Andromeda: S01E22: It’s Hour Come Round At Last

An epsiode review by Hollydays

Cripes, what a great episode! I mean really great. Really, really great.  Really!

We start out with all things peaceful and happy with Beka and Dylan celebrating the two latest planets to sign up for the commonwealth. Now we’re at six. Apparently Andromeda has a groovy Systems Commonwealth map-on-the-wall that you plunk coin like markers into holes to demonstrate the signees. Beka points out ecstatically that she thought he would never get anyone to sign up. At this point Dylan’s mood takes a turn for the pouty when he realizes he hasn’t yet reached his goal (50+ in one year).

Beka lectures him to accentuate the positive.

Harper is trying to accentuate the positive by doing some maintenance work on Andromeda’s internal systems. He is hooked up to Andromeda through his neck port and is doing a VR walk. I assume this is through Andromeda’s head.  As he is strolling along tinkering, he notices a little room with a little window. Inside is a “turned-off” Rommie (and he has yet to make a pass!). Harper asks Andromeda about this other Rommie. He thinks it is a back up copy of her. Rommie is surprised that the copy is there and even more so because she can’t “see” it. Since they are both intrigued, Harper decides to check out the back up copy against the current Andromeda. BIG MISTAKE! He restores the old copy as the command personality. A HUGE Rommie appears in the VR world, (this would normally make Harper a very happy lad). She doesn’t recognise him, raises alarms, and gives him a #8 boot to the bum. Besides Lexa Doig’s great skill in portraying each personality, the writers help us know the difference between the new Andromeda personality and the old. The new one is wearing a very officious outfit. Not like our Rommie, the walking heart attack, at all.

Now Harper is for it! But his punishment will have to wait. The restored personality doesn’t recognise anyone else, either. Not even Dylan. They are all intruders! Andromeda’s defences kick into high gear and all the doors slam shut. The new Andromeda threatens to vent their air into space unless they leave. Tyr shows off his mighty muscles by wrenching doors open. Now here he gets a warm place in my heart.  He actually goes to Dylan and Beka’s aid even while getting fired at by Andromeda’s hallway guns. He wrenches the door open to their room and tells them he can get them all to the escape pods. Meanwhile poor Trance, who was on the command deck, is being forced by one of Andromeda’s robots into the slipstream pilot chair.

Andromeda has places to go and Trance will take her there. Trance tries to whimper out of it saying she can’t slipstream drive and Rommie knows it. But “Rommie” tells her to put up or die. 😉  Since Andromeda isn’t receiving proper authorization codes from her “Captain Perim” she starts the procedure for the air venting. The Andromeda is very confused that there is no crew or captain. The personality restore didn’t affect Andromeda’s avatar, Rommie. She is in the hall trying to bring her old self up to speed. But the new Andromeda isn’t having none of it from either “herself” or from Trance. The avatar is just a droid who is not under her control. Rommie storms down the hall saying that “Sometimes I’m just a big pain in the ass!” (I think any gent Sadgeezer would argue with you there dear). Rommie can’t control the ship, but she can still open doors and such.

Back at the conference of Dylan, Beka, Tyr and now Rommie. They are working their way to the escape pods, they come up against a particularly well defended area and are about to be in for trouble when “whiirrr” the defences shut down. Clever Harper! We hear his charismatic voice over the speakers that all is well and calling himself a big hero. Dylan asks him how this happened in the first place and Harper shuts up. We are told that Harper has shut down the defences using a “self-test” mode, so they still have to restore their Andromeda before it’s done, or it will all turn on again. Tyr suggests that they the safest thing to do is to use the escape pods. Dylan tells him that now it is a bad idea as the ship is slipstreaming. In the meantime, Rev Bem is getting the heck out of Hydroponics. He had been under the brunt of the attack from new Andromeda, being a Magog and all.

By the way, there is a lot going on in each scene in this episode. I have to leave out quite a bit so it doesn’t get too muddy (just sort of muddy, hehe), sorry.

Dylan has been contemplating the name of the captain (Perim). He thinks Andromeda is trying to re-do a top-secret mission. They drop out of slipstream. He thinks that they are in worse trouble then Andromeda’s defences attacking them and wouldn’t you know it, they hear nasty banging sounds on the hull of the ship! Magog swarms ships! Through Trance’s eyes on command deck, we get a shot of them. Swarm is right! Andromeda wants Trance to slipstream again, even farther into Magog territory.

The crew splits up. Tyr takes off to help Harper. Rommie to find Rev Bem and Dylan and Beka to get some kick ass defence gear.

