Andromeda: S02E12: Ouroborus

An epsiode review by phoenixfire31

Our show opens with a holographic image of everybody’s favorite Magog/ Wayist Rev Bem bidding goodbye to the crew of Andromeda for spiritual reasons. He said that ever since his time on the magog world ship he’s felt lost and confused. He ends his message by saying “Wherever my paths may lead, even in the darkest places I will have you all in my heart and you will light my way always.” And this is a permanent goodbye for anyone who didn’t already know; the make up was to hard on Brent so he had to say goodbye. Harper is now visibly upset claiming Rev Bem promised to remove the Magog larva from his system and Harper is now out of options. Dylan goes to find Harper, which is a good thing because Harper soon passes out. In the medical deck Trance informs Dylan that the larva inside Harper have become immune to the medicine and will hatch in less than a week. Dylan tells Harper that “Whatever happens I won’t let them hatch.”

Harper then decides since he has nothing to left to loose that he’s going to use a machine to fold space and time and get rid of the larva. Unfortunately He can’t do this alone and he calls on the Persieds on Sinti to help. Specifically a genius Persied called Hohne pronounced whoon.

Harper is in the machine shop and Trance comes in saying she’s been looking everywhere for him. Harper says that can’t be true because when Trance needs something she can usually fin it pretty fast. Trance admits that she was worried and wants Harper to rest. Harper tells her that he doesn’t have much time and he’s gonna spend every minute of it looking for a cure for himself. With a kiss on the cheek Trance leaves Harper alone.

Hohn and his assistant Rekeeb come onto the ship and are very exited about the experiment, and I mean very exited. Hohn wants to know how Harper got this space folding technology and Harper admits that he stole it. Rommie is worried about Harper doing this dangerous experiment. Harper admits that this could be dangerous, he knows and if things go wrong “It will twist me into an abstract payment, Harper descending a staircase” as he does his impression of an abstract painting.

Dylan and Rommie are over the slipstream and Rommie is doing some repairs on a control panel. She admits that she is worried, Harper is her friend and she doesn’t like the technology they want to use. Dylan wants another option, but Rommie admits that she doesn’t have one. Rommie talks about how when they first met the crew of the Maru she wasn’t that impressed, but now she’s gotten close to them. Dylan admits that he has to. Dylan gets up and leaves he walks through a door, and blue flashy stuff appears and he turns around but the door is closed, it’s not even the same door. Suddenly the ship starts calling for battle stations and Dylan sees two members of his original crew. He chases after them and suddenly he sees a bunch of his original crew running at around getting ready to fight. He sees a former shipmate named Kylie and he calls her name and goes chasing after her, but as he slides down one of those ladders he ends up ten decks lower then when he started. Andromeda demands to know how Dylan got from deck nine to nineteen, but the captain is just as confused as his ship.

“Am I going crazy?” Dylan asks Rommie, “Maybe” is all she can say. Dylan has been under a lot of stress lately. But he wants to know how a hallucination could make him go from deck nine to deck nineteen. Now it seems that the ship is not only traveling through time but also through space, because Thompson one of the crew members Dylan saw was only on the Andromeda for 1 battle at Hephestus, which is really far away. Rommie tells Dylan that she’s not made for all this science junk, all she knows is how to blow stuff up. Science was Rev Bems job; Rev Bem was also the ship psychiatrist.

Hohn and his assistant Rekeeb are enjoying themselves far too much as they work on the machine to fold space. These guys are your nerdy science geeks getting all giggly over their space time folder thingy Tyr walks into the room wearing no shirt may I ad, which was of course a nice touch. “This is clearly not my quarters.” He says dryly Tyr looks pretty confused, he tells Harper that if he has been involved in their experiment heads are gonna fly. But Harper, Hohn and Rekeeb have no idea what’s going on. Hohn goes to check out the door where Tyr came from; but unfortunately that door now leads into space. Everyone holds on to something as stuff starts to fly out the open door. Alarms start ringing all over the ship about the hull breach; the only problem is that the breech is a good couple of decks away from any corridor that opens into space. Hohn, who doesn’t seem to be the real survivalist, is slowly being sucked out into space, Tyr, then lets go of his holding space and gets to the door pulling Hohn back into the ship and closing the breach. Dylan and Rommie try to go help with the hull breach but as soon as they leave, the door goes all blue and flashy and the two of them run right back into the room.

