How bad is Andromeda?

[Christopher]

Character names like Trace Gemini and Rev Bem felt like Filmation Saturday morning TV show names.

Wrong animation reference. Trance was inspired by manic-pixie anime characters such as Ed from Cowboy Bebop or Merle from The Legend of Escaflowne, but it was a persona she put on to conceal her true nature.

"Rev Bem" is a nickname; his full name is Reverend Behemial Far Traveler, and the nickname is informed by the old science fiction acronym BEM for "Bug-Eyed Monster." Among the Magog, his name was Red Plague.

If the worldbuilding done before a single frame is shot feels lazy, then I tend to be overly critical at the jump. I had other useless bitches about it at the time, but it's been so long, I forgot them but don't have any interest in revisiting to find out.

I guess you weren't aware of the online references. The worldbuilding the creators did for their universe was immensely richer than what they could afford to put onscreen. They worked out 10,000 years of Vedran/Commonwealth history -- that's hardly lazy.

Earth: Final Conflict at least started out extraordinarily promising. It felt like an updated "V"

They actually changed Roddenberry's original concept to be less like V. IIRC, his version of the Taelons was more malevolent, but developer Richard C. Okie and Majel Roddenberry reworked them to be more ambiguous and nuanced so it wouldn't just be a V rehash. That was my favorite aspect of the concept -- the idea that the Taelons genuinely believed they were here to help humanity, but their values and perspectives were so alien to ours that they didn't understand the ways their benevolence could be harmful. It was a pretty good allegory for cultural imperialism.

and I appreciated the initially interesting Taelon agenda and Boone being played by a low key introspective actor who was far from your traditional hero type.

I liked the character's introspectiveness, but I found Kevin Kilner a boring lead actor, and Boone could be a little too stoic at times. I imagined a cartoon I would've submitted to Starlog Magazine if I'd been a better artist, with Spock confronting Boone in frustration and screaming, "They killed your wife! Show some emotion about it, for God's sake!"

Probably why they replaced him

No, apparently it was Kevin Kilner's choice to leave.

Kevin Kilner interview in Sci Fi TV

groups.google.com

Kilner puts to rest the long-standing rumors that he was fired from the
program. Although he would have liked to have been in season two, he chose to
leave because he felt he was being treated in an unprofessional manner--three
weeks before the second season was due to begin shooting Kilner and the rest of
the cast had still not been offered a contract by the producers--and also
because he had misgivings about lack-of-quality in the second season because
the writers appeared to be bowing to pressure from the financiers to add more
sex and violence and seemed to have no clear idea in mind for the direction of
the second season of the program in general and Kilner's character in
particular. Kilner, who remained in touch with his former co-stars throughout
season two, reports that the cast felt "miserable" due to this directionless
approach.

And yes, the way they introduced Liam as the new lead was ridiculous, and he turned out to be a very dull character. Personally I would've been happier if they'd just let Lisa Howard take over as the lead. I think at that point they were unwilling to have a female lead, although that changed by season 5.

 

[Takeru]

As I mentioned, it was Sorbo's preference to do it as a space series even though it was based on Roddenberry's Earthbound Genesis II premise. So the show would not have existed as we know it if Sorbo hadn't been involved.

So what? That doesn't make hiring him less of a mistake because he did help ruin it when he got more influence. Without him the show might have been very different or might not have existed at all but considering the finished show we got was ultimately not very good and all potential it had was squandered it not existing would not be much of a loss.

 

[Christopher]

So what? That doesn't make hiring him less of a mistake because he did help ruin it when he got more influence. Without him the show might have been very different or might not have existed at all but considering the finished show we got was ultimately not very good and all potential it had was squandered it not existing would not be much of a loss.

Clarifying a fact is not advocating a point of view or taking a side in an argument. It is simply making sure that the facts are understood, which is important in itself.

 

[Christopher]

So what? That doesn't make hiring him less of a mistake because he did help ruin it when he got more influence. Without him the show might have been very different or might not have existed at all but considering the finished show we got was ultimately not very good and all potential it had was squandered it not existing would not be much of a loss.

