The late 90s and early 2000s saw an explosion in sci-fi shows thanks to the continued success of Star Trek, and while it’s best remembered for Farscape, Babylon 5, and Stargate SG-1, this time period also gave us Lexx, Earth: Final Conflict, and Andromeda.
Created by Star Trek’s Gene Roddenberry, Andromeda could have topped them all. The series was the last show to be developed from the deceased sci-fi icon’s notes. For two seasons, Andromeda featured deep world-building, character development, and an incredible military sci-fi story about “restoring the light of civilization.” Unfortunately, it aired for five seasons.
Complex Sci-Fi World-Building At Its Very Best
Andromeda started with an amazing premise: The Commonwealth is engaged in a long, drawn-out war with the Magog, savages from beyond the edge of known space. So they give up a key world as part of peace talks, the home of the Nietzscheans (genetically engineered humans who follow the works of Friedrich Nietzsche as their religion).
Naturally, this leads to an uprising against the Commonwealth, kicking off a time period known as The Long Night. This period is a sci-fi retelling of the fall of the Roman Empire with one crucial difference.
Keith Hamilton Cobb and Kevin Sorbo in Andromeda
Captain Dylan Hunt, played by Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo, was trapped at the edge of a black hole within his ship, the Andromeda, for 300 years. Finally freed by a group of scavengers, Hunt set about restoring The Commonwealth and bringing an end to The Long Night. It’s a setup brimming with story potential, and for the first two seasons, it was a fascinating attempt at long-term storytelling amid the backdrop of a fallen galactic empire.
The crew of the scavenging ship is convinced, rather easily, to become the new crew of the Andromeda, including “Beka” Valentine (Lisa Ryder) as the new first officer, thanks to the promise of free room and board, and the Nietzschean assassin Tyr (Keith Hamilton Cobb) fills in as the new weapons officer. Rounding out the ragtag crew tossed together by being in the wrong place at the wrong time is the science officer, Rev Bem (Brent Stait), or originally “Red Plague,” a kind and understanding Magog who follows The Way, and Seamus Harper (Gordon Michael Woolvett), the talented engineer who can hack computers with his cybernetic dataport and whose frosted tips reminds viewers this was filmed in the year 2000. Finally, the ship also sports an advanced AI, played by Lexa Doig, who remains fiercely loyal to her crew and especially Captain Hunt.
Lexa Doig as Rommie
Andromeda’s setup, well-developed main cast, and the first season of serialized, long-term plots involving restoring the Commonwealth blend well with ridiculous dialogue, hokey special effects, and a tone that walks a tightrope between overly serious and Saturday morning cartoon. Showrunner Robert Hewitt Wolfe, working closely with Roddenberry’s widow Majel Barrett, had a clear vision for the universe of the series.
By the end of Season 2, the start of fascinating nation-building and the day-to-day of establishing a galactic government was taking place. That’s also when disaster struck, and Wolfe, the architect of this one-of-a-kind take on televised sci-fi, lost a power struggle against Andromeda’s producers and was fired.
Andromeda’s Behind The Scenes Power Struggle
Right when Andromeda had found a loyal fanbase and was poised to break through, Wolfe was replaced by Robert Engels, David Lynch’s long-time creative partner. Or that’s what happened on paper.
In reality, the show was retooled from a sci-fi ensemble with long-term storytelling and fascinating alien characters, to “Hercules in space.” Sex appeal, explosions, and episodic storytelling replaced the nation-building plot while Sorbo’s Dylan Hunt became the perfect hero, a Gary Stu, with more of the spotlight put on him. Keith Hamilton Cobb, frustrated with Tyr’s treatment, left during Season 3 and took the show’s best character with him.
Keith Hamilton Cobb as Tyr
In chasing mass market appeal, Andromeda lost everything that made it great in the first place. By the time Season 5 started airing, the cast remained the same, but the characters looked like their Season 1 counterparts. However, everything else around them had changed. Gene Roddenberry’s grand tale of restoring the Commonwealth was no longer Captain Hunt’s guiding light, but rather an annoyance.
When you watch Andromeda today for free on Tubi, Pluto TV, or Amazon Prime Video, it’s impossible to miss the moment when the backstage power struggles overtook the sci-fi story. Instead of developing an enduring fanbase like Farscape, the series alienated die-hard sci-fi fans, and Kevin Sorbo wasn’t able to bring in even a fraction of his Hercules audience to make up the difference.
Sci-fi is a niche genre that will always appeal to a smaller audience than broad, four-quadrant shows, but if you treat the fans right and don’t insult their intelligence, you’ll be rewarded with a lifetime of relevancy. If you don’t respect that sci-fi audience, you’ll be remembered like Andromeda, as one of the biggest missed opportunities in sci-fi history.
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