The universe is a dangerous place. But in our future, my crew and I fight to make it safe. I am Dylan Hunt, captain of the Andromeda Ascendant, and these are our adventures.
There are some people who view the
sci-fi show
Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda as, essentially, an unbranded
Star Trek spin-off. At times, it seemed like this was indeed the case, but in the final analysis,
Andromeda had a heavy spiritual bent radically unlike anything you'd ever see in Trek (except later seasons of
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). The show lasted from October, 2000 to May, 2005.
The story opens aboard the titular starship, the "Andromeda Ascendant", a warship of the line in the Systems Commonwealth, which is the same thing as
Star Trek's Federation, except that it was founded by a race of
Sufficiently Advanced Aliens called the Vedrans, and spans the local group of galaxies.
Things do not go well for the Systems Commonwealth. Though their technology was vast and their captains were noble and compassionate, they ran into a bunch of problems all at once. Most importantly, a race of man-eating apelike creatures called the Magog were invading in ridiculous numbers. They could, perhaps, have dealt with this, but at the same time, one of their member races, the misnamed
Nietzscheans (enhanced humans obsessed with eugenics and claiming to follow the philosophy of
Friedrich Nietzsche), angry that the Commonwealth made peace with the Magog, turned on the Commonwealth.
All this happens while the Andromeda Ascendant is dangerously close to a black hole. Captain Dylan Hunt just has time to evacuate his crew before his Nietzschean first officer, Gaheris Rhade, turns on him and tries to kill him. Hunt manages the unlikely feat of besting Rhade, and seconds later, the Andromeda crosses the black hole's event horizon, freezing ship and captain in time.
Three hundred years later, the Commonwealth is a distant memory, a dark age has fallen over the known worlds, and things are generally not going well for just about anyone. The Eureka Maru, a salvage ship crewed by a rag-tag team of minor-league criminals, happens upon the Andromeda Ascendant and tows it to safety, thinking this will be the score of a lifetime.
Mostly through his own strength of character, the revived Captain Hunt convinces the crew of the Maru to join him and try to re-establish the Systems Commonwealth (or, at least, be of marginal assistance to his quest as they mooch off the Andromeda's resources).
The show has its origins in a combination of two separate Roddenberry story ideas from the 1970s, one about a sentient starship and a second about a man from the past trying to piece the remnants of civilization back together after it has crumbled. The former never made it to the air prior to
Andromeda, but Roddenberry (who died in 1991) used the latter concept in no fewer than three separate unsuccessful pilots — two of which actually included a main character named "Dylan Hunt" — before giving up on it. Undoubtedly these ideas were
scrounged from the trash can further developed by the
Andromeda creative team.
The initial core crew is, approximately, a Five-Man Band (Subverted in that they generally don't get along):- Captain Hunt — The Hero, a human from the now-lost Commonwealth capitol on Tarn Vedra (He eventually turns out to be not-quite-human after all: he's a Human-Vedran hybrid, or rather Human-Paradine: Vedrans who have become something more), and his human half comes from a genetically-enhanced Heavyworlder)
- Beka Valentine — The Lancer, hotshot pilot, recovering drug addict, and captain of the Eureka Maru. Secretly the genetic matriarch of the entire Nietzschean race via Time Travel.
- Tyr Anasazi — The Big Guy, Proud Warrior Race Guy, and Token Evil Teammate, last survivor of a vanquished Nietzschean clan (and at times, straddles the line between a Nietzsche Wannabe and an Übermensch)
- Trance Gemini — The Chick, cute and naive Waif Prophet and medical officer, who later gets Darker and Edgier via Time Travel
- Seamus Zelazny Harper — The Smart Guy, The Lab Rat, Mr. Fixit, a bit of a Casanova Wannabe, and more often a Fatal Attractor, the only member of the crew actually from the ghetto planet Earth, technician and hyper-active genius engineer who (re-)builds Rommie's body.
With three additional regular characters:- Rommie — The ship's female-shaped android avatar ("Andromeda" refers specifically to the ship's holographic AI, and also to the three individual entities of the ship (Andromeda Ascendant), the AI (Andromeda), and the android (Rommie))
- Rev Bem — aka. Behemial Fartraveller aka. Red Plague. A reformed Magog, scientist, sociologist and pacifist priest
- Late in the show when Rommie is believed destroyed Harper builds a new Robot Girl named Doyle as a Replacement Goldfish, who has identity issues and who thinks she is the rightful avatar of the Andromeda Ascendant. Hilarity Ensues (not).
After the first season (and a half), Rev Bem leaves the ship (around the same time as the series developer was "released"). This is when things
start to get a little zany. After the third season, Tyr Anasazi is replaced by Telemachus Rhade, the
Identical Grandson of Hunt's original first officer. This is when things get
a little more zany.
In the universe of
Andromeda, every celestial body has an "avatar", a humanoid counterpart of vast power. Such beings crop up from time, including the moon of Tarn Vedra, the black hole (who turns out to be the universe's greatest
clingy ex-girlfriend), and, most importantly, Trance, who, it is eventually revealed,
despite her youthful appearance and character, is the
wayward sun of Tarn Vedra, the oldest star in the universe. Halfway through the second season, Trance is replaced by an
older and moodier version of herself (not a
Sister Becky; it's the same actress in different makeup).
Subverting the
Failure Is the Only Option trope, Dylan and his crew actually
do restore the Systems Commonwealth, though internal politics promptly gets Dylan and his crew kicked out of it.
For most of the series, an approaching Magog worldship serves as an impending
Dragon, guided by
The Man Behind the Man, a shadow-cloaked avatar for "The Abyss", a powerful chaotic force. When this comes to a head in the fourth season finale, Dylan is forced to escape through a
Negative Space Wedgie to the timeless, isolated Seefra system, really the massively transformed Tarn Vedra system.
Andromeda was inordinately fond of the
Negative Space Wedgie, depicting a universe rife with temporal anomalies — in fact, the Andromeda Ascendant itself incorporated dimensional anomalies into its very construction. For a starship crew the cast also spent a great deal of time underground, presumably because somebody in the first season
invested money in a tunnel set that had to be re-used over and over again.
In addition to the obvious
Star Trek parallels,
Andromeda clearly owes a lot to
Blake's 7.
Technically set approximately 3 millennia into the future (Figure from ep. Harper^2), though effectively
A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away...: Earth exists, but is hardly ever mentioned, except to say that it's not a very nice place to hang out these days.
Sometimes described as "Herc meets Kirk", because Kevin Sorbo, best known for his role as Hercules in
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, is playing the role of a kind, wise and mysteriously super-strong character in the role that Captain Kirk filled in the original series of Star Trek, which this show so closely resembles.
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