Andromeda

The Dissonant Interval (1)

Season 4, Episode 6, Aired 5/10/04

Episode Summary

The Andromeda encounters the Arkology, a society that they believe is the closest to perfection humanity will ever achieve. But the Magog are close, and Dylan and the crew must convince the utopia that peace is not the answer. Conflict arises in the core crew when the leaders of Arkology do not wish to leave. Dylan wants to defend them, and Beka warns him that she's not going to stay and die defending an idea of peace.moreless

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Cast & Crew

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Kevin Sorbo

Captain Dylan Hunt
Lisa Ryder

Beka Valentine
Lexa Doig

Andromeda/Rommie

Fan Episode Reviews (1)

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Probably the second worse episode of Andromeda, and pretty much crapped on the entire point of the series

3.0

"Bad"

By kvn8907, Jan 14, 2011 Report Abuse

If the worst episode of Andromeda was "The Risk All Point", which I think it was, this was probably the second worse episode.

What did Dylan say in the very first episode of Andromeda? "The long night has come. The Systems Commonwealth, the greatest civilization in history, has fallen. Now, one ship, one crew have vowed to drive back the night and rekindle the light of civilization. On the starship Andromeda, hope lives again". From that point on, whenever Andromeda wasn't making pointless one-shot stories that had no relevance to the series at large (which was sadly quite often, especially in seasons 3 and 4), they were working on first creating a restored Systems Commonwealth, then either adding too, strengthening, or rooting out corruption in the new galactic empire. Then a good portion of that was reverted for no reason when a large part of the Commonwealth fleet was destroyed for no reason at the end of Season 3, then somewhere in season 4 there was a minor civil war which flared up for no good reason then suddenly collapsed when Tri-Jema incompetently killed herself and her flagship in Trusting the Gordian Maze. What I'm getting at is that the majority, and quite frankly the best episodes of the series were ones that had something to do with people besides Andromeda and ones which actually had something to do with a larger storyline. More than anything, the very spirit that this episode was written in just gives the impression that the writer(s) said "aw f*** it! Let's make this just about Andromeda" and have the Andromeda take on the Worldship along again, like it did at the end of season 1, despite the entire purpose of season 2 being Dylan's desire to have a fleet at his back when he next had to confront the world ship. And then he meets the Worldship for a final showdown without even a single other ship with him...not even a tug-ship.

So, they made this stupid little episode which is basically a repeat of "The Devil Take the Hindmost" to a tee, to the point that I half expected Dylan to leave the colonists some crates of force lances, and someone who was overzealous about using only peace and love to come along and destroy them so they could only fight the Magog with spears. So it wasn't just made in bad spirit, but it was redone.

Maybe the writers started to feel how loosely this episode's story was held together, and decided to throw in a few curveballs just to pad the episode and try to make the audience care, and did things like having the colony station close to the Route of Ages, having it lead by a Paradigm (something which hasn't even been mentioned before this episode, and was basically an ass-pull) and then dumping that God-like quality on Dylan Hunt, inflating his the power of the already Marty Stu-like character even higher. Then they have Trance saying that these blindly peaceful people are the "closest humanity has come to perfection", even though they're ignorant weaklings and it's implied that all it would take is a single infested human to bring the entire population to its knees. Man, this show really WAS filmed in Canada! But supposedly, their "perfection" is the reason why they haven't kept their slipstream drives in anything resembling functional systems, and since it never occurs to Dylan to simply send for a transport to take the few thousand people off Arkology, Harper works overtime, alone (there aren't any mechanics on Andromeda that could lend him a hand?) to try to get their centuries-old slipstream drive working. Add to that some other dumb things like Rhade suddenly going soft, Arkology's inhabitants using 17th century technologies like garden hoes and fishing poles but being able to enter a communal "dream-state" unaided for no reason, plus probably a half a dozen other things, and you've got an episode script that's held together with bubble gum and silly putty.

As if to hang a lampshade on the stupidity of the script, after Dylan says that they should stay and fight there for no reason, Beka starts pointing out some plotholes and hastily decides that she should leave, and maybe go someplace else that isn't strategically insignificant and completely unable to defend itself...then gets cold feet for no reason and starts crying about what basically like leaving a town that's been poisoned by radiation and would kill her to go to the next town over.

This was a terrible, useless episode, which completely broke with the overall spirit of the Andromeda continuity, had a redone plot, and had gaping plot holes. For the last episode of the season, why they should have done is have Andromeda and a fleet collect in the solar system of a restored Commonwealth world that's about to be attacked by the Magog Worldship, the first and only chance they will have before the massive swarm begins to consume the tri-galaxies, and the episode being about working with the fleet to try to defeat the Worldship and save the planet. Instead they decided to fight alone protecting a few thousand hippies in a plot that had more holes than a cheese grater.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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Trivia
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Notes
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- International Airdates: -This episode aired in Canada on May 1, 2004 on Mystery. -This episode aired in the UK on May 18, 2005 on Sci-Fi. -This episode aired in the Australia on July 30, 2005 on Fox 8. Edit
Quotes
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- Dylan: It's time to choose, Rhade. Die for peace, or fight for peace.
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- Beka: (returning after a fight with the Magog) Guess who's comin' to dinner.
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- Marlowe: (when Dylan urges them to hurry their decision of whether to move) We live in peace; we die in peace.
  Dylan: I admire you for that. But living in peace is the better option.
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Allusions
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- Messereau: Reports of our extinction have been greatly exaggerated. This is a quote of Mark Twain, after hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal. Edit