Well, I have to disagree, because I still have fond memories of the online Andromeda fan community, which generated connections well beyond the show itself. I probably wouldn't be a member of this BBS if I hadn't come here from its sister Andromeda board, and it was on this BBS that I made the acquaintance of the Star Trek novel editors who eventually gave me the opportunity to write for them, launching my career as a novelist. So I owe a lot to Andromeda's existence, and thus in some small way I owe something to Kevin Sorbo for his participation in its creation, though his part in the process was small.

I just don't like the tendency to reduce a problematical person to a single value of "bad," to uniformly denounce everything they ever had a hand in. Life is not that simplistic. A person whose overall impact is negative can still be responsible for some positive things, even if it's in spite of themselves. I think if we erase the positives because we're angry about the negatives, that just makes things more negative overall.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

So what? That doesn't make hiring him less of a mistake because he did help ruin it when he got more influence. Without him the show might have been very different or might not have existed at all but considering the finished show we got was ultimately not very good and all potential it had was squandered it not existing would not be much of a loss.

Okay how about Kevin Sorbo for Clark Kent/Superman instead of Dean Cain, as Kevin auditioned for the role.

 

[Christopher]

Okay how about Kevin Sorbo for Clark Kent/Superman instead of Dean Cain, as Kevin auditioned for the role.

I think Sorbo would've made a considerably better Superman than Cain, but not as good a Clark Kent -- which is presumably why they went with Cain, because the show originally focused far more heavily on Clark's civilian life.

But it's really bizarre that both of the finalists for the role ended up following such similar ideological paths later in life, in complete opposition to everything Superman stands for.

 

[Weyoun 251]

Off the back of this discussion I have ended up starting a rewatch of the show - just getting to the middle of S2

They did a lot of very little in terms of SFX and small sets which allowed them to leave enemies out of shot/not have to depict full scope battles

Some of the fight choreography (especially in S1) is god awful - a lot of "fight dancing" which just looks silly but I remember when watching it back on C4 in the 00s enjoying it (guess age changes things)

Think @Christopher noted that the repartee between Dylan and Tyr works well - and he was spot on, they really work well as foils for each other.

Beka Valentine's character feels like it informed how Starbuck in BSG was presented - they have a similar energy (and Lisa Ryder looks kind of similar - and quite surprised she didn't show up on something like BSG/SGA etc)

I never noticed the heavy religious themes with the Commonwealth when I watched it as a kid but watching back now things like the starship class names are very "Jesus-y" - not a complaint, just an observatation.

All in all it is still very watchable - will check back in when I get to S3 though...

 

[Cap'n Claus]

Wrong animation reference. Trance was inspired by manic-pixie anime characters such as Ed from Cowboy Bebop or Merle from The Legend of Escaflowne, but it was a persona she put on to conceal her true nature.

Well, I have no interest in Anime, so yeah, I have no idea about those - I didn't say they took the names from Filmation, just that they conjured up that sort of Saturday morning thinking.

"Rev Bem" is a nickname; his full name is Reverend Behemial Far Traveler, and the nickname is informed by the old science fiction acronym BEM for "Bug-Eyed Monster." Among the Magog, his name was Red Plague.

I know the origin of BEM (which is why I noticed it) and an alien race called the Magog - an Earthly biblical reference - is one of those things that rubbed me wrong. Any SF show that uses an Earthly name for an alien race that said aliens adopt does that to me. I would have appreciated it if the Romulans had their own name for themselves, but I tend to be nicer to 60's show because they were less sophisticated and generally aimed and Mr. and Mrs. Average Viewer and their kids.

I guess you weren't aware of the online references. The worldbuilding the creators did for their universe was immensely richer than what they could afford to put onscreen. They worked out 10,000 years of Vedran/Commonwealth history -- that's hardly lazy.

No I didn't know and yet.... "Magog." It may not have been lazy, but as I said, those names made it feel that way. To me. YMMV.

They actually changed Roddenberry's original concept to be less like V. IIRC, his version of the Taelons was more malevolent, but developer Richard C. Okie and Majel Roddenberry reworked them to be more ambiguous and nuanced so it wouldn't just be a V rehash. That was my favorite aspect of the concept -- the idea that the Taelons genuinely believed they were here to help humanity, but their values and perspectives were so alien to ours that they didn't understand the ways their benevolence could be harmful. It was a pretty good allegory for cultural imperialism.

Yep, I get that, but from what I understand, they did eventually have a malevolent agenda that was revealed as it went along, which was much like V - only more subtle.

