I’ve been deciding which classic science fiction television series to start watching for quite a while now. However, it was a chance post on X/twitter that made me choose Andromeda, created from a concept developed by the late Gene (“Star Trek”) Roddenberry and starring Kevin Sorbo.

I made my decision when “Andromeda” was described as sharing a lot of the thematic “DNA” with a favorite show of mine Firefly.

The show ran from 2000 to 2005 which would make it seem pretty successful, but it didn’t attain anywhere near the notoriety, let alone the legend, that Roddenberry’s Star Trek achieved as a franchise.

I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far, but what I’ve seen shows promise, if also presents as flawed.

Keep in mind, two episodes isn’t enough to judge an entire series and “Star Trek’s” first season, although thoroughly enjoyable, was also greatly inconsistent.

Oh, this will be loaded with spoilers, so you have been warned.

The show’s pilot episode Under the Night establishes Dylan Hunt (Sorbo) as the Captain of the Systems Commonwealth High Guard military ship “Andromeda Ascendant.” The Commonwealth is a galaxy-spanning empire dedicated to peace and order.

Most of the crew is human or humanoid, although some are more bug-like, and there are also humanoid robots augmenting the ship. The ship itself is run by a sapient AI called “Andromeda” (played by Lexa Doig) who manifests as a hologram, a very beautiful female hologram with cleavage.

Hunt and his Neitzschean (as in philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche) First Officer Gaheris Rhade (Steve Bacic) who looks perfectly human, are discussing Hunt’s upcoming wedding and the philosophical differences between their two races. Neitzscheans are apparently warlike, stoic, and pessimistic. Hunt, by comparison, is optimistic and values peace.

The Andromeda is called in on a rescue mission to evacuate occupied planets and spacecraft endangered by a rogue black hole that just happened to wander by in a hurry only to discover it’s a trap. They’re attacked by 10,000 (wait for it) Neitzschean vessels. Turns out the Neitzscheans aren’t happy with the Commonwealth’s making peace with a paradisiac race called the Magogs and have declared war.

10,000 to one is pretty long odds and with Andromeda crippled in the attack, Hunt orders his crew to abandon ship. He and Andromeda then aim the ship towards the event horizon of the black hole intending to use its massive gravity to slingshot far enough away to engage its faster-than-light “slipstream” technology.

Rhade has remained onboard and sabotaged the ship so that it can’t escape the black hole. In a firefight with Hunt, Rhade dies and the ship is trapped around the black hole, time dilation effect essentially putting Andromeda in a “deep freeze.”

300 years later, Andromeda is found by the salvage ship “Eureka Maru” commanded by Beka Valentine (Lisa Ryder). The vessel has been hired by the rat-like Gerentex (John Tench) to locate and salvage the Andromeda, which is highly advanced by current standards, to sell to an unknown buyer.

Beka’s crew includes the quirky and mysterious Trance Gemini (Laura Bertram) who has purple skin and a prehensile tail, engineer and self-proclaimed genius Seamus Harper (Gordon Michael Woolvett), and Rev Bern (Brent Stait), a pacifist clergy Magog.

They manage to pull Andromeda away from the black hole, but in doing so cause normal time to resume on the ship.

Realizing there’s a survivor on board and that the ship’s AI is active, Gerentex brings in a group of mercenaries led by Neitzschean Tyr Anasazi (Keith Hamilton Cobb). They invade the ship to neutralize Hunt and task Harper with taking over the AI. The latter proves impossible as Andromeda kicks Harper out of her “mind” when he makes a neural connection.

Harper is taken back to the Maru by Gerentex and a couple of his cronies once he realizes that Anasazi’s men can’t handle Hunt’s resistance. Gerentex abandons Beka and her crew as well as Anasazi on Andromeda and uses the Maru to push it back toward the black hole with Harper’s unwilling assistance.

Enlisting the help of his enemies, Hunt restores power to Andromeda’s engines and pursues the Maru through slipstream space.

Hunt shows typical Roddenberry idealistic mercy in letting Gerentex live, cutting him loose in an escape pod. He then offers Lexa and her crew as well as Anasazi positions on Andromeda with the idea of re-establishing order to a now lawless galaxy.

Really. All by themselves with no sign that there’s anything left of the old Commonwealth. It’s like the basic premise of “Star Wars” (1977) except instead of a Rebel Alliance, there’s just one ship. It would be like Captain Kirk and the Enterprise enlisting a rogue group of mercenaries in an attempt to restore the Federation.

Not very plausible.

The problem I had especially with the pilot episode is you had less than an hour to get to know and care about Hunt, his impeding wedding, his deep friendship with Rhade, his sense of betrayal by Rhade, Hunt’s intrinsic nobility, the nobility of the utopian Commonwealth (like the Star Wars Old Republic), and then feel the loss when Hunt wakes up 300 years later to a whole new dystopian world (galaxy).

The pilot needed a two-hour episode to do better character development and to set the stage for all that. At the end of the first show, I knew what I was supposed to be feeling but didn’t feel it.

The acting wasn’t what it should have been, but that may have been due to the pilot being a “rush job,” so to speak. The alien make up looked made up giving me the distinct impression of human actors under heavy prosthetics rather than letting me believe they were aliens.

And having a race called “Nietzcheans” constantly quoting Nietzsche seemed ridiculous.

In “Star Trek,” some part of our galaxy was inhabited and known. In “Star Wars,” one whole galaxy was inhabited and known. In “Andromeda,” at least three galaxies, including the Milky Way and Andromeda are inhabited and known.

I find it hard to believe that a single war, no matter how lengthy, took down something so vast. Usually empires die of their own internal corruption and decay.

I can see making a sapient AI female and even programming the hologram to project an “attractive” person, but why the cleavage? Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a pair of lovely breasts as well as the next straight guy, but why would it make sense? Then again, in the original “Star Trek” series, dressing female crew in mini-skirts didn’t make much sense either. It was just eye candy for the male viewers.

In spite of its drawbacks, “Andromeda,” as of the first two episodes, has potential. It’s all new to me, so I’ll be watching a twenty-five year old show with fresh eyes.

Oh, I’m aware that Sorbo isn’t terribly liked in certain circles of social media due to his conservative and Christian views. Fortunately, neither bothers me, so I’ll just experience Dylan Hunt as the character he’s written to be and proceed forward.

Here we go.