ORBzine - UK TV Review: "Andromeda" April 2001
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Season 3
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 1]
If the Wheel Is Fixed
Shown 21-Sep-2002
Shown
Bekka and Tyr are mysteriously returned from the transdimensional tunnel. But they've been changed somehow ...
Sorbo now does the voice-over. Rommie is back to her black hair, and is much more presentable because of it. There are no guest-stars.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 2]
The Shards of Rimni
Shown 28-Sep-2002
Shown
Dylan is framed for murder. He and Harper must find the shards of an important vase.
It turns out that Kunt got his hands on the shard in a mission 300 years ago, when he was handpicked by Constanza Stark. This is what the Federation would do – instead of using specialists like NAVY Seals, they just send in regular officers. In all fairness, mainstream military shows like JAG do the same sort of thing – Harm Rab is a world-class naval aviator AND lawyer, and anything else he turns his mind to.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 3]
Mad to Be Saved
Shown 05-Oct-2002
Shown
The Andromeda takes a group of refugees aboard. They're inmates from a lunatic asylum. Unfortunately, one of them is a doctor who illegally experimented on his patients.
The Confederacy wants the torturer alive, because his knowledge will help their own research. Kunt is getting disenchanted with his precious Commonwealth. Finally, this show is getting a healthy cynicism!
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 4]
Cui Bono
Shown 11-Oct-2002
Shown
The title is in Latin. It is a legal term, meaning Who benefits?
Bekka's uncle Sid (John DeLancie - Star Trek TNG ) is up to his old crooked ways. He's going for the biggest criminal job going - he's standing for election to be head of the Confederacy!
However, an assassin thinks otherwise. Uncle Sid is put in Intensive Care, and his revenge fund finances the assassination of all his enemies. This starts a miniature war!
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 5]
The Lone and Level Sands
Shown 21-Oct-2002
Shown
The title is from the last line of the poem Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Eureka Maru is chased. Dylan, Rommie, Tyr and Harper are trapped on the Maru when they are saved by the Bellerophon ... A 3000-year-old exploration ship which travels so fast the crew never grow older!
The paranoid Captain is Tony Todd ( Candyman ). While his own crew are considering mutiny, Rommie likes him enough to sleep with him! The flirtation is part of a ploy to steal a key from him, but it's certainly implied she shagged him.
Harper and Tyr act out of character - they have lost their interests in sex and violence! Rommie is still in character, though - she seems to have a thing for Starship Captains. Perhaps her AI series all have inbuilt co-dependency towards their commanding officer. Wherever it comes from, she tells Tony Todd that she might be on Earth, waiting for him when he gets home in a thousand years time.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 6]
Slipfighter the Dogs of War
Shown 28-Oct-2002
Shown
The title is from the Shakespearean line, Cry Havok! And let Slip the Dogs of War Kunt misquotes it in the episode, to dumb things down for the uneducated in the audience.
A third world nation - err, planet - is building Nova bombs. In order to destroy the weapons of mass destruction, Kunt and his buddies use Slipfighters (space interceptors) as fighter-bombers, getting past the orbital defense systems to destroy the WMDs. They have no option, since the Confederacy doesn't want to get involved.
The people on the ground appear to be some form of crazy arab militia. In other words, this is just a bunch of racist stereotypes, set up for some American jingoism.
But on this show, is anyone surprised?
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 7]
The Leper's Kiss
Shown 11-Nov-2002
Shown
The Leper is an assassin, sent to kill a friend of Dylan's. Yes, Dylan is apparently best buddies with one of the politicians running the new Commonwealth. The guy is next in line to be appointed First Triumvir, which is a bit confusing because there are three members of a Triumvirate and they should be equals. Also, the Confederacy that Dylan worked so hard to build is now bogged down in bureaucracy. The Andromeda team must discover the assassin's identity and prevent the killing.
