Andromeda: S02E02: Exit Strategies

An epsiode review by Hollydays

“The Soul is larger than the sky
Deeper than the ocean,
Or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed center.”

-Enoch Vere De Vere
Lamitations Sous-Terre, CY 9734

Three Neitzschean ships are chasing the Eureka Maru, manned by Beka, Tyr, Rev Bem, and Dylan. They can’t call for help from Andromeda as she not yet “kick-butt” worthy since her encounter with the World Ship.

As the Maru is getting hammered, it loses engine power. To make matters worse the fuel tanks have to be vented. Beka uses the available momentum to jump into slipstream but has to bail to the nearest system when life support starts to fail. The Nasty Nietzscheans follow them. Tyr had called them slavers but Beka is surprised they would follow them so far.

As they “land” the Maru on a nearby ice planet. All the crew except Beka take a dive to the deck. “AHHHH!” Tyr does a ballet worthy leap through the air. “Ugh!” Rev Bem does a backwards tumble.  Dylan does a silent leap and looks about to take a nap…and the award goes to…TYR! “Most creative leap!” (No, I did not find this scene corny, why do you ask?)

Apparently the Andromeda stinks. Real bad. Of Maggogs that is. 3 weeks later and Trance and Rommie are still cleaning up dead Maggog bodies. Harper is being a real spaz and not helping out. He is hosting a pity party for himself concerning his infestation of maggog larvae. He is also mad at Rommie for not being as dysfunctional as him. She tells him that she can compartmentalize problems and then concentrate on the job at hand. She wishes he would concentrate on the clean up job, little does she know Harper is going to get worse before he gets better.

Beka unstraps herself from her chair and checks on Dylan. He has a little nick on the forehead. She goes off to get stuff to patch him up; after all he is dripping on her ship. Tyr wakes up “Reverend Behemial” (who knew?), with a slap and asks, if he is dead. Rev responds, “Tyr Anassi of the Kodiak pride, clearly I am not in heaven.”

The crew take stock: their emergency locator is dead, they are covered in snow, they have no fuel, no heat, and minimal GFG.  Dylan assigns the boys to fix the engine. As Rev is leaving the cockpit he bends down and dips his finger in Dylan’s blood and sniffs it (ewwww).  As he and Tyr are working in the engine room, Tyr finds out that Rev has been fasting for 3 weeks to cleanse (after all his butt kicking on the world ship). Rev is light headed. To break a fast he will need to kill something in order to start his digestive system. He normally uses fish from Andromeda’s Hydroponics garden.

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Tyr brings Beka and Dylan up to speed about Rev Bem. He is concerned that Rev will kill them all and should be locked up but Beka stands up for her maggog! Dylan acquiesces to Beka and he….takes off, leaving Beka and Tyr alone with Rev. He is supposedly looking for fuel as there may be some settlements nearby. He’ll also keep a look-out for food for Rev. Dylan sets out in a snazzy leather like number with his clear “Gun” glasses. No hat of course. I mean , you’re on an ice planet and no hat? Our great military mind wanders off and zaps tress to mark his way as he goes. The land is very unstable and sinkholes appear often in response to his weapon fire. He spies a settlement off in the distance but as he closes in he finds (bom bom bom) the Nasty Nietzscheans! They spy him and start firing. (lets see…why don’t we stand on the top of a white hill in a black outfit and see if anyone notices us looking at them? Commonwealth training must be piss poor).

Back at the Maru, Tyr is admonishing Beka for putting their lives in danger by her misplaced trust in Rev Bem. Wrong can of worms to open their buddy. Beka’s angry eyes flash the coming onslaught. She tells Tyr that if he would like to discuss misplaced trust they can talk about what he did when he had the Maru for 3 weeks (he kicked butts and took back the progeny, Drago’s remains).  She reminds him that he was being hunted by Nietzscheans when the Andromeda had rendezvoused with him.  She is right in thinking the nasty Nietzscheans are not slavers but after Tyr. She ships Tyr off to help Dylan.