Problems are happening all over the Andromeda, Trance on the Maru is attacked by one of the robert crew members from the Pax Magellan (Mathematics of Tears) she looks at him and says, “You’re not suppoased to be here” but the robot doesn’t care and starts attacking anyway. Fortunately Beka comes to Trance’s rescue and guns down the robot. “Uh, I’m sensing freakiness.” Says Beka. “Trance what did you do?” But Trance claims she didn’t do anything. Her best guess is that “Space and time have become very messed up.” The crew opens up a com channel and tries to decide what to do

Dylan is wondering what went wrong with the machine, but Harper tells Dylan that they haven’t even finished it yet. Hohn is quick to remind everyone that since time is being messed with the machine in the future might be causing the problem. So Tyr ever the problem solver tells them to stop working on the machine until they can figure this out. The problem: Hohn has built robots to build the machine on their own. “So now it’s building itself, well that’s just great.” Remarks Dylan. So now Tyr, Harper, Hohn and Rekeeb have to get to the machine shop and stop the robots, but the ship is still moving through time and space so trying to get anywhere is a real problem. Meanwhile the problems on Andromeda are also messing with the planet below them. Dylan and Rommie decide to try and make their way to the bridge and get the ship away from the planet.

Tyr, Harper, Hohn and Rekeeb go through some more shiny blue stuff and put them farther away from where they wanna be. Tyr gets annoyed points at Hohn and says, “We need a plan, you come up with one now.” But before Hohn can say anything Kylie the old crewmember enters the room and demands to know who they are. Harper tries to reason with the crewmember but she notices Tyr and starts shooting at the Neitzschean. Tyr makes a break for it so Harper, Hohn and Rekeeb can get to the machine shop.

Meanwhile Rommie and Dylan aren’t making much progress; Dylan decides that they should split up and try to get to the machine shop or command. Trance and Beka are now fighting Kalderans on the Maru, Beka is confused, “There’s never been Kadlerans on my ship” “Yet” says Trance.

As Tyr runs shots are fired all around him he finds Dylan who demands to know what is going on. Dylan sees his old crewmate and recognizes her as Kylie, Dylan tells her to stand down. She asks Captain Hunt what is going saying none of the doors lead to the right places and everything is a mess. Before Dylan could say anything some Kalderans make an entrance, Dylan orders her to keep the Kalderans at bay. She says yes sir and starts fighting. With a last look Dylan says, “Kylie, it was nice to see you again.” She gives him a smile and then tells the others around her to obey Captain Hunt’s orders.

Harper, Hohn and Rekeeb are now crawling through a tunnel Harper is telling Hohn and Rekeeb that he doesn’t believe in destiny. Suddenly there’s more blue shiny stuff and the corridor they were crawling through is now the empty space above the slipstream drive. The three of them fall, Harper lands on the walkway over the slipstream. He pulls Rekeeb safely onto to walkway but Hohn slips and is now hanging above the slipstream drive holding on by only one hand. Harper tells Hohn that Dylan will kill him if Hohn dies, Harper tries to get Hohn up but again the Persied doesn’t seem to have much physical strength and falls from Harper’s grasp.

A vision of Senti is showing and flashes are occurring all over the planet. Rekeeb and Harper are continuing their journey to the machine shop. Rekeeb is telling Harper that it was fate that made Hohn fall Harper thinks it was bad luck. Either way Harper is now determined to get the machine shop and keep anyone else from dying.

Rommie and Dylan manage to meet up and Rommie tells Dylan that she’s found the pattern, she tells Dylan that the problems are accruing on inward curves so if they make right angles toward the goal, they should get to the bridge. Or something like that it was kind of confusing.

Meanwhile Beka and Trance are still on the Maru when the Kalderans come through, As Beka fights off the Kalderans we see the first vision of the future, it’s Beka and she looks like she’s been through hell. Future Beka has short kinda spiky orange hair. Oh and yeah only one eye and one hand. A big ominous black metal eye patch covers one of future Beka’s eyes and an even scarier metal fake hand is in place of the other. “Thanks,” says present Beka to future Beka as future Beka deals with some Kalderans. “Don’t mention it” says future Beka. Future Beka goes off to kick some more Kalderans ass. Beka hears a scream from Trance and goes to help her. After fighting a futuristic Kalderan Beka says, “You’ll never guess what I just saw.” “A scary futurists version of yourself? She went that way.” Says Trance.

