Andromeda: Under the Night/An Affirming Flame

[Ghilz]

Chuck reviews the first 2 episodes.

https://www.sfdebris.com/videos/tv/andromedas1e01.php

I have weird feelings about Andromeda. For one, it's almost impossible to not notice that it's based on a script Gene Roddenbery wrote for Star Trek (Niezcheans = Klingons, Commonwealth = Federation, Magog = Borg, Tarn Vedran = Vulcans). That said I liked the show's premise... but a lot of it to me fell flat. Trance Gemini and Rev always felt like the sort of occupied space but didn't really have anything to do on the show. Kevin Sorbo can't carry the gravitas his character requires. I found that while the characters and premise worked on paper, the cast have little chemistry and didn't really play off each other. Gordon Micheal Woolvett who plays Harper being the main exception. The writing and tone also felt inconsistent. You have some pretty dark stuff (The Magogs as a whole, Dylan being a man who's been betrayed by his best friend and has basically lost everything), but the tone is firmly that of a 90s adventure show.

Probably not helped by the fact that the show gives itself a loftly goal (restore the commonwealth), but a lot of episodes dont feel like progress is being made towards that, and the characters dont really seem to have a plan beyond "Travel around and like, be nice to people?"

I will say the show's visual design for a lot of stuff was on point. Loved the original look the show gave itself.

I do think with a stronger cast and better writing Andromeda could be a really cool show. But I dont think what we got ever was.

[Mabus]

So a guy with big ego wants to make the Commonwealth great again?
Oh come on, you know someone would eventually say it!

On a more serious note, some of the ideas thrown for the show were quite crazy, like changing the entire Universe to make it more friendly or something, though I can't seem to find that info right now.

EDIT: Nevermind I found it:
http://www.cyberspace5.net/agentrichard07/coda-script.htm

[Mecha82]

It was interesting to see how Andromeda began. I didn't see these first episodes back in day and I didn't watch Andromeda much so nor I remember much about it so these reviews are welcome.

[sandangel]

God I still wish this show had stayed as good as it promised. There was definitely something here to work with, but it couldn't stick the landing in the end.

[Deledrius]

God I still wish this show had stayed as good as it promised. There was definitely something here to work with, but it couldn't stick the landing in the end.

Replacing the show-runner's vision and guidance with ego-driven lead-actor pandering really kills the show. I've seen things decline, but this show is the best example I've seen of quality just dropping off a cliff the moment a behind-the-scenes shakeup occurs. The episode in which Sorbo begins running things is where everyone and everything about it changes. Sadly, not for the better.

[FaxModem1]

The show is really solid until the midway point of season 2, IE, the last episode Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote. It also works as it's own finale if you want it to. After that, the show just becomes the fan derived nickname, "Hercules IN SPACE". Because Kevin Sorbo seriously hated the idea of both a long arc based show, and he also hated any character or plot development that wasn't about his main character.

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the good stuff. The Commonwealth does seem like what the Federation could potentially become a few hundred years down the line, with them trying to make peace with a race like the Borg, and races in their government flipping out and rebelling over it. At the same time, the Nietzschians were interesting as a villain race, as they were both followers of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. So you see a lot of deconstructions of their philosophies and how, while that leads to self described ubermensches, it also leads to a house of cards full of betrayals and backstabbing the moment you have any weakness at all. People like Tyr and Rhade try to become the ideal, but they're surrounded by brutish thugs who are embarrassments and show what such ideals would really lead to.

I think a key example of this philosophy in action is in the episode The Prince, in which both Tyr and Dylan are mentoring a young prince, and both are good at playing the game, it's just that Dylan has more noble goals, and Tyr knows when to switch back to Dylan's side. In fact, one measurement of the show's quality is seeing if Tyr is acting from a place of Machiavellian scheming for an advantage, or if he's just being a dastardly whiplash looking to quickly take over.