Meanwhile Dylan is getting his butt toasty out there in the tundra, courtesy of the nasty Nietzscheans (what is with his heiny always being in peril?) Tyr shows up and saves the heiny, I mean Dylan. He notices that the Nasty Nietzscheans are getting low on ammo. They call for Tyr to give up.  Our guys make it back to the Maru. The Nietzscheans do a bombing fly over to try to pinpoint their location, which causes a huge sinkhole to open up under the Maru. (what is it with tubing always hanging in these scenes?). Dylan lands on Beka. Face to face, Beka asks him “I thought you weren’t into hugs?” Dylans response? “OH, I, uh, love hugs, it’s the kissing that freaks me out”. The crew figures out they have fallen into a mine.

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On Andromeda, Rommie is trying to coax Harper out of an, erm, “Jeffries tube”. She needs him to fix a critical problem in engineering. Harper goes off to drink. He drinks all of his beer while watching  an internal scan of his maggog larvae. Since “they” drank all his beer he decides he has nothing left to live for and is ready to off himself with a gut shot when Rommie walks in.

Tyr wants to lure the baddies to the Maru and blow it up. Beka gives him what for. They all jumble outside to take a look around, step in metallic “squarm” poop and run back inside. Squarms look like the beasties from “Tremors”. They eat metal/dirt and poop metal, excellent miners. If they are hungry they will eat anything else though, like people. Rev tries to explain all this to the crew but has some serious indigestion from trying to eat the food on the ship (like all airline food). If he doesn’t eat soon his body will consume itself.  Rev won’t go out and hunt the Nietzscheans for food. He is ashamed of his actions on the world ship.  More upset that he enjoyed killing.

The Maru crew is now armed and searching the tunnels for food and fuel. Beka and Dylan find something better, a magnetic accelerator that will shoot them straight into space. They decide to extend the coils to the Maru by utilizing squarm dung. They make some technically advanced looking links.   Dylan leaves Beka to the job to find Tyr. Tyr had cleaned out the rest of the weapons locker and given them to his Neitzschean enemies.  He tells them that since he has Drago’s bones he controls the Neitzschean future as a race and they can join him or die. They choose to die. The shoot out begins. Dylan catches up with Tyr (whom he thinks may be a traitor). Tyr shoots the person that was about to shoot Dylan so they partner up and do a runner for the Maru.

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The Andromeda’s engineering problem is now critical and she’s gonna blow! Rommie is pleading with Harper to fix her and finally breaks through. She is worried about what other monsters are in her mind like the back-up copy. If Harper isn’t around, who will fix her? A promised romp through Rommie’s mind perks Harper up. He fixes the problem just in time. Andromeda happily announces “You did it, you fixed me!” to which Harper responds, “From now on, let’s fix each other!(awwwww)

From the Maru, Beka tests the coils. They work! They attract Squarm! Dylan and Tyr pop in and Beka revs the coils. The Nietzscheans stand in their way, firing. The squarm pop out of the dirt and eat them. The Maru takes off, breaks orbit, spins around the sun to pick up fuel and then goes home and lands safely in the Andromeda.

Harper offers sympathy to Rev for his hard time on the planet and Rev offers to keep Harper in his prayers.

Dylan and Tyr have a little chat. A little chat about Tyr being a jerk. Dylan is pouty faced that Tyr’s activities have put Andromeda into danger. Tyr openly confeses that when he first joined the crew he thought that there may be some way to take the Andromeda from Dyaln. Then he found it an excellent platform to launch his other activities. Now that the world ship could wreck his future plans, he is going to be a good boy so he can kick it’s butt. He calls Dylan “SIR” many times. He reminds Dylan of all he has done for them and how great he is and they end playing a chess like game with a scotch mint.

Your move” Dylan says to Tyr.

It could have been a whole lot better. A whole lot more plausible. A whole lot more exciting…anyways…

I’d rate this 20 out of 10.
What did you think?

The “Exit Strategies” episode review is © 2001, 2002 Hollydays.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

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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