Andromeda: S01E20: Star Crossed

An epsiode review by Hollydays

Trance and Harper come stumbling into the room (looking for a lamp post no doubt). They have been partying it up at the latest signee to the commonwealth, “party planet” otherwise known as Scheherzade Drift. Harper, who had hit on every available girl, is displeased to learn that Dylan, who hit on no one, had ended up sharing a bottle of wine with a lovely lady. Andromeda interrupts to call Dylan and Beka to the bridge.

Apparently there are a group of twits who like to zoom around through space blowing things up because they do not want others zooming around space. Sounds like Trance logic. one of the ships belonging to these less than desirable people has popped out of slipstream in front of Andromeda and is heading towards an unarmed passenger ship. Andromeda shoots the “Restor” ship and knocks out it’s weapons. Everyone smiles. The Restor ship slams itself into passenger ship. Passenger ship blows up. Everyone mad. Especially Dylan. Dylan very, very, mad.

Dylan decides to blow up the Restors base so they cannot foil his plans of saving the universe again. Tyr is happy, very, very, happy. Before they all take off to find the base, they notice one little escape pod from the passenger ship and they load it up. Trance runs to meet the survivor only to find it is an AI like Rommie. A very cute AI named Gabriel.  I think I may have seen him before in another T.V. universe; something about Stars and “gates” comes to mind. She hands his care over to Harper.

Harper drools over the tech in Gabriel. He assumes Gabriel was made to be a doctor or engineer but is surprised to be told he was a teacher.  Rommie walks in to debrief the new heartthrob. one almost wonders what kind of debriefing he is going to get when Rommie gets a good look at him and almost drools all over the floor. Gabriel does likewise in Rommies direction. Harper tries to defend his Rommie territory but she shoos him out of the room.  Gabriel leaps to fill the void. He takes Rommie’s hand and spouts some bad poetry about “tell me there’s an afterlife for androids and all good cyborgs go to heaven”. (puke, puke) Apparently this works in the android world as Rommie looks weak in the knees.

Later, Rommie and Beka are talking about the rights of AI’s. In the Commonwealth they had the same rights as any other species, but it has degenerated since then. Some societies worship them and others melt them down. Rommie is clearly infatuated with Gabriel. She rationalizes it as being a historic opportunity to “interface” with one of her own kind. (so that’s what the androids call it)

I guess Dylan must have put out the all points bulletin as several free trade alliance fighters pop out of slipstream and offer Andromeda their help in kicking Restor butt.  Ahh, no all points bulletin. Bekas bro, a free trade spy, let it be known that Dylan is anti-restor. The group gives Dylan info on the Restor base.(By the way the captain of the FTA is a GIRL, hear me roar!) It’s a ship called “Balance of Judgement”.  It is a commonwealth siege-perilous class warship.

Rommie finds Gabriel in the library reading a real book, not a database. This piques her interest. Gabriel starts quoting Chaucer but she tells him she prefers Byron (ah, got your sea legs back, eh Rommie?).   He makes her wobbly legged soon though by complementing her abilities to multi-task. She remains humble and tells him that is just what she does. He asserts that she is special and her own person. She cuts to the chase and tells him that they will be dropping him off on a nearby drift and so she must say goodbye. He begs to stay. She is won over and goes off to ask Dylan if her friend can stay for the battle. He says no. Rommie pouts and stamps her foot.

Dylan doesn’t trust Gabriel but acquiesces to Rommies protests of being in love with Gabriel. He doesn’t want her distracted during their upcoming fight so Rommie will partition all her love like emotions to the avatar body. She must also keep an eye on handsome.

Rommie and her other selves argue about the fact that Dylan may be right. Rommie the avatar wants to be considered her own person (my, what a weak mind, next week, brainwashing 101, presented by Gabriel).  She storms off and meets with Gabriel. They end up kissing.

Oh, why is it that the poets are always bad guys? He scurries off and plugs something into Andromeda’s wiring. He blinds her sensors and has loaded a nasty program into her (of all the rotten things to pick up from a date). He contacts “Balance of judgement”, he is its “Archangel” or Avatar.

Rommie is confronted by Harper in the command deck. He says she is too distracted by Gabriel to even help him and Tyr look for the balance of judgement. She proclaims that she can do many things at once and Tyr derides her for trying to have a love interest since she has no DNA to pass on. She takes off to find Gabriel.

She catches him accessing her systems. But he starts on about how amazing her history is and how they should write poems about her. He slithers right in and kisses her. He leans back and puts his hand into Andromedas wires. I don’t think anything is partitioned now. It looks like they are in VR world inside Rommies head. They look like their consciousness is joined. Moves fast this boy does.

