Andromeda: Season 1 – Episodes 1-5 (Box Set) DVD Sci-Fi & Fantasy (2002)

Description

DVD Special Features:
Five uncut episodes (A.01 – A.05)
Original show trailers
Andromeda Teaser Trailers
Never Before Seen Deleted Scenes
Episode Comments by Kevin Sorbo
Interviews with Kevin Sorbo and Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Gallery: The Andromeda Ascendant
Web Link
Cast Biographies
Direct Scene Access
Based on an idea by Gene Roddenberry Andromeda confidently wears its debt to Star Trek on its sleeve, recalling the best sci-fi of Roddenberry’s heyday. The two-part premiere “Under the Night” and “An Affirming Flame” make for a terrific introduction to the lead character, Captain Dylan Hunt, played by Kevin (ex-Hercules) Sorbo. He’s a sympathetically flawed idealist in command of the Andromeda Ascendant, a massive 1.4 km long starship of the now-disbanded Systems Commonwealth. The fall of civilisation has meant that although she ought to be a relic she remains the zenith of technological advancement.
In the series opener we see Captain Hunt in battle against 10,000 enemy ships, winning a bout of fisticuffs with a close friend turned enemy traitor, wrestling with the shock of being frozen in time for 300 years and then diplomatically negotiating his way out of a salvage rights battle for his ship. The Andromeda Ascendant’s emotionally driven, life-like computer is desired by the Eureka Maru salvage vessel, and feisty Captain Beka Valentine can barely stop her engineer Harper from drooling about tinkering with her. The Maru’s shipmates are similarly driven: Rev Bem (from another sworn enemy race) has a spiritual calling, while cutesy-pie Trance Gemini’s motivations are part of her winning mysteriousness. One final addition is the show’s muscle, Tyr, the enemy with a conscience. But it’s Dylan’s show all the way, though he’s no flawless hero: in “To Loose the Fateful Lightning” he makes a really stupid mistake.
On the DVD: the first box set contains the show’s first five episodes. From the excellently animated menus there are links to some standard fare: trailers for each of the (uncut) episodes, a Web link, biographies of the seven leading cast and a 16-picture Production Design Gallery of the Andromeda Ascendant. Much more interesting are the mini interviews with Sorbo (nine minutes) and Producer/Writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe (eight minutes), an archive of deleted scenes and audio comments by Sorbo per episode. Picture is standard TV format 4.3 and sound is plain stereo.