I liked the character's introspectiveness, but I found Kevin Kilner a boring lead actor, and Boone could be a little too stoic at times. I imagined a cartoon I would've submitted to Starlog Magazine if I'd been a better artist, with Spock confronting Boone in frustration and screaming, "They killed your wife! Show some emotion about it, for God's sake!"

No, apparently it was Kevin Kilner's choice to leave.

That's a shame as he grew on me. If you're gonna replace the lead actor, do it with someone more interesting and do it well... which brings us to...

And yes, the way they introduced Liam as the new lead was ridiculous, and he turned out to be a very dull character.

That right there.

Personally I would've been happier if they'd just let Lisa Howard take over as the lead. I think at that point they were unwilling to have a female lead, although that changed by season 5.

Yup well after it was too late and the new female lead wasn't nearly as interesting. I loved Lili Marquette and thought she was one of the more interesting characters in the first season.

 

[Santa Kang]

Personally I would've been happier if they'd just let Lisa Howard take over as the lead.

One of my best friends is named Lisa Howard. She was an actress, so we used to spitball a stage name for her because "Lisa Howard" was taken.

 

[Christopher]

They did a lot of very little in terms of SFX and small sets which allowed them to leave enemies out of shot/not have to depict full scope battles

If you mean space battles, the approach there had more to do with realism than budget. The producers and science consultant Paul Woodmansee worked out a very plausible approach to how space combat would realistically happen, rather than just doing what most sci-fi productions do and copying Star Wars's fanciful and nonsensical transposition of WWII fighter-combat tropes into outer space. So the ships were very far apart rather than being crowded together like cars on the freeway like in most modern CGI space battles, and they relied more on missiles and kinetic projectiles than energy beams that could be easily dodged at those distances and would be invisible in vacuum.

The Expanse had similarly realistic space battle dynamics, albeit with much more advanced CGI and probably a much higher budget.

I know the origin of BEM (which is why I noticed it) and an alien race called the Magog - an Earthly biblical reference - is one of those things that rubbed me wrong. Any SF show that uses an Earthly name for an alien race that said aliens adopt does that to me.

I don't see the issue. The Magog's own speech sounds like animal screeching. Humans couldn't pronounce their name for themselves, so we have to call them something else. I prefer that to something like Spock saying "They call themselves the Horta" when their own speech sounds like grinding rock, or "Chewbacca" being canonically the character's name for himself (per Solo) even though Wookiees don't seem capable of pronouncing those consonants.

And of course aliens speaking English are going to refer to themselves by the English name. I know from personal experience that, for instance, native Japanese speakers conversing in English will call themselves "Japanese" rather than "Nihonjin," because they use the English word for the concept when speaking English, the same as they would with any other concept.

The only time it annoys me is when an alien species is shown to use the English name for themselves even when speaking their own language. For instance, in the Alien Nation TV series, the Tenctonese referred to themselves as "Tenctonese" even when speaking their native language, when you'd expect their own language to have a different suffix for it.

Yep, I get that, but from what I understand, they did eventually have a malevolent agenda that was revealed as it went along, which was much like V - only more subtle.

That was in the later seasons of E:FC where the show was dumbed down by its replacement showrunners and lost its original nuance. As I said, I'm talking about Richard C. Okie's original intentions when he developed the show.

Yup well after it was too late and the new female lead wasn't nearly as interesting.

Yeah. The only character development that Liam Kincaid and Renee Palmer had over the course of seasons 3-4 was that they grew progressively blonder.

One of my best friends is named Lisa Howard. She was an actress, so we used to spitball a stage name for her because "Lisa Howard" was taken.

There are always middle names or initials.

 

[Neb Lleb]

If you mean space battles, the approach there had more to do with realism than budget. The producers and science consultant Paul Woodmansee worked out a very plausible approach to how space combat would realistically happen, rather than just doing what most sci-fi productions do and copying Star Wars's fanciful and nonsensical transposition of WWII fighter-combat tropes into outer space. So the ships were very far apart rather than being crowded together like cars on the freeway like in most modern CGI space battles, and they relied more on missiles and kinetic projectiles than energy beams that could be easily dodged at those distances and would be invisible in vacuum.

The Expanse had similarly realistic space battle dynamics, albeit with much more advanced CGI and probably a much higher budget.

You mean like what Babylon 5 did?