Dylan has to play it quiet, so he abandons his best asset (his ship) and uses the Maru instead. He decides to work on a need-to-know basis, so he abandons his other greatest asset (his crew). Bekkah and Tyr are dragged along, but there is no sign of sexual development or character development for either of them.
There is a guide who can identify the Leper – a young woman in black leather, who shows off some wire-fu skills. She gets the team to jail-break Michael Hogan ( Battlestar Galactica 2003 ) from a privatised prison run by a space-gangster. The prison is on the wreck of an old High Guard ship, although Kunt does not know any useful back-doors into the system.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 8]
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Shown 18-Nov-2002
Shown
The title comes from the poetry line Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee
Harper accidentally brings a metal-eating parasite aboard the ship. Soon it is eating into Andromeda’s core systems. Yes, there are metal-eating maggots aboard.
Harper discovers that the ship has a ghost who looks like William Katt ( Greatest American Hero ). Of course, he forgets that the ship has a holographic display system built into all habitable area. Everyone else thinks he must have bumped into one of new crew members. The ship was designed for a complement of four thousand, and Kunt claimed to know the names of each one of the old crew.
One of Dylan's old crewmembers had his personality uploaded into the ship's memory banks. It is accidentally reactivated, and can use both android and hologram form. However, Rommie's sensors cannot detect his actions - he's a hi-tech ghost!
The problem is, the crewman was a workaholic. And he assumes that Dylan betrayed the Confederacy and sided with the Nietzschiens. After all, Tyr and the other unlisted crew are aboard.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 9]
And Your Heart Will Fly Away ...
Shown 25-Nov-2002
Shown
Tyr goes MIA yet again, taking Harper’s souped-up slipfighter with him. Kunt takes Andromeda after him, but they run into something even more advanced than anything Harper has dreamed up. It seems that Tyr is being pursued by a crippled weapons designer with a grudge. The cripple offers Kunt a deal.
Tyr once accepted an assassination contract on a beautiful woman. Then he changed his mind, faked the woman’s death and hid her the one place nobody would ever look – on a prison world. Now he is reunited with her, in an ocean of bodice-ripping clichés that Keith Cobb Hamilton seems quite at home in. No wonder that KCH was so eager to return to daytime TV (soap operas) when his contract on this show ended. He was VERY good at this kind of thing.
Tyr's former employer is still after her ... The ex-employer, a crippled and bitter designer of hi-tech weapons, boards the Andromeda and comandeers it for his quest.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 10]
The Unconquerable Man
Shown 20-Jan-2003
Shown
Kunt decides to return the body of his best buddy to his descendants. Harper spots an unfamiliar scar on the corpse's hand ...
In an alternative universe, Kunt was killed and his buddy was trapped aboard the Andromeda. The replacement tries to survive 300 years in the future, but ends up facing the same dilemmas that Kunt did. His actions under the circumstances are surprising, to say the least.
Rommie’s control of the floor’s artificial gravity plates is apparently selective – she can prevent an opponent from lifting his feet, without having any effect on the rest of him (or anything else in the room)!
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 11]
Delenda Est
Shown 27-Jan-2003
Shown 7th January 2007
Rommie the robot interrogates Harper, presumably to see if and why he made her anatomically correct. Rommie has finally realised, after two and a half years together, that Harper has unlimited access to her robotic programming (and her robotic body). She wonders what his motive was for making her anatomically correct (as implied by her encounter with Tony Todd in Lone And Level Sands).
The alien menace from the climax of the previous Season are back. Unfortunately, they are invisible teleporting aliens that look like a cross between Aliens & Predator. They have scared off the Neitzscheins and the Magog – only Kunt’s Krew can stop them from launching another invasion. The Aliens are intent on stealing energy sources, so they take Rommie!
The crew must locate and rescue Rommie, and save the universe from an invasion. As if the coming Magog worldship wasn't bad enough!
