Andromeda: S01E14: Forced Perspective

Welp! this was a show like nothing we’ve seen so far…. no seriously, it wasn’t much fun at all, it wasn’t as well acted, directed, or well produced. There were some good parts of the episode, but these were few and far between. Most distressing was a complete lack (except for an unseen word at the end) of Rommie, Harper and Rev Bem. I would have thought that an episode missing so many of it’s main characters would have a stronger plot.

The show opened with the lovely Beka Valentine on her back, arms and legs wide open, staring up at a mildly sweating Tyr Anasazi.  She was out of breath of course; he’d been working her hard.  She exhales, straining under him.
“No touching,” Instructs Tyr commandingly, “Beka, how many times have I told you about your form? Now don’t clang the weights“.

Dylan has taken the Eureka Maru to a place called Sigma Sal 5.  He has managed to find the replacement part that he was looking for (an AP Solenoid Valve no less) and radio’s Rev Bem and Harper that they don’t need to look anymore and to enjoy their stay on Seneshall Drift (they were on a similar mission).

The Andromeda Ascendant is immobilised until their return so Beka makes use of the the spare time by working out with Tyr. He watches over her as she strains to lifts the dumbbells over her head. Beka complains about Dylan leaving them on the Andromeda while he looks for spare parts with Trance.

The door opens, but instead of Trance entering, two geezers wearing black motorcycle helmets and armed with what look like Tazers enter and begin firing at Dylan.  He manages to dodge one of the intruder’s shots and give one of them a good smack, but he is eventually shot again and rendered unconscious.  The two mysterious intruders take him away, but not before Dylan manages to rip an insignia off the lapel of one of them.  It falls to the ground for all to see (excepting of course, the attackers).

Trance enters lugging a big box (and looking really good by the way), she tells Dylan of her recent adventure but realises that he is gone.

In an enclosed room a lady interrogator tells Dylan to confess.  Dylan makes a glib remark about not knowing what he should confess about and the two fof them enter into a testosterone rich duet about some bloody silly crime that he was supposed to have committed and which Dylan has little recollection.  The main plot for the story centred around a confession of a wrong-doing that Dylan had perpetrated and it was all totally bloody stupid.  I’ll try and relate much of it in this review, but to be honest, I wasted a lot of good beer throwing beer cans at the TV during this show and it’s really not worth the time.  Much more interesting were the interactions between Trance and Dylan and Beka and Tyr.

Dylan was on Sigma Sal 5 on a mission with Gaheris Rhade (the first time they met and also before he was captain of the Andromeda).  The mission was to abduct a dictatorial geezer who was tyrannically ruling 5 Billion people on the planet.  Dylan reminisces parts of the mission but the lady interrogator brings him round insisting on a confession.  Dylan retorts, “Dylan Hunt, Commonwealth Captain. HE5095C21922.”  He is then beaten up for not telling her what she wanted to hear.

On the Eureka Maru, the lovely purple lady finds the insignia and looks at it. She then sends a message to Rev and Harper on Seneshall Drift (but it will take 8 days to get there).  Meanwhile, Dylan is still being beaten up by the two geezers with motorcycle helmets under the authority of the interrogator lady.  She accuses Dylan of assassinating the leader of her planet some 300 years ago.  Dylan still refuses to give any information, but instead, he reminisces about the mission.  He remembers Rhada and an accomplice Dimitry (codenamed Mr May).  The mission was to be a non-violent kidnapping.

Suddenly, Dylan’s interrogation is interrupted by Dimitry (looking surprisingly well considering he is more than 300 years old).  It is Dimitry who is now the supreme leader of Mobius (and called the Supreme Compass).  He accuses Dylan of murder and assumes that he is back on Mobius to assassinate their current ruler… Dimitry.

