Andromeda Episode 4: D Minus Zero

Captain Hunt learns to work with his new crew while fighting an aggressive, unidentified ship.

Episode Summary

We start our episode with Hunt teaching Tyr how to play basketball. One thing that bugs me about this show is how it’s set really far in the future, and yet they still have things we can relate to…like basketball. But I suppose it could be worse. Like that one episode of Star Trek Enterprise where they play an alien-sounding sport that was really just lacrosse.

Anyway, the story starts when Rev Bem finds debris from a High Guard ship and springs a trap – an unknown alien ship appears and starts attacking Andromeda. Hunt and the rest of the crew do their best to fight back, but things don’t go so well because the crew members aren’t working as a team and countermand his orders.

Hit-and-Run Tactics

Andromeda retreats and hides behind a gas giant. Hunt tells certain crew members off, while other crew members talk about  him and who should really be captain.

Andromeda faces off against the enemy ship again but doesn’t do too well and retreats behind a sun.

Beka takes off in the Maru and uses it as a decoy. The enemy ship bites and leaves itself exposed to Andromeda’s pummeling. Hunt tries to hail the ship, but it self destructs. The identity of Andromeda’s opponent is kept a secret. Will we ever know? Only time will tell.

Thoughts

And here we have our requisite “captain needs to get along with his crew” episode. But, that said, I actually didn’t mind it, especially when paired with a nice cat-and-mouse submarine-style battle like Star Trek’s Balance of Terror or Das Boot. The strategizing kind of bogs down the episode a bit, but there were some decent character scenes sprinkled in. This would have made a much better third episode than the one we got.