Maidexpl
Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
Livestonth
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
SnoopyStyle
In the distant future, the High Guard protects the System's Commonwealth spanning three galaxies and a million systems. The Nietzscheans are a Commonwealth race dedicated to the propagation of the strongest genetic lines. Their descent against the Commonwealth's treaty with the viscous Magog leads to their secret revolt plans. The Andromeda Ascendant is the High Guard's top of the line warship captained by Dylan Hunt (Kevin Sorbo). They are ambushed and betrayed by his Nietzschean first mate and Nietzschean forces. Hunt is caught in a black hole. The time dilation slows him down for more than 300 years as the Commonwealth falls and the worlds slip into a dark age. Captain of the Eureka Maru, Beka Valentine (Lisa Ryder), leads a salvage operation with her crew Earth survivor Seamus Harper (Gordon Michael Woolvett), mysterious purple being Trance Gemini (Laura Bertram), pacifist Magog Rev Bem who follows The Way, and Nietzschean outcast Tyr Anasazi (Keith Hamilton Cobb). Harper builds the avatar Rommie (Lexa Doig) from Andromeda's AI.After Gene Roddenberry's death, his widow Majel Barrett and producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe use his unused story material to create this TV series. It definitely has that Star Trek flavor. The Commonwealth has similar sensibility as Starfleet although the Commonwealth doesn't have something quite as compelling as Starfleet's Prime Directive. It's different species and different monsters but similar style of sci-fi. There are inherit problems with the premise. Three hundred years is a long time for technology to stand still with Andromeda maintaining its state-of-the-art status. War tech is always advancing no matter how dark the age. Despite the ship having a crew requirement of hundreds, they never manage to showcase more than six crew members. The show has its appeal but it struggles to be more than Star Trek leftovers. It does start awkwardly with a naked Lexa Doig in front of a group of kids. The first season has a few good episodes and the new world holds some fascinations. After a good first year and a bit, the show struggles for direction and it meanders through a 5 season run. They try to sex Trance up with a makeover in the second season but it's the start of a series of changes over the years that degraded the show. At around the same time, Rev is bounced from the show. A build-up to an epic war against the Magog seems to be put on the back burners. Also Kevin Sorbo's heroic lead acting has questionable appeal. He's stiff in need of more humility. The last season is a throw-away where the crew gets stuck in an alternate world. Lexa Doig gets bounced and the show adds a Penthouse Pet. It's a muddle and degenerates even further. This show could never exceed its older siblings and ends up as a footnote for the legendary sci-fi creator.
Rob_Taylor
I've wanted to watch this show for some time, it being the sole scifi series that I haven't seen from the last thirty years! Yet, now that I am approaching the end, I'm beginning to suspect my subconscious avoidance of the show for so long was a built-in safety mechanism of mine.It isn't that Andromeda is overall bad. There are some very good episodes in the show's run. But when the episodes are bad, they are pretty awful and, unfortunately, as the seasons go on, there are more bad than good episodes.Season one and two are pretty decent. They show Dylan Hunt (a character name that Roddenberry used often in his shows) struggling to rebuild the Commonwealth. At the end of the second season, a terrible threat emerges to threaten all that he has achieved. Things look good for season three! Then, Oh My! The third season loses its way quite substantially. There are episodes about the Abyss, the enemy behind the coming Magog invasion, but they aren't always interesting. In the end, season three plays out like a long preamble to the actual invasion, which we knew was coming from the end of season two.Season four is more of the same, with increasingly bizarre and pointless episodes that do little to further the plot. By the end of this season, the invasion is just starting and, as if they realised that something was stinking in the woodpile, it was clear the final two-part episode was meant as a reboot for the show. Think the original Dallas' shower scene, or the ending to Blake's Seven, and you'll have an idea of what to expect. Oddly enough, though, these two episodes were among the more entertaining of the season's fare.As for season five, well... let's just say the fast forward button is a friend you'll never grow tired of here.For me, the biggest indicator of the show's lack of direction, or a decent writer team, came with the ever increasing number of filler episodes. All shows have these, of course, but Andromeda has them in spades. The sort of episode which is most noticeable here are the flashback episodes. Episodes which have little or no story of their own and rely on reused footage from earlier episodes.It is little exaggeration to say that at some points, almost every other episode is like this in season three and four. I will say in their defence, however, that they are done better than in most other shows I've watched, but there are just SO many of them! Too many, really. When you watch episode after episode where half the running time is old footage, you know something is not going well.Also questionable is the choice to alter so many characters from their original concept. Tyr, for instance, had well meaning thug who would find redemption written all over him at the show's start. Yet they have him turn to the dark side, as it were, and betray everyone.Likewise, Rev Bem. A Magog who had found religion. It was inevitable that they'd have him question his faith, but the apparent "evolution" of his character into a more advanced form of Magog was decidedly ropey and unnecessary.Again, Trance Gemini swaps places with her alter-ego from another future and gets a colour palette swap out too, going from blue to green and a host of ninja skills as well.It's like they realised some of the characters weren't that interesting and tried to spice them up, but realised the new ones were just as poor. Exit Tyr and Rev Bem.All in all, Andromeda comes across as a bit of a mess. A lot of promise early on that was squandered on needless character changes, poorly thought-out plots, padding episodes and a loss of focus.I was so perplexed by this Jekyll and Hyde nature that I did a little digging. Turns out the lead writer departed (or was fired) mid-way through season 2 and a number of other writers took up the mantle. I couldn't locate reasons for this change, but it usually means the writer and the suits in charge of the show had different views of what the show was about. Irreconcilable differences, in this case, I would wager.Interestingly, the original writer maintains a blog site and I found a nice little script that explains more about Trance and the Abyss and what he had in mind for the show. The link for this is http://www.roberthwolfe.com/Insider%20Info.htm and you want to look at the Andromeda Coda at the bottom. Very interesting, and a little disappointing that he didn't get to take show down the suggested route.As for the show as it is, well... there are a good number of very nice episodes, but you will have to wade through some utter dross to get to them, so be prepared.SUMMARY: Good start but goes a bit pants as time goes on. Becomes more and more of a chore to watch, rather than a delight. Worth watching the first two seasons, but after that, your mileage will vary considerably.