 

[Weyoun 251]

If you mean space battles, the approach there had more to do with realism than budget. The producers and science consultant Paul Woodmansee worked out a very plausible approach to how space combat would realistically happen, rather than just doing what most sci-fi productions do and copying Star Wars's fanciful and nonsensical transposition of WWII fighter-combat tropes into outer space. So the ships were very far apart rather than being crowded together like cars on the freeway like in most modern CGI space battles, and they relied more on missiles and kinetic projectiles than energy beams that could be easily dodged at those distances and would be invisible in vacuum.

The Expanse had similarly realistic space battle dynamics, albeit with much more advanced CGI and probably a much higher budget.

Less so on that front but things like the firefight in S2 E5 (as an example) where they are under assault by what is meant to be a hoard of Kalderans while trapped in a bar and so you only see the odd enemy who breaks through the kill zone but the noise and chaos gives it the feeling of something bigger - kind of like Siege of AR-558

Good point though with the ship battles - think that came up a while ago when discussing the Yamato anime (if memory serves...might be very wrong!)

It was something 90s Trek (up to DS9 and CGI getting better) often did poorly I felt as you'd have the E-D and enemy ship about 20 yards from each other sitting static and it didn't feel right their (appreciate that wasn't your point but just adding to it as another way it was done wrong in Sci Fi)

The Point Defence system and drones also fit in nicely with realism as it makes sense you'd try and pick off enemy ordinance

 

[Christopher]

You mean like what Babylon 5 did?

Not really. B5's spaceships did move in physically plausible ways rather than banking like planes in an atmosphere, but otherwise the show's space battles had most of the usual problems, like ships too close together, visible beams in vacuum (and fireballs in vacuum in later seasons), and reliance on fighter combat, which is completely ridiculous in space. Andromeda kind of split the difference, in that it did have Slipfighters, but they were usually operated as drones.

 

[Set Harth]

But it's really bizarre that both of the finalists for the role ended up following such similar ideological paths later in life, in complete opposition to everything Superman stands for.

Think of the people who hate them and what happens if you speak truth in their presence.

 

[Romulan_spy]

So does Andromeda suck? If so, how badly?

IMO, one of Andromeda's biggest problems was the bad acting. Kevin Sorbo is a terrible actor. So putting him in the lead role of the captain is a bad idea. The other actors were pretty mid too. And the writing was pretty bad too. To me, it comes across as bad 90s scifi where production value felt poor, and the acting and writing could come across as very cheezy. But the show did have an interesting premise and some good world-building so it had potential. I seem to remember there were a couple episodes that were good. With better writing and better acting, it would have done better.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

One of my best friends is named Lisa Howard. She was an actress, so we used to spitball a stage name for her because "Lisa Howard" was taken.

Is this your BFF Lisa Howard?

 

[tharpdevenport]

Rather coincidentally, the official Youtube channel for Lionsgate, has put the full pilot up for free viewing as of two days ago:

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( youtube.com/watch?v=hsBbpdEunI4 )

 

[FredH]

They actually changed Roddenberry's original concept to be less like V. IIRC, his version of the Taelons was more malevolent, but developer Richard C. Okie and Majel Roddenberry reworked them to be more ambiguous and nuanced so it wouldn't just be a V rehash.

Interesting. I remember a reference in — I want to say Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation? — to a series idea he’d had that was basically “What if aliens took over the world and used essentially fascist tactics, but for good?” Which isn’t something one wants to see, especially now; but I’ve always kind of assumed that that’s what became the seed of the first season of EFC.

As to replacing Kilner/Boone, at that point Sandoval hadn’t yet been presented as being evil even without the symbiote, so I’d have liked the Liberation to free him and make him the new lead, instead of shoehorning in the new guy.

 

[Christopher]

As to replacing Kilner/Boone, at that point Sandoval hadn’t yet been presented as being evil even without the symbiote, so I’d have liked the Liberation to free him and make him the new lead, instead of shoehorning in the new guy.

I came to feel sorry for Von Flores, because he was the only cast member to stick with the show for all five seasons as it got progressively worse, and he was such a talented and charismatic actor that he deserved to be in a much better show. I kept hoping for his sake that he'd depart for greener pastures along with everyone else, but he never did.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Steady paycheck for fives year, pretty good when the cost of living is so high out there. Plus, maybe each year he was holding out the next one would be different.