A restorian destroyer shows up and kicks Andromeda’s butt. With Beka’s piloting skills and the Free Trade guys, they don’t die. The “Balance of Judgement” shows up and Beka does a Runner.

Rommie catches Gabriel trying to do a runner via escape pod. He ‘fesses up to what he is. He is taken to Dylan and Harper. Harper fries a few of Gabriels circuits while Dylan asks him how he could switch sides from High Guard to Restor.  He squirms and tells Dylan that it is not him but the ship. “Balance of Judgement” has been without a captain for a long time. At first it only took out pirates and other such low lives but eventually it started the Restorian movement.  Gabriel defends that HE would never hurt Andromeda as he loves her.

Dylan goes off to make war plans with the Free trade guys. He gives them a footprint magnifier. They make ready to fight without knowing that info is still being sent to “Balance”.  The fight goes badly and Dylan storms off to find Gabriel. Our free trade girl doesn’t make it.

Rommie has beat him to it. She is angry at Gabriel and feels used. Dylan orders Gabriel to leave Rommie alone and pulls out a weapon. Rommie thinks he is going to fire at Gabriel when he shoots her instead!

Dylan orders an emergency AI shutdown. Dylan wants to knock the stuffing out of Gabriel. He accuses him of infecting Andromeda. Gabriel explains that he didn’t know what “Balance” was doing until it was too late to save her.

Gabriel hovers over Rommie, but Dylan is the one to sweep her up into his arms and takes her to the Maru.

The crew are doing a runner from Andromeda in the Maru. Rommie wakes up and asks to be left behind with Gabriel. Dylan, looking upset, lets her go.

On the command deck, Gabriel is standing, holding Rommie in his arms while “Balance” keeps firing.  Meanwhile on the Maru, Dylan informs his crew that he has loaded their cargo bay with “pre-activated” warheads. He plans to dump them near “Balance” and let them float into it.  Beka pilots them close to the “Balance”, flips open the cargo bay, and moves their butt out there.  The “Balance” blows sky high.

Gabriel, surprisingly, doesn’t die (somehow being tied to the ship he should). He decides to start a new life and asks Rommie to join him. He sweet-talks her into it. She asks Dylan to let her go since she loves Gabriel (man, she needs a talking too).

Dylan and Beka are discussing Rommie and Gabriel’s “elopement” when Gabriel joins them.  Beka tells him the consequences of his not taking care of Rommie (she will pull off his head). He asserts that he will kill himself before hurting her. Rommie walks in, looking sorrowful.

“When were you going to tell me?” she asks Gabriel.  Gabriel maintains his look of innocence so Rommie continues. She informs everyone that when the “Balance” blew up a large amount of info was sent to Gabriel. “The Balance of Power” transmitted his core personality to Gabriel.

Dylan offers to try to extract the data, but Rommie ascertains it is hopeless to do so. Eventually the psychotic “Balance” will be the dominant personality and a new warship would be built, the Restorian movement would once again be on its way. After all a warship can only do one thing. Rommie’s eyes well up with tears as she confesses her love for Gabriel and then she kills him!!! Gabriel dies in her arms.

Dylan tries to console Rommie. She wishes to be destroyed so she doesn’t have to feel the pain. She wonders what her true identity is. If she is a warship she can only kill. Where is a place for love in her life?  Dylan holds her in his arms while she cries.

He tells her that “Balance” was without captain and crew and that lead to its downfall. She will be more than just a warship because Dylan is her heart (awwww).  She asks the time old question of whether the pain will go away to which Dylan responds that

“I don’t think it’s supposed to. It’s part of what it means to be alive”.

This was a great episode. I liked the development of Rommie. It was surprising to see how naïve she can be in the area of love and how young she is in her personal development; after all she acted like a 14 year old in love. It makes her seem more fallible, supported by the fact that all the other AI ships from the Commonwealth we’ve seen are nutty fruitcakes.

I wish not all romantic types, like Gabriel, were shown as evil and weak, but oh well.

I still find it improbable that Andromeda does not know when her sensors are out (hey, wait a min, my butt’s asleep!) or that Balance of Power would not be aware that missiles were floating on in. In our era of battleships that can take on 18+ targets at a time, one would think the future would be a little more advanced than us. Also, the Balance looked more advanced than Andromeda so I can understand an Advanced Avatar. BUT why is it that Harper made Andromeda an Avatar and the two other commonwealth ships we’ve come across already had avatars?

Anyway, I’d rate this a 40000 out of 30

And that guy from Stargate (Michael Shanks) is really, umm, a good actor. Yeah…that’s what I was going to say about him.

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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