Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda has shown itself, in volumes 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, to be essentially a light-weight space opera with the potential to develop into a really gripping story... as well as the potential to take a nose dive into cheesiness. With each of the earlier volumes, I found myself enjoying the episodes, yet also reserving judgment on the overall quality of the series. "Let's see how the season finishes up," I told myself. "We've had some really cool episodes with neat storylines and interesting background details, but we've also had more than a fair share of generic adventure-of-the-week stuff."

You see, there's a lot of scope to the series' background, from the various competing species all over the galaxy, to the internecine struggles of the Nietzscheans, to the missing pieces of history during the "Long Night" after the fall of the Commonwealth; there are also some tantalizing mysteries, like the true cause of the Magog attacks. A lot of thought and design has evidently gone into creating a richly textured setting for the Andromeda's adventures; story possibilities abound. But all the interesting background in the world doesn't much help the show if the writers choose to create episode after episode of miscellaneous unrelated adventures and pointless action.

 Rather unfortunately, Andromeda 1.4 shows a trend in distinctly the wrong direction. The four (yes, only four) episodes included in this volume are uniformly nothing to write home about, offering no development of the interesting Magog-related plot thread raised in an earlier episode, and instead focusing on generic "problem of the week" stories.

"Forced Perspective" has Dylan (Kevin Sorbo) captured by aliens and put on trial for some not-so-nice work he did while in the High Guard, centuries ago. Instead of going for any moral or ethical subtlety or introspection, though, the episode is mostly a shoot-em-up with a touch of Sorbo trying (rather unconvincingly, I'm afraid) to show a Dylan Hunt with deep thoughts.

"The Sum of Its Parts" can be summed up as the Borg meet R2D2 and C3P0, and then come to pay a social call on the Andromeda. The story has some mildly interesting bits to it, but on the whole it's a forgettable "incident of the week" story that offers nothing to the overall story arc and isn't particularly good as a standalone episode.

"Fear and Loathing in the Milky Way" is weak, very weak. We follow Trance and Harper as they get into trouble with an old employer who decides to use the Eureka Maru to help him snag a prize that will make his fortune. Scriptwriter alert: having the characters squabble amongst themselves can be used to develop character and move the plot along... but in moderation, not as the majority of the dialogue. Also, even if the special effects are kind of cool, there's no justification to add in random gunfights just because you can.

"Devil Take the Hindmost" is better than the preceding episode, though that's not saying much. Rev Bem (in his first appearance in any of the episodes in this volume) gets a call for help from a fellow Wayist, and sure enough, he and Dylan charge off to save the day: in this case, to help a settlement of peaceful agriculturalists stave off slaver attacks. Several large plausibility holes are apparent in this episode, which also suffers from the "incident of the week" syndrome: Dylan comes to help, faces a few mini-morality problems along the way, and in the end saves the day and everything is back to status quo, ready for next week's episode.

I'm disappointed with the four episodes in Andromeda 1.4, because the series could be a lot better; the show has potential, but not if it continues in the direction of generic action adventure. There are only four episodes on this set, so it's possible that it's just a slump, and the season will finish off with a bang; I hope so.

The DVD

Video

The image quality of Andromeda 1.4 is nothing short of stunning. The episodes are presented in anamorphically-enhanced widescreen, at their original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and trust me, they deserve their full five stars for video. There's not even a trace of edge enhancement, and the image is sharp and finely detailed at all levels, from close-ups to distant shots... not to mention that the CGI shots are dazzlingly crisp and clear. Colors are rich and clean, with skin tones looking completely natural; contrast is also handled extremely well. Blacks are always nicely rich and dark. The print is pristine, with not so much as a speckle of noise or a single print flaw anywhere to be seen. In short, ADV has continued to give Andromeda a positively royal treatment on DVD, and fans of the series will be delighted.

Audio

While it's not as stunning as the video quality, the soundtrack for Andromeda is quite solid. Dialogue is always clear and clean, with no background noise or distortion at all; music is well integrated into the overall soundtrack, as are special effects. I would have liked to have had more surround effects (in other words, I would have liked a 5.1 track) but the 2.0 soundtrack is well distributed among the different channels, and gives a pleasing audio experience overall.

I do find it curious that it's only Dolby 2.0: a 5.1 soundtrack would be put to great use in this show, and certainly with a paltry two episodes per DVD, there's plenty of space for the 5.1 sound.

Extras

I have to say that it was a poor decision to split up the first season of Andromeda into no fewer than five volumes. With only four fifty-minute episodes on volume 1.4, it's a very tough call to justify the fairly steep price tag, not to mention that the double-wide cases start taking up an awful lot of shelf space.

One glaring omission is the promised commentary track for "Fear and Loathing in the Milky Way": it's described on the back cover, but it's not actually there.

For the special features that are actually present as advertised, we get a small amount of interesting material and a fair amount of trivia. On the first disc, a character profile of Rev Bem offers miscellaneous costume and character information and, of more interest, a six-minute interview with actor Brent Stait. An image gallery of costumes, the "glossary of the High Guard P-R," and information on the government of the Systems Commonwealth is also included.

On the second disc, the most interesting piece is a two-and-a-half minute behind-the-scenes look at Rev Bem's makeup, with the process described and demonstrated by a makeup artist. We also get a biography of executive producer Jay Firestone, prop and set costume drawings, a timeline of the Commonwealth, and about a minute's worth of rather unfunny bloopers.

Both discs have deleted scenes (a total of about five minutes' worth), TV teaser trailers, and ADV previews.

Final thoughts

Andromeda 1.4 has knockout image quality and nice sound; what it doesn't have is really great content. The four episodes included here are definitely for serious fans only, as they really aren't anything special. The lack of any solid special features, particularly the advertised but nonexistent commentary track, is another blow to this set. I've given a "recommended" for the first three volumes of Andromeda, but I'll have to drop the rating for volume 1.4 to a "rent it."