[Rocketboy1313]

Chuck brings up the whole, "Sorbo plays the role as too much of a swaggering hero" but I kind of think that works. I can imagine people from a space empire of good and noble ability being super full of themselves, and that standing out even more when in juxtaposition to the rag tag renegade elements they manage to pull together.

I have weird feelings about Andromeda. For one, it's almost impossible to not notice that it's based on a script Gene Roddenbery wrote for Star Trek (Niezcheans = Klingons, Commonwealth = Federation, Magog = Borg, Tarn Vedran = Vulcans).

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the good stuff. The Commonwealth does seem like what the Federation could potentially become a few hundred years down the line, with them trying to make peace with a race like the Borg, and races in their government flipping out and rebelling over it.

Does anyone know for sure if this show was conceptualized as a Trek series? Was it scrubbed of those ideas as a way to get some fresh copyrights and merchandising?
Was it created with being a Voyager followup in mind?
It would have worked better as the next step after Voyager in place of Enterprise, as it takes the idea of a lone ship lost at the other end of the galaxy trying to get home, and then goes one further, a lone ship without a home to go back to. It hits the reset button on the tech level and status of peaceful galaxy needed after blowing up so much of the Borg and beating the Dominion. Shakes a lot up.

There seems like too many elements that sound like find and replace elements for Trek stuff for it to totally not be the case. But then there are enough new elements that it seems like a fresh take on the typical idea of a space opera.

[SuccubusYuri]

Does anyone know for sure if this show was conceptualized as a Trek series? Was it scrubbed of those ideas as a way to get some fresh copyrights and merchandising?

If memory serves it was written about the same time he wrote the "Earth Final Conflict" stuff, though he (Gene) did use the name Dylan Hunt is post-apocalyptic fiction before.

Wolfe said what he got from Gene was
-The names Dylan Hunt and Harper
-Genetically engineered bad guys (we know how much Gene hated them)
-Fallen civilization and ragtag future crew concept.

Pretty much everything else was sprung from Wolfe's brain. The FTL, the scope of the Seven Galaxies, the Vedrans and the empire-to-parliament, the AI rights, the anime influences, the free trade alliance, all of that.

Chucks moving in on my wheelhouse here but I did one of my first videos on the background if you're curious xD https://youtu.be/YtIqNSEcE8Q

[Sir Will]

I liked the series, at first. It's not the greatest show around, but I remember the first season being really solid. I loved quirky Trance and that edge to her we got to see a few times early on. I liked Rev Bem too, though I believe his departure was because of the makeup?


Spoilers for the rest of the series:

Anyway, I liked it at first, but then the time distortion episode happened. I actually quite like that episode, but I hate the introduction of gold Trance. While I still liked her character ok, I liked it a lot less than purple Trance. They revived the Commonwealth too quickly and easily and then didn't really take advantage of it. Tir got... weird. I never liked him much, not my kind of character, but I really hated him when he went all cult. I hated how much control Sorbo got. I know now how terrible a person he is but I liked his character less and less as the show went on and Dylan was made into this literal god. And season 5 is just bad.

They fired the original story guy and I did skim his take on the series some time ago and don't remember liking it all that much either, so I think the series was always doomed to go downhill.

[Taurian Patriot]

They revived the Commonwealth too quickly and easily and then didn't really take advantage of it.

I haven't seen the series since it first aired, but I definitely remember this happening, and feeling by this point that the show had gone off the rails.

The restoration of the Commonwealth was pitched as the overarching plot, and there are episodes scattered about where they have talks with former Commonwealth worlds about establishing a new government, but then somewhere around season 3 (I think), suddenly it's back together. No fanfare, no sense of achievement, no sense of struggle or victory. Last week it wasn't there, and this week it is. Hooray, I guess.

Then the new Commonwealth ejects Hunt and the Andromeda from service, and just like that, it's another background element while Dylan Hunt goes off to blow up a ship made of planets and become a demigod or whatever.