User Reviews

As this episode opens Tyr and Beka are giving a nervous Trance Gemini a lesson in slip stream flight. After her flight they are nowhere near where they intended to be and the slipstream drive is off line. It is soon established that they are at the site it the decisive battle which ended the Commonwealth; strangely there is no wreckage... it is because they have travelled back in time to a point two days before the battle. Opinions on what to do are varied; should they warn the Commonwealth; should they, as Harper suggests, lure the Nietzchean fleet into a trap; should they, as Tyr suggests, back the Nietzcheans so they wouldn't be divided after the battle; or perhaps they should just leave and let history happen. Then a much larger Nietzchean fleet arrives; perhaps history is what it is because they intervened in some way.

This episode raises many interesting moral questions and even after decisions are made those involved aren't certain that their choices were correct. We get plenty of solid character development; notably for Tyr and Harper. It was particularly interesting in the latter's case as he has been a bit of a comedy character so far; Gordon Michael Woolvett does a solid job in the role. Laura Bertram also impresses as Trance Gemini; an enigmatic character who is becoming more interesting each time she appears as more than a background character... while not obviously stated one must wonder if it was a coincidence that she took Andromeda to that time and place; or as Rev Bem suggests it was divine will or perhaps Trance somehow planned it. As well as some interesting questions being raised we also get some solid action. Overall I'd say this was a superior episode.

Virtually every science fiction series uses time travel at some point - more than once usually. Generally, speaking from experience, they tend to be rather formulaic, weak episodes. But in this case Andromeda demonstrates what a time travel-themed episode should be like: As Andromeda accidentally goes back in time and ends up at the finishing stages of the Nietzchean uprising, Dylan has to decide whether to interfere and help the falling Commonwealth. Except the help he can offer is by every account merely a choice of the lesser evil, and comes at a heavy cost. Meanwhile, since this is still the beginning of the series, it does a lot for character development, also hinting at Trance's odd nature.

A rather uneven series, when Andromeda was good, it was great, and here the questions have no convincing answers one way or the other, philosophy fails to offer solace, and the cost of one's decisions weighs heavy like a neutron star on the shoulders of the protagonist. "Did we do the right thing? I have to believe it."