Andromeda

(This series is ongoing. At the time of this writing (10/25/2004), I have only seen episodes through season three with a handful from season 4.)

Andromeda, AKA "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda", was originally conceived as a series that chronicles the fall and rebirth of the United Federation of Planets -- the governing organization in the Star Trek series. It is questionable how much of this series was actually conceived by Gene Roddenberry. It was realizaed long after his death. The "Commonwealth" is obviously not the Star Trek series' "United Federation of Planets", probably because of ownership rights, but it bears a resemblance.

Characters

The captain of the Andromeda is Dylan Hunt, an idealized man who is tall, strong, attractive, smart, commanding, and idealistic. He is played by Kevin Sorbo (of the Hercules TV series). Andromeda is the artificially intelligent Star Ship. She has a holographic personality, a computer-network personality, and an android "avatar" with an independent personality. Next is Rebecca Valentine, the roguish captain of the Eureka Maru. She is a talented pilot, good leader, beautiful, and playful. Shamus Harper is the brillient, quick-witted, geeky engineer. Tyr Anasazi is a genetically engineered superhuman, with an evolutionary directive. Trance is a quirky alien with a strange relationship to the future. She serves as ship doctor, and botanist.

In the first season, the Reverend BEM was aboard the ship. He was from an evil race of parasites, and had succumbed to a religion called "They Way". He served as spiritual guidance.

The show goes through a lot of character changes. At the end of season one, the series loses Reverend BEM for poorly explained reasons. Later Trance transforms from a cute purple mystery into a fierce brown warrior. Andromeda (the android) makes some personality changes, probably to discern the android from the ship. Later Tyr leaves the ship to pursue his Nitchzian empire. Dylan and Valentine make subtle changes, leaving only harper as his original self.

Setting

The StarShip Andromeda Ascendant is the setting for the show. It is a large warship with a strange organic shape. It travels all over a devastated universe, filled with dictators, monsters, and disenchanted remnants of a great civilization.

Plot

The underlying plot in the early seasons was to rebuild the CommonWealth, and restore peace and order to the galaxy. They attained this -- to a lesser extant -- in the second season. After this, there was no plot.

Critique

This show started very well. The show was a bit gimicky, with fancy graphics,improbable furnishings and engineering, and an expensive wardrobe. However, the plots were decent, and the characters were excellent. I looked forward to each episode.

Then something went horribly awry. First, the show lost it's plot. Then it lost important characters. Then it lost its writing, and started having stupid, meaningless stories. Then it totally lost any coherence at all. The series is ongoing, but the last season is unwatchable. There seem to be huge editing mistakes, and the plot makes unexplained jumps. This criticism is more than a matter of taste. Something has gone severely wrong with the production crew.

I suspect that they were warned of possible cancellation. They tried to tie up the series, and then... they had nothing left to work with when the series wasn't actually cancelled. I believe that they've been "one episode away from the end" for a long time, and everyone has been treading water. Poorly.