The long and short of the story is that Dimitry trusted Dylan and Rhada to kidnap the old ruler without bloodshed and take him away for trials against humanity (or some such).  Instead, Dylan and Rhada ran into two guards that had to be killed (because they would have been killed otherwise) and also had to kill the ruling dude (who was also pointing a gun at them).  In other words, Dylan was on trial for having to kill three people in self-defence while on a mission to ‘extract’ a murdering dictator for trial by the Systems Commonwealth.

On the Andromeda however, Tyr and Beka find themselves alone.  Beka tells a relaxed Tyr that she admires him wanting to better himself (he always seems to be reading or working out).

He tells her, “But.. you could live life with your deepest instinctual drives.”
“Such as?” Asks Beka.

“Survival….”  He says.

“What else?” Continues Beka with interest.

Tyr looks her in the eyes and says quietly yet emotionlessly, “Reproduction.”

Beka suddenly becomes all coy and tells him that she needs to go and, “lift some more weights.”

Back on Mobius, poor Dylan is semi-unconscious and resting in his cell (between interrogations), when Trance walks in (?!?!  Just like that, nice trick).  She gets a thermos flask of water out of her big furry handbag and passes it to Dylan asking him to drink it slowly.  He asks her how she found him.

She showed him the insignia button and tells Dylan that she had all sorts of jobs before she came to work on the Andromeda, “The one I was really good at, was…. finding things.”

“Finding things.” says Dylan with his customary look of ‘what the hell are you talking about’.

“Yeah… you know.  First I would find things… and then I would…… take them … and give them to people who wanted it…”  She said mustering as much of her girlish innocence as she could.

“You’re a thief?” Accused Dylan quietly nursing a cut lip.

“No.  Thieves have bad intentions.  I never do.” She added justifying herself.

“Oh.”  Was all Dylan could answer (me too probably). She then steals him his prison cell.

On the Andromeda Ascendant, Beka and Tyr undertake a boring (but necessary) procedure to vent some stuff out of some tank or something. When they are finished, Beka asks what they can do to while away the boredom (besides reading books or lifting weights).  Tyr looks her in the eye and says quietly, “Eat.”

“Eating’s good.” She replies as if asking, ‘and what else?’

And we all looked at Tyr pause before opening his mouth…. “bonking” we said, but Tyr said, “Do you like meat?” and we said, “what?!” and then we said, “kinky!” and then we took another sip of beer and calmed down.

Beka on the other hand, was puzzled and when she was asked about her liking for meat she replied, “generically speaking?” (that’s my girl).

Tyr smiled a crooked smile and said, “Come to the ops deck in one hour.”

Then we were returned to Dylan and Trance’s attempt at escape.  They are hiding behind an air vent when Dylan spots Dimitry, “That’s Dimitry.” he says.

“You’re kidding!?” replied Trance, “Who’s Dimitry?”

Dimitry walks out of a laboratory, Dylan and Trance go in to find whole group of semi-dead Dimitry’s.  Apparently, he grows clones of himself as a supply for new body parts.  Dylan realises that this is how Dimitry has managed to stay alive for 300+ years. He calls it a perversion of life (personally I was envious), and goes on to say that next to the previous evil dictator, Dimitry is positively insane.  He resolves to stop him.

Trance sees what’s coming and tries to talk him out of it.  But Dylan considers Trance’s abilities.  He asks her if she can see into the future and Trance launches into a monologue about the complexities of guessing or predicting the future.  She doesn’t Admit anything but nor does she deny that she can see into the future.  She suggests that they go left.  They go left.

On the Andromeda, Tyr is preparing a slap-up meal with candles as Beka enters (wearing a very nice thin top and black leather trousers). The whole thing looks very romantic and just the sort of thing that Beka has been missing. You could almost see her eyes light up… flirting, nice food with a hunky dude overlooking the intimidating (but beautiful) vastness of space. She is certainly impressed with Tyr’s efforts, “Where did you get all the candles?” she asks with a smile.
“I rendered them from the fat of my enemies.” Replies Tyr joking (I think)
“I can’t wait to see the entrée.” Says Beka (and we wondered if it would be pork sausage – yes we did!).
It has to be said that Tyr lays a nice table.  Apparently he’d picked it up from a previous employer who enjoyed good cuisine.  Unfortunately Tyr murdered him because he was late paying the wages.  They chat and sip wine.