Then we see the second image of the future. A girl kicking serious ass, fighting with a sword and jumping on to railings flipping through the air cutting the heads off of some Kalderan, she’s defiantly menacing like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon menacing. As this girl finishes off the Kalderans she turns around and we see that it’s future Trance, and man is she all grown up. Physically she no longer has the purple hue to her skin her hair is long and in dreadlocks. She has the whole Xena, leather, skin-bearing outfit on. Future Trance looks at present Beka and says, “I’ve forgotten how Beautiful you were.” “Thanks,” says Beka but she still looks pretty confused. Trance sees herself, and the two Trances have this kind of weird confusing conversation about the future, and one perfect possible outcome. Future Trance says she’s made a lot of mistakes and they have to fix them. Trance asks if they are gonna loose, “At best we aren’t going to win,” says future Trance. Present Trance seems to know what she is doing, and with one last look at Beka she leaves through the doorway that future Trance had come through thus switching the two Trances. It’s an easier scene to watch than to read about.

Beka is pretty upset that her innocent, little girl Trance has just been replaced by this warrior girl, Beka demands to know where Trance went. “She didn’t go anywhere she grew up, she’s me.” Trance just says that the future is not a pleasant place and they have to try and make things right.

Dylan and Rommie have found the command deck and attempt to pull the ship away from the planet. It’s a major strain on the engines but they manage to pull the ship away and start to head to the machine shop.

Harper and Rekeeb go through some blue shiny stuff and end up on the Maru accept Trance and Beka went through the same blue stuff and are now gone. Rekeeb then tells Harper he’s figured out a pattern. Harper punches some numbers into the computer and can now kind of control the distortions. If they go through the blue shiny stuff it should take them to the machine shop. Or pull them apart atom by atom.

Harper and Rekeeb didn’t come out by the machine shop, but at least they didn’t’ get ripped apart. Beka runs up to Harper and gives him a hug saying that she was so worried. Harper pulls a gun on new Trance but she explains that she is the same person he always new. Trance apparently knows where she is going and leads them right to the machine shop where they meet up with Dylan and Rommie. After raising a few eyebrows from the rest of the crew Trance explains who she is. Harper then tells Dylan that Hohn is dead, not only did Hohn have the best working knowledge of the machine but he was also one of Dylan’s biggest supporters.

But now the big question remains, what do they do with the machine. If the machine is destroyed then everything will be the same Hohn will still be alive and Trance will be back to her purple sweet self, but Harper will die. If they use the machine Harper will live and everything else will remain the same. Harper in a sudden scene of selflessness tells everyone that the machine should be destroyed, he reminds them that Hohn was a genius and Harper is just Harper which is more than good enough for me. Tyr also shows his caring side and reminds Harper of his promise to kill him before the Magog larvae can hatch and eat their way out of him aw that’s sweet in a gross disgusting kind of way. But the rest of the crew isn’t convinced that’s the best option.

Rekeeb however decides to take matters into his own handing finally using the gun that Harper had given them, he demands that the machine be destroyed of he’ll kill everyone. Harper and Dylan both pull guns on Rekeeb and Trance stands right in front of the gun. Suddenly the sound of Magog ships punching through the hull is heard. Dylan shoots the gun out of Rekeebs hand.

That’s when the Trance begins to take an interest in the machine she is looking at the wires and then all of the sudden flicks a switch. A bright yellow beam shoots out from the machine into Harper and he is lifted into the air. We watch as six-magog larvae come out of Harper and then disappear, Harper falls to the ground unconscious but Magog larvae free.

Later after the problems with space and time have come to a stop Dylan asks what he is supposed to do with this new Trance. Trance hopes that he’ll let her stay on board. Dylan wonders why Trance did what she did, if it was something that would help the future. Trance tells Dylan that she doesn’t know what the repercussions of her actions will be, all she new was “that Harper was my friend and Hohn was a stranger.” Dylan is happy to finally get an honest answer out of Trance so this seems to be enough for Dylan and future Trance or present Trance as she is now is here to stay.

This was a killer episode; we got to see the future, which is always cool, even though the future looked pretty grim. This episode had a lot of changes in it to, no more magog larvae in Harper, no more Rev Bem, and a new improved all grown up Trance. The show looks like it’s getting a little more tough, the ships only pacifist Rev Bem is gone and so is the only sweet one, Trance. This was defiantly one of the better episodes this season.

What did you think?

The “Uroborus” episode review is © 2002 phoenixfire31.
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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