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 12]
The Dark Backward
Shown 03-Feb-2003
Shown
The Abyss pays Andromeda a visit. The ship is boarded by a superpowered Alien that wants to destroy Andromeda by sabotaging the Slipstream Engine. It can take out the main crew one at a time. Luckily there are a few backup crew as well. Tyr has a couple of security goons to back him up, but they do not make any difference.
Trance can use her bonsai tree to travel back in time. Yes, in Season One it was just a metaphor but now it's apparently a magical tree! Unfortunately, the intruder has time-travel powers too. It's the Magogs' deity, the Abyss or whatever - or at least, a low-budget replacement.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 13]
The Risk All Point
Shown 10-Feb-2003
Shown 11th December 2005
The Confederacy launches a new warship, the first in 300 years. Kunt, Tyr and Bekka take the Maru to attend the launch of the newest Confederacy ship. It is built to the same design specs as the Andromeda, but with much lower quality of materials. The result is that the ship is vulnerable to potential sabotage. It is mysteriously destroyed, and everyone suspects the Nietzscheans sabotaged it.
There are five Nietzschein fighters in the area. They belong to Kendra Pride, notorious for blood-lust. The Andromeda could take on five capital ships, never mind fighters, but the villains can easily go after escape pods. The Maru must save survivors and find the saboteur.
Dylan's love interest of the week is one of the main suspects, a Confederacy officer and Nietzschean princess played by Jayne Heitmeyer . She has a lot in common with Bekka - so naturally they don't get along, and they have to work together. She used to belong to Kendra Pride, but has been brain-scanned for loyalty to the Confederacy. She is also the only competent crew-member from the new ship. But is she the saboteur?
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 14]
The Right Horse
Shown 17-Feb-2003
Shown
Bekka jail-breaks an old pal. But they are on the planet of the truth-tellers, run by an evil Mega-Corp backed by the Federation.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 15]
What Happens to a Rev Deferred?
Shown 24-Feb-2003
Shown 11th December 2005
Andromeda gets an emergency call from a planet that's about to be destroyed. It's from their former crewmate, Rev Bem! Rev Bem is trapped on an evacuated world that is about to explode. He is following an insane vision quest.
Kunt shuttles down with Bekkah and Tyr, his only two combat experts. The security team (redshirted extras) are left aboard with Trance, Rommie and Harper. Thus we know that despite the presence of trigger-happy looters, None of Kunt’s crew are in any actual danger.
The actor playing Bem originally left due to allergies to the makeup. They've solved that problem by altering Bem's appearance!
Everyone remembers the great times together, a good excuse for a clip show. This is basically a clip show, but the fact that they used the opportunity to revisit an old character is original.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 16]
Point of the Spear
Shown 31-Mar-2003
Shown 22nd January 2006
Andromeda tries to protect an M-Class planet from the Pyrians, who are trying to un-terraform it. Luckily there are dozens of redshirts (in black uniforms) running around the Andromeda, to pilot the slipfighters and so on.
The Pyrians have a babelicious spokeswoman. She is dressed just like Trance, but nobody makes the connection!
Of note, the intro quote is from Admiral Constanza Stark, who plays a vital role in Twilight of the Idols.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 17]
Vault of the Heavens
Shown 07-Apr-2003
Shown 17th April 2007
This was written by Gordon Wolvett. Harper is showing off with a new propulsion system, the sublight equivalent of nitrous oxide. Naturally things go wrong and they are knocked off-course.
Kunt hears a woman's voice in his head, summoning him to a nearby planet. He takes most of the command crew down as an away team.
Tyr is left to run the ship single-handed, facing a solar destruction event (and prowling Neitzschein warships). What happened to the mass of redshirts running around in the previous ep?
Harper has a friendly rivalry with a local Nietzschein. The rival point out Tyr’s missing bone-blades, perhaps an opportunity to retro-explain some dodgy continuity.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 18]
Deep Midnight's Voice
Shown 14 April 2003
Shown 5th February 2006
The Andromeda rescues a Jaguar Nietschein (Christopher Hyderdahl – Sanctuary ) from some Dragon Nietschiens. After violent coercion by the peaceniks, he tells them about Deep Midnight's Voice . It's a ship that was lost 300 years ago, that has a map of Slipstream. The map will make Slipstream travel 99.9% reliable.
