Back when I was an undergraduate, and working two jobs and going to school full time, I had started watching another Roddeberry show called Andromeda. Since my schedule was irregular, and Andromeda may have shifted time-slots I wasn't quite sure when I'd be watching the show.  Sometimes I caught it on the regularly scheduled time on the WB, and other times I'd miss it because of work (or traffic coming home).  In any case, unlike most Star Trek series, this one seemed to have an overarching plot, so when I missed episodes I was hopelessly lost.  That said , even when I could watch it regularly (around season 3) I gave up because I didn't know what the heck was going on! So, now was a good opportunity for me to catch up on the entire series and see what this show was all about (Spoiler alert).

So, the premise is that there is the Commonwealth (sort of like the Federation in Star Trek, I guess) that is made up of many species and planets.  Some humans, like the Nietzscheans, were genetically modified humans to augment certain abilities.  The Nietzschean in this show reminded me a bit of the Klingon in Star Trek.  So, at the beginning of the series the Commonwealth is betrayed by the Nietzscheans (who have many "prides" - which I guess are like their countries) and the Commonwealth puts up a good battle but falls.  The Andromeda, one of the ships, gets entrapped into a black hole's gravitational pull and get stuck in time for 300 when a salvage ship rescues her.  Of course the idea was to sell this valuable old technology, but  the crew of the ship decides to help out the captain of the Andromeda, Dylan Hunt (played by Kevin Sorbo of Hercules fame), to reach this goal.

The nice thing about this series was that you got to explore this new universe.  What happened when the commonwealth fell? How did various sociopolitical and socioeconomic events take place? Are there any commonwealth survivors and what did they do? Why would various worlds want to join a new, restored, commonwealth?  Dylan's goal is to re-establish the commonwealth as a beacon of light and hope.  Awesome!  So, let's get to it!  Well... this happened in a season, or maybe a season and a half.  This was the fastest politicians have done anything in any series or in real life ;-)  This was a bit of a disappointment because we went from let's get the band back together to great job yoko, you've broken up the band! Why?  Because as soon as the Commonwealth is established there is corruption in it at the highest levels.  What the heck?

So, Dylan goes from lone bastion of the Commonwealth to being hunted by it. We further have this plotline of the "Abyss" who's out to get all living creatures, and they've militarized one of the shows species, the Magog, to make this doom happen.  So, there is a fight between Andromeda's crew and the Magog world-ship (don't ask), and they get thrown into another possible present, in a  system called Seefra...which just so happens to be Dylan's home planet, but not in this universe, the previous one.  It turns out that the space-roads to Tarn Vedra (aka Seefra) were closed off when the commonwealth fell and no one had ways to get there. So in addition to getting the band (errr.. commonwealth) back up and running, he wanted to go home, like E.T..  Well, he is home now, but not really!  It's a place that's fallen to disarray because apparently no one likes technology, and those who have it are persecuted, unless you are the crew of the Andromeda and by the second or third episode of seasons five (when they arrive at Seefra), technology is suddenly OK. It turns out that Dylan is also not human, but some sort of Evolved Vedran.  It would be like O'Neil or Daniel Jackson finding out that they weren't human, but rather they were Ancients on Stargate SG-1.

Well, after a lot back and forth we finally jump dimension again and the series ends with Dylan finally smiling and saying "he's home," and the lights on the Andromeda's bridge go out. End of series.

Now, the series did have a lot of "WTF?!" moments when I started wondering how they got from point X to Point Y. I didn't see a lot of continuity errors, but I really did wonder how (and why) Tyr got rid of his Nietzschean bone-blades, why he went crazy with power, and what the heck was up with Becka being the mother of all Nietzscheans?  Was she a genetic re-incarnation of the original Nietzschean mother (Nietzschean Eve if you will)? Of course, despite the WTF moments, I think the series had a LOT of potential, but it was badly executed. The universe in which this story plays out is intriguing.  The whole ship's avatar, and the three "faces" of andromeda (screen, hologram, physical android) needing to be working together to accomplish a goal was quite interesting. A bit religious in tone (the holy trinity), but interesting nevertheless.  Even Trance Gemini as the Avatar of the Sun of the Tarn Vedra system was an interesting concept, seeing inanimate object as having some sort of avatar with which they interact in the world.  It just wasn't tied all together really well.  Even if Coda were produced, it would be more of a What the heeeeeck??? type of ending than a good sci-fi ending.  I don't like it when sci-fi shows go for this whole cosmic grant plan, or the face of God, type of story.  It's too big to tackle and do well.  I am not opposed to people trying something, but you have to be clever, original, and execute it well.  Not like Lost's ending which was pretty awful ;-)

All things considered, I'd give this show an 80% (and I am being generous).