Tyr finds Harper. Harper recognises the banging sounds to be Magog swarm ships. Having seen first hand what Magog do, (his poor cousins were hosts), he is FREAKING (as would you). I must say, the banging sound is rhythmic like drums, but scary rhythmic. Even the hair on my arms is standing up. Lucky for Harper that Tyr is there. He calms Harper down and actually compliments him, in a Tyr fashion. He calls Harper an annoying little man, but one with fire in his blood. He will protect Harper while Harper fixes the ship. He is not all sweetness and sunshine though. He tells Harper that if he doesn’t stay lucid, he will kill him. They arrange a deal. Harper will work on Andromeda as long as Tyr will kill him if they get overrun. Harper and Tyr take off to the core of the ship so that Harper can jack into Andromeda again and try to integrate her two personalities.

Ahh, the banging stops, silence. I feel much better. Oh crap, BAD silence! The Magog are everywhere!

Dylan and Beka are getting in some good Magog target practice. The Magog are falling left right and centre. It seems to no avail. For every one they kill, it seems another three take it’s place. Dylan takes a good hit in the back, shoulder, and what looks like his hip (oh horror, hope it doesn’t wreck his heiny! Smooch better). Dylan does the old leave me here line and Beka does the old no way you’re part of my crew line and she starts dragging him up and off to command, they make it, but Dylan is in a bad way. He asks Beka to promise to take over his Systems Commonwealth quest if he dies, and…she surprisingly agrees!

Rev Bem is kicking Magog butt. It seems that he really doesn’t come by his gentle mannerisms naturally. The head honcho Magog comes into the room where Rev is. You can tell he is the honcho ‘cause he has body armour. He also looks like he is blind. There is a vertical scar through each eye and cheek and both eyes look closed. He can talk to Rev in ultrasonic tones.  He can’t believe that a Magog would fight it’s own and is going to kill Rev but first he forces Rev to tell him his real name, Redplague (hey, who knew?). Rommie bursts in and saves the day with some killer fight moves and then takes off to help the others. Rev gets behind because Rommie did not kill off the bad head honcho dude, so the guy taunts Rev Bem with his ultrasonic communication. Rev is lying in the hallway covering his ears as his brain is hammered by calls to join his brothers and find his true destiny and maker. So far he is resisting.

By the way HH says that the divine did not make the Magog.

At the core, Harper has successfully started the integration of Andromeda’s personalities. He used an old access code of Dylan’s from when he was a Lt. Harper sees the old Andromeda’s mission that she is trying to re-enact. He sees her old crew being overrun by Magog and being killed and eaten. Harper and Tyr take off but soon get cornered. Tyr has only one round of ammo left and is ready to give Harper the old heave ho but Harper decides to live and fight. Tyr gives him a “that’s my boy!” and hands him a knife. They wait for the swarm to close in.

Meanwhile Trance had done another slipstream before Dylan and Beka had got into command using their force lances. We see on the view screen a huge chemical bonding structure. It is actually planets joined together with a sun in the middle. We get the opportunity to see inside. Billions upon billions of Magog. We see the two Andromeda personalities starting to merge.

Rev Bem has recovered enough to fight and he is kicking butt once again in the hallway but he seems confused. His clothes are in tatters. Rommie the avatar comes to Revs aid but she gets a giant lance through the tummy by Head Honcho (real name Bloodmist). She is stuck against the wall because of the lance and hurt badly. Rommie calls out to Rev Bem for help but he….drops his Wayist necklace to the floor and runs to catch up with the Magog that are leaving the ship! The Head Honcho calls to their “maker”. We soon find out what he said. We see the Maker is the fiery, man-shaped thing from “Harper 2.0”.  If you haven’t seen it, this bad dude was seen on a tape ordering Magog’s around in a big battle against the Systems Commonwealth.  The Fiery dude lines up the nearest connected planet with Andromeda. We see a HUGE point singularity weapon firing on the Andromeda. BAM! It rips a hole through the ship. Dylan, Beka, and Trance go flying through the air. The Andromeda personalities are now integrated and calling for “Help, officers down, Code Red ”. But we see that everyone is hurt and unconscious.

The Andromeda drifts through space, lifeless.

Wow! What a great episode. The scenes were tight, the acting tighter, and the f/x seamless. The scenes left the usual long set up and were the quick shots needed in an action feature. With the exception of Dylan’s line about I’m hurt, leave me behind, the dialogue between the characters never ventured near cliché alley. I was on the edge of my seat, biting my nails by the end of the show. Even my Husband thought it was great (not an Andromeda fan, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.) Like all those people lining up around the corner when Star Wars, episode one came out (wait a min, that was me too), I am counting the days until the second half airs.

I was left cursing the names of the producers who would leave me in such hell till fall.

I’d rate this a whopping 9,886,351 out of 10
What did you think?

The “It’s Hour Come Round at Last” episode review is © 2001 Hollydays.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

Vidcaps were scanned by SadGeezer.

The names, characters and everything else associated with Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda TV series are the property of the Tribune Entertainment Company. All rights reserved.

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