really, you don't like it when the aliens are ugly? What's the alternative?

I liked the "ugly" aliens and enjoyed the use of animal metaphors in contrast to the "everyone's basically human" approach of Trek. That said, makeup design was one area in which B5 easily bested Andromeda (and sometimes, in those days, Trek).

And the less said about Andromeda's pots-and-pans-and-aluminum-foil "Borg" episode the better.

 

[MNM]

This is undoubtedly the worst thing I have ever seen.

I'm all for differing opinions, but, if the andromeda pilot is really the worst thing you have ever seen, you have not seen much.

 

[OmahaStar]

Urge, if you dislike the pilot so much, there is no point in continuing. It only gets worse from there. It's already started going downhill. Season one is the best it gets. About halfway through season two, Sorbo had the show-runner fired, and what little consistency the show had was lost. By season three, it was a floundering mess, season four was worse, and season five was completely unwatchable.

 

[Urge]

You'll find a lot of people who agree with you, although usually the pilot episode isn't panned THAT badly.

But really, you don't like it when the aliens are ugly? What's the alternative?

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.

And for aliens, they dont all have to be hot models or anything, but they shouldnt look like as repulsive as the bat-man or that other hairy-creepy rat-like figure does in Andromeda. Quark in deep space 9 is a example of an alien that is not good looking, while also not stepping over the line towards repulsiveness. Worf is a okay looking alien (Or maybe chicks find him hot, I dont know) while T`Pol is a good looking one. In star wars you have Hubba the hut (or something like that) who is a bit nasty (Specially when he starts dribling over princess Leia), but he is not a main caracter, and his definitely not as bad as bat-man or rat-man. To choose such alien designs for crew-members becomes too exhaustive to look at. While eye-candy is not always nessecary for a film to be good, the opposite doesnt work either, at least not when one have to look at it over and over again.

Also, it is very strange to pull the new caracter (who we have only seen jumping down a ladder and walk through a corridor) being pulled into a epic battle already at the beginning of the very first episode. The start is way, way too hard and dense as a introduction to a brand new universe. The epic all-out battle starts even before the title-song kicks in, and when this is combined with a planet eaten by a black hole.... Way too much.

Extremely weak script I would say.

 

[MNM]

. It only gets worse from there. It's already started going downhill. Season one is the best it gets.

Hell no, Season four rocked.

 

[God Magnus]

I really loved the start of "Andromeda" and followed it quite loyally for about a season and a half. Then close to season three I noticed things were getting progressively worse and bailed. I didn't know about the whole RHW thing until years later (and it made sense once I found out) but I have to agree that by the end of the show it was near unrecognizable.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Are we humans really that different?

Surprise!

I really loved the start of "Andromeda" and followed it quite loyally for about a season and a half. Then close to season three I noticed things were getting progressively worse and bailed.

Sounds like our experiences were similiar. You were more patient...but then, my life at that time was disorganized enough, for several reasons, that it was probably easier for me to lose track of the routine of watching a weekend TV series in which my interest was declining. A few years before, or later, and I might have stuck it out through season two.

I enjoyed the fact that the pilot script threw you head-first into the series premise right at the top. There's nothing important that needs to be explained about a galactic empire/federation/alliance/whositz to anyone who'd find and sit through twenty minutes of any space opera TV series, after all. Andromeda is about what happens to the characters long after all of that Star Trek world is knocked down, and it's great that the pilot doesn't waste time on it. Very strong narrative approach, I say.

 

[Lindley]

I tried watching this show a while back. The pilot wasn't that bad, but I knew its reputation and couldn't really summon the energy to get more than 2-3 episodes in.

 

[Jan]

I really loved the start of "Andromeda" and followed it quite loyally for about a season and a half.

I loved it for the same amount of time but once RHW was gone, it got painful to watch pretty much immediately.

It's a matter of taste, I guess. For some reason I was able to accept fuzzy-bear and purply-with-tail aliens more readily than I'd been able to deal with muppets on Farscape.

Jan

 

[Urge]

When I bought this, I confused it with something else, a book-cover I had seen that also have become a mini-series, apparently:

http://www.flixster.com/movie/the-andromeda-strain2008

I thought I was going to see a adaptation of a novel into a series, so I didnt understand what Gene Roddenberry was doing above the title.

So tomorrow Im going back to the store and replace it with something else. I dont know what though. Another season of next generation perhaps (I have up to season 4, so then it will be number 5)

 

[Jack Bauer]

Aside from a few dodgy episodes in the first season it was a really good show until RHW was given the boot. I give it a pass for the CGI and make up since it was a low budget syndicated series. Plus, it had Lexa Doig...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Plus, it had Lexa Doig...

We reach, brother.

 

[PsychoPere]

When I bought this, I confused it with something else, a book-cover I had seen that also have become a mini-series, apparently:
http://www.flixster.com/movie/the-andromeda-strain2008

That miniseries sucked. Read the book instead.

Also: perhaps you should try availing yourself of the back cover descriptions on a box so you avoid confusion in the future.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This statement...

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. !

...doesn't track with this statement...

When I bought this, I confused it with something else, a book-cover I had seen that also have become a mini-series, apparently:

http://www.flixster.com/movie/the-andromeda-strain2008

I thought I was going to see a adaptation of a novel into a series...

...in any way whatever.

So, which was it?

 

[Brian]

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??!

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

Urge, I'd like to introduce you to a Cardassian:

Which is yet another ugly alien, a permanent and important part of another series, and not a zombie.

 

[Brent]

I loved Andromeda, /shrug, the last season can be forgotten, but the rest of it is pretty darn good IMO, a very enjoyable SCIFI series. Too bad the quality slacked off over its run, but S1 was really great. I fell in love with Lexa Doig from watching this series in its original run.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Andromeda was great for the first two years; if they had been smart enough to keep Robert Hewitt-Wolfe and allowed him to do his thing, we might have had another show in the same class as Star Trek, Stargate, Babylon 5 et al. And the special effects may have been cheap, but they were aesthetically appealing, and that's all I care about. And, of course, there was Lexa Doig....