Andromeda: Under the Night/An Affirming Flame

[AlucardNoir]

Chuck asked where these first two episodes lead... sigh, they lead to the science fiction shitstain that is Andromeda season 5.

[PerrySimm]

Andromeda and Usenet all in the same review? The 90s will never be gone as long as we remember them! XD

I Want To Be Your Next Federation President

I hereby announce my campaign for President of these United Planets. Using my impeccable reputation as a starting point, I am going to impose sweeping reform in all branches of the UFP. But don't think that this will be a smear campaign; not from this candidate. I could talk about my opponent's 12 illegitmate children on Risa... but I won't. Even though I have pictures, sounds and videos (plus a really nifty holo that gets a really neat angle on a postion thought impossible for humanoids), this is not going to be that type of campaign. To show that I am a candidate of the issues, for the issues and by the issues I will discuss one of my major reforms to the Federation's Defensive and Exploratory arm: Starfleet.

Starfleet has many problems. We are continually losing ships to simple things like crew members exploding due to lack of bathrooms. So far 3 of the new Toilet-class heavy restrooms have been sent out to help these beleaguered and almost unsalvagable ships, but this is not enough. My first order as your Emperor...errrrrr, President would be to insure there is one bathroom in every ship of more than 1000 beings. My second act to prevent the loss of so many ships would be rename them all Enterprise and make sure that they are crewed with children and fools. Since, as the old saying goes, fate protects those three things, they should be unbeatable.

My next reform would be to Federation Science. Since, over the last ten years, they have failed consistently to apply newly recovered alien versions of Federation technology once it is dumped in its lap. My understanding is that the one exception is that they took a "phasing" cloak that is superior to anything the Romulans or Klingons had, and made a Talarian Brandy sifter. Although the beverage was found to have the remarkable propertiey of improving the looks of beings of the opposite sex of the drinker, it was still deemed a failure, due the number of liver regenerations nessecary to improve said physical attributes to an acceptable level for mating of any kind.

The last improvement I am going to mention today is to Federation Aesthetics and Art Council. Appearently most members were appointed during the peace with the Klingons. I think it is unanimous that it was poor judgement, both in an aesthetic and artistic sense, to have Zefram Cochrane's entire 250th birthday holo take place in his favorite place, between the twelve breasts of an Oriviem Limbst. Needless to say I would replace most of them.

Who will support my campaign? Better yet, who will be my vice president?

[chaos42]

i have to agree about the cast though becca and tyre get better as the show goes on, harper and his interations with rommi are some of my favs and dylan i always saw as a person who doesn't really realize just what hes asking for. Though i have to say the issue i think is that the old common wealth had issue he never really came to realize as does what will later develop. Though one issue i see repeatedly as stupid in the series was that becca had ideas that would make them a large amount of money, and dylan didn't want to do those as he had a MISSION. But it seems that making money to help fund this endevour would have been a good idea. One of the things i think dylan fails to understand is people have to get something out of work, he may be powered by duty and honor but for the rest of us a steady pay check is nice, and while they get a lot of perks from working on the ship, its tech level is higher than most of the rest of the universe due to a lot of knowledge being lost, they do have to trade for stuff they need so having more. Though the ship is able to take in raw materials from asteroid fields and break them down and has fabrication facilities, for making new weapons like missles.


I personally think this series does have some good stuff in it but more in a cheesy series vibe. Plus i do like the force lance the main weapon, going from a wand like gun -and it is a gun it fires smart bullets, to turning into a quarter staff, its an interesting weapon. Though there are plenty of guns in the series.

[Sir Will]

Yeah it's been a long time and I didn't see every episode but yeah, season 3 I think, suddenly it's back, they have a crew, and it didn't seem very well explained or laid out.

[FaxModem1]

The Nietzcheians were always very interesting, in showing what a race of bullies would look like. You can romance it, like the Klingons, Nietzsche, or Ayn Rand did. But at the end of the day, you become a race of infighting bullies and cowards, preying on those weaker than you to survive.

I also really liked Rev Bem. Shame that the makeup made it to where the actor had to leave the show.

[BlackoutCreature2]

So I will start off by saying the same thing I say after all Andromeda reviews - man, Lexa Doig was really hot back in the day.

So I remember seeing advertisements for this show before it even started and thinking "man, this looks like a cheap, horrible Star Trek ripoff". I wouldn't have even bothered with the pilot except I don't think I could find anything else on. But I'm glad I did watch it because I found myself surprisingly enjoying it and becoming a big fan of the show for the first few seasons. Then it just fell apart after season two. I understand why they felt they needed to drop Wolfe, why they felt his script was too cerebral, but man, I really wish they could've found a better direction to take it in then "cheap, horrible Star Trek ripoff".

And was Rhade actually a spy for the Nietzschean? Was this confirmed somewhere? I always got the impression his betrayal of Dylan was a spur of the moment thing.

[Darth Wedgius]

I liked the concept of the show, and I liked the AIs being treated as beings in a pretty straightforward manner. The rest of the execution... I thought it was OK, but it wasn't enough to keep me tuning in on a regular basis.

[Trinary]

And was Rhade actually a spy for the Nietzschean? Was this confirmed somewhere? I always got the impression his betrayal of Dylan was a spur of the moment thing.

I'm not a faithful follower of Andromeda and it's been a while since I watched, but I definitely remember Rhade saying to Dylan during their battle dialogue that Rhade had long opposed the anti-Commonwealth sentiment that had been developing among some Nietzscheans ... until the treaty with the Magog. That convinced him to change his mind and side against the Commonwealth. So, yeah, my read is that Rhade was totally onboard with the Nietzschean rebellion and this was not something he did spur of the moment.

[FaxModem1]

Yeah, Rhade even noted to Dylan that he was trying to warn him.

[chaos42]

Yeah, Rhade even noted to Dylan that he was trying to warn him.

they manage to even make that scene weird due to a combination of time travel and alternate history, this show doesn't so much as bend the laws of space time and matter, it puts them in a shredder and then burns it


it is however enjoyably cheesy, more so if you know that dylans actor was also hercules, and just impose that as who this guy is because, well he is that dylan is captain hercules, even before something important is revealed he is stronger than most humans because his mother was from a heavy gravity world, and old trope that means since the gravity there is higher they are stronger than normal people in normal gravity.

still the pretend philosophy is good for a laugh and it can be enjoyed for the characters like harper who can make entire episodes that are other wise dull into something funny