“So, do you think that there is a shipboard romance going on here?”  Asks Beka conversationally.

Tyr is taken aback, “….. Well…you were bored and I ….”  He says slightly embarrassed.

“erm.. I was talking about Rommie.” Replies Beka, “The way she looks at Dylan.” She adds vindicating this SadGeezers long held belief that he is not the only pervert in the galaxy.

Tyr pauses before answering, “Erm… well what would be the point.”  (?!!) “They’re not the same species.”  He adds indignantly.

“Wha… What?” Replies Beka mildly miffed, “Are you saying that you could never be interested in a human woman?”

“Yes.” Says Tyr without considering the finality of his reply.  And then to add insult to injury, “Yes, that’s what I’m saying…. Exactly.”

“Ah.”  Says Beka almost with exclamation, “not in a million years?” Then looks at him right between the eyes (as if taking aim).

“Never.” Says Tyr (I almost felt sorry for the dude).

Beka rises gracefully from her chair and leans over by Tyr, “Not in a Million, million … million years?”  She questions seductively.  But Tyr can only look at her with a slightly concerned expression.

She tells him quietly, but with the sensitivity of a coffin door slamming shut. “Tyr, on behalf of human women everywhere….. I’m insulted.”   Then she walks quietly out of the room.

Now it has to be said, that although this exchange was entertaining, it was also bit silly.  I mean! She could have engaged in a little tongue gymnastics to let him see what he was missing or at least given him a big slap across his Nietzschean face.  But instead, she calmly tells him she’s insulted, puckers up her lips, seductively blows out a candle and walks out out of the room (leaving all that nice nosh still steaming on her plate!)   My long-suffering partner however, pointed out that Beka’s reaction was perfect.  A sloppy wet kiss would have invited rejection as would any form of sultry behaviour and a slap across the face would have been inappropriate since he had not overtly flirted with her in the first place…….. And clearly I’m making far more out of this than I should.

On Mobius, Dylan catches up with Dimitry and arms his gun ready to kill the cloning dude. But Trance is not satisfied that Dylan is behaving in his best interests, or to character.  She points out that his whole belief structure is based around him looking for good and having good intentions.  If he begins to conduct himself with bad intentions, his goal to develop the Commonwealth would fail.  It was a strong argument put succinctly but a purple girl with a long tail. Dylan took her words to heart (and gave her one of those ‘I know you’re right, but I still don’t like it’ looks).

Dylan and Dimitry confront each other and after a pointless discussion, Dylan wins the argument and persuades Dimitry to consider joining the Commonwealth.  It seems that Dimitry was sorry for what he had become, but was willing to change.  Dylan suggests that he use his considerable resources to help re-build a planet (Dimitry was an architect before being a dictator) and relinquish power on Mobius to a collective governing body.

Back on the Andromeda, there is an uneasy atmosphere between Tyr and Beka as they do some more venting of stuff from ships tanks.  They confirm with each other certain parts of the procedure as each is completed, but you can clearly see the chemistry fizzing and popping between them.  Tyr stutters and Beka uses the word ‘stimulating’ instead of ‘evacuating’.

As the procedure is completed, the Eureka Maru returns. once docked, Dylan and Trance return to the Deck, Trance tells them that their trip was uneventful, “How was everything here?” She asked.
“Uneventful,” replied Beka, “Completely uneventful.”  She added with a faint but noticeable look of regret (or bitterness).

And there the show ended.  Not the same funny mind-boggling yarn of the previous week, but there were a few nice moments with Trance, Beka and Tyr.

I’d rate this episode a mild mannered 16,177 out of 10.
What did you think?

The “Forced Perspective” episode review is © 2001 Tony Fawl.
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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