Michael L.S.
I write this from the perspective of having seen the first three and a half seasons (i.e. being in the middle of the fourth one). Things might pick up in the remaining season and a half, although judging by the reviews posted here and elsewhere, that seems very unlikely.On the plus side, the show has some interesting overall ideas and some of the story arcs are quite good. A solid portion of the action is engaging. And hey, good-looking, voluptuous women stylin' and profilin' in skintight leather and P.V.C. body-suits gotta count for somethin', right! Seriously though, there are quite a few episodes that are capable of having the viewer riveted from start to finish.Such shows, however, are in a minority. Most of them are in some way annoying, boring, or both. For boring, try Rev. Bem and his endless, silly disquisitions about some cockamamie religious doctrine. I can't stand the makebelieve stuff the humankind actually came up with; I sure don't have time for some makebelieve makebelieve.As far as annoying, one is even more spoiled for choice. There could be the "fights," which fall into two categories: (1) hand-to-hand, and (2) shootouts. For the former, after the protagonists literally bounce off bulkheads for a while and make 720-degree high-kick turns, the indomitable Captain Hunt emerges victorious. For the latter, after a minute or two of suppressing weapons fire from multiple directions and being vastly outnumbered, Captain Hunt, yes, emerges victorious. Add to that that, in a universe with fantastic technology, small-arms fire is less accurate than someone trying to hit an apple a half a mile away with a bow and arrow... - unless it's Captain Hunt doin' the shootin', in which case he eventually manages to hit his target.Continuing with the annoying theme, another candidate is Hunt frenching every semi-decent-looking broad in sight. I thought Kirk of the original Star Trek was bad, humping as he did just about every female and female-like species all over the universe. But even he had the decency to do it only, like, 4-5 times a season. Hunt, by contrast, slips someone the tongue every other episode. Oh, and he does it at the most inopportune moments, such as while being shot at, with a self-destruct sequence rapidly nearing zero, etc. The truly pathetic schmaltzy muzak (which was actually designed to come across as "romantic" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!) only serves to aggravate the annoying factor. Note, however, that he only makes out with the REALLY attractive femininas. Those below 9 or 10 out of 10 have to go without swapping fluids with the masterful captain.Honorable mention #1: The preposterous music introduced in Season 3 during action sequences. Far from conveying a sense of urgency, desperation, and hope, it's something you'd hear while watching National Lampoon's Vacation (1983). Yes, it really is...THAT BAD! Honorable mention #2: The very idea that the survival of three galaxies of the universe could ever depend on one man and his spaceship - both three centuries out of date - is ridiculous to the point of being insulting to one's intelligence. I mean, it's tantamount to a schooner from the days of the British Empire suddenly appearing on the high seas and tearassing through the oceans, laying the smackdown on the U.S. Navy, the Chinese, or even the Somali pirates.All I can say about Andromeda is: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!
jaysixers20062006
When Andromeda first came on I did not watch a single episode of it. I knew Kevin Sorbo was the star, and since I did not care much at all of his former role as Hercules at the time I was prejudice of it. Recently though I have been able to watch the show episode by episode without having to endure commercial breaks and I have to say this show had potential. The storyline was easy to understand in the beginning and very entertaining. An outdated Commonwealth soldier on a mission to restore order across a chaotic galaxy was an interesting plot, but sadly as the Season's progressed the original plot seemed to have been completely thrown out for some supernatural plot that made no sense.The show started to go downhill in my opinion in season three. To anyone who becomes fooled by the first episode thinking this show is going to end as great as it started be warned. Your high expectations will be torn to shreds and you will end up thinking about how in the world the writers could screw the show up like that.