Andromeda Episode 20: Star-Crossed

The Andromeda crew rescues Daniel Jackson and Rommie quickly falls in love with him…but what is his connection to the Restorian Movement?

Episode Summary

The Andromeda rescues the lone survivor of a passenger ship destroyed by Restors (remember those guys?). His name is Gabriel, an android, and he’s played by Stargate SG-1’s Michael Shanks – his pyramid-shaped passenger ship is a deliberate reference to Stargate. Gabriel immediately bonds with fellow android Rommie, and a romance blossoms between them.

Arrival of the Mercenaries

A trio of mercenary ships shows up. They’ve found the location of the Restor flagship, an old Commonwealth vessel named the Balance of Judgment; Captain Hunt agrees to help the mercenaries in their mission to destroy it.

Hunt wants to dump Gabriel off somewhere safe before heading out to fight the Balance of Judgment, but a shifty-eyed Gabriel opts to stay. He slinks into a corner when he has a moment alone and transmits top secret Andromeda info to the Balance of Judgment.

Confrontation

Andromeda fights the Balance of Judgment, but Hunt orders a retreat when he learns Andromeda’s defenses were sabotaged. Oh, and one of the mercenaries dies, if you cared about them.

Gabriel tries to leave Andromeda in an escape pod, but gets stopped by Rommie. He confesses that he’s the android avatar of the Balance of Judgment and he was only following orders, albeit unwillingly, to sabotage Andromeda. It turns out that over the centuries since the fall of the Commonwealth, the Balance of Judgment has gone a little crazy and started the Restorian movement in the first place.

Destroying the Balance

Gabriel infects Rommie with a virus, and the entire crew (save Rev Bem, who I just now realized isn’t even in the episode) evacuates to the Eureka Maru. With The Balance focusing its attacks on Andromeda, the Eureka Maru has the opportunity to fire a bunch of missiles at The Balance, destroying it. Not bad for a clunky cargo ship.

Gabriel celebrates his newfound freedom from The Balance of Judgment by asking Rommie to elope with him. She’s tempted until she learns that before its destruction, The Balance uploaded its personality files into Gabriel. In time, he will go crazy again, so she shoots him to put him out of his misery. His newfound freedom certainly didn’t last long.

An upset Rommie shares her fear that she too might go crazy like Gabriel and the Pax Magellanic avatar, but Hunt tells her not to worry about it because he and the rest of the crew will make sure that never happens.

Thoughts

This one was too similar to The Mathematics of Tears, with the Andromeda crew befriending someone who turns out to be a former High Guard ship avatar gone crazy. However, this episode does have more of a romantic bent, with the whole Rommie and Gabriel relationship thing, which amusingly enough was repeated in real life, with both actors later marrying each other.

Was Rommie really tempted to elope with Gabriel? I really don’t see her leaving Andromeda and her captain for a guy she just met.

We see the return of the Restorians from earlier in the season. With their flagship destroyed, are the Restors gone for good? Yeah, pretty much. They were such a promising enemy, and this was only their third appearance! We are going to see them one more time, in a follow up to this episode…but that’s a couple seasons away.