Andromeda finds the planet where the ship crashed. Unfortunately it's an isolated pre-FTL civilisation, so the Away Party goes in plain clothes. Luckily, Harper invents Universal Translators [well, not universal, but it works for the local language].
Tyr and the Jaguar guy go on the mission. Tyr is plotting, and is willing to go the distance. The Jaguar guy points out out Tyr’s missing bone-blades, the second time this has been done in as many episodes.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 19]
The Illusion of Majesty
Shown 21-Apr-2003
Shown
The Andromeda encounters the cryogenically preserved Krista Allen . She claims to be a Princess, but turns out to be a lot more interesting. She is wanted by Royalty, kung-fu monks and a robotic Minister of justice. And of course, she's Kunt's love interest of the week.
When confronted by the monks, Tyr puts the poetry into the term warrior poet.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 20]
Twilight of the Idols
Shown 28-Apr-2003
Shown 14th January 2006 [Saturday]
Dylan is attacked by the Genites, a bunch of goons in white armour (a cross between Stormtroopers and Power Rangers). However, he is rescued by grey-armoured troopers - the Templars, led by the Patriarch (Michael Ironside - Total Recall, Starship Troopers ). They are High Guard Special Forces, out to destroy the Nietzcheins in revenge for the Fall of the Confederacy 300 years ago. They plan to use a superweapon to genocide the Nietzcheins.
The Genites' apparent aim is to kill all genetically-modified humans. 92% of the human race. What the Magog want to do as well, that is. Only the Genites have developed a bio-weapon to do it for them.
The only help the Confederacy can provide is a woman in black clothes who stands on the bridge and looks busy. It's up to Dylan and the Templars (all ten of them!) to defeat the Genites.
But can the Patriarch be trusted? Tyr doesn't think so, and has a secret plan of his own.
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 21]
Day of Judgement, Day of Wrath
Shown 05-May-2003
Shown
Andromeda attends the launching on the Confederacy's new ship, Resolution of Hector. However, Rommie kidnaps Harper and hijacks the ship!
Dylan and the avatar robot of Hector (Christopher Judge - Stargate SG-1 ) must hunt them down and save them.
Balance of Judgement (Michael Shanks - Stargate SG-1 ) is back after 3 years. This leads on to a climactic if unconvincing, Herc-style fight between 2 robots. The ending is a cop-out ... Kunt has too much, Harper has too little. He admits he loves Rommie, she returns it On some level.
The blonde has a tiny scene in a slip-fighter, but Trance doesn't appear at all.
Tyr is involved in a subplot concerning rival Nietzschiens. With his bone-blades missing he hunts for other survivors of his clan. He's brutal and cold. To be continued in the next episode!
Andromeda [Season 3, Episode 22]
Shadows Cast by a Final Salute
Shown 12-May-2003
Shown
Nietzschiens invade Andromeda and hold 2 crew-splods as hostages. They out-maneuvre all internal defences (which are very weak), and Kunt actually realises it must be an inside job. Suspicion naturally falls upon Tyr.
The alien babe Trance Gemini gives Tyr some advice – a poorly worded and delivered pastiche of the famous Appointment at Samarra.
Tyr's story arc is at an end. He must unite his people for a final battle, to create his empire or die trying. Tyr seems to be an ally of the Drago-Katzov Pride. However, since they killed his entire family it seems unlikely that he plans to keep them around for very long.
Kunt has the chance to secure the future for the Confederacy by destroying its greatest local rival, and by securing peace with a united Nietzschean alliance. Will he take the necessary steps, or will he sabotage the whole deal?
The ending is a montage of Tyr Anasazi clips.
