First Season Great, Rest Questionable (at best)

cfranz01

Andromeda is a sci fi series about a star-faring battleship and it's crew that, after being trapped in time, embarks to rebuild the civilized universe after it's collapse.

As such, Andromeda's premise is interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first season (I own seasons 1-4 on DVD). Acting is average, but special f/x are top notch (and they stay that way through all seasons). Season One had it's ups and downs, but the characters fleshed out nicely, even though many stories appear to disregard logic or anything resembling realism. On the whole, though, I felt season one was a winner.

However, with the beginning of Season Two, the show began to break down. More and more shows appeared to be simply a vehicle for Kevin Sorbo (playing Captain Dylan Hunt) showing off his selfless heroism. By Season Three the show had become confused, disjointed, and lacking any shreds of logic. Routinely, Andromeda's crew of (apparently) six take out an army of Killer Aliens, find a single missing person on a large planet within seconds (while other people have looked for them for ages), infiltrate, and fight their way back out of, a garrison, etc. After a while, it becomes too difficult to suspend disbelief. But worst of all is that, at the beginning of Season Four, the writers appear to have abandoned all hope of delivering a single, coherent, and believable story. Season Four does not contain one single interesting or well written story. Watch in awe as five people manage to stand in the right place along a 36 by 8 mile long arc-ship to fend off invaders that should board everywhere. Try not to groan when a signal is sent through space (and travels faster than light) by way of ultrasonic burst (which, as everyone knows, travels by speed of sound, and can't cross vacuum). Try to comprehend how two races that have battled each other for 'countless generations' managed to do so without any mixed children (even though they do mix in everyday tasks). Then bow to the wisdom of the captain who, while dying from debilitating fever, manages to deduct that the cure for his fever is mixing the two bloods. He finds a cure for which the people have searched for generations themselves. And key to his finding is some corny video footage from the library. And on, and on, and on. After a while the writer's contempt for their audience becomes almost palpable. The computer f/x, however, have become very good, and they are worth watching, though.

At the end of season four, Andromeda, which began promising, had become a total ship wreck. Beginning with season two, the stories went from stupid over idiotic to abysmally (ha, ha - pun intended) bad and finish as downright insulting.

My recommendation is to get Season One, and enjoy it. Get the other seasons only if you *really* like the show, or for the great cgi effects.

score /10

cfranz01 27 December 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1248639/