"The Sum Of Its Parts" - Episode #116 (slight spoilers below) (Click here for synopsis)

This episode featured Rommie a bit more than most, and I think Lexa Doig continues to do a great job here. The opening scene with her modeling clothes was short but hilarious. It was especially fun to see Rommie justify her appearance and clothes as necessary for the "good of the crew"! Incidentally, it does help us understand what a ship's AI ideally should do (as opposed to "Jill" in "The Mathematics of Tears").

Tyr and Beka were predictably suspicious of HG's offer, and as is often the case they turned out to have good reason to be. Dylan was consistent and handled well, but still seems far too much the idealist. If not for the providential intervention of HG, things would not have turned out well. I wonder if his need to come to terms with the fact that they do not have "backup" (as they did allude to) will be dealt with in the future.

I thought Trance was again handled well and am glad to see her not always having the answer (in a "Deus Ex Machina" role). In terms of guest stars, Matt Smith as "HG" was entertaining without getting too 'cutesy'.

As far as the regular characters, the only (small) concern was, where was Rev? It seems common for one or more of the crew to be absent, at times with no explanation. While in the real world this is likely due to the needs of the story or other acting commitments, it does seem strange in this show given the rather small crew.

The plot line involving the Consensus is a bit reminiscent of the "Borg", but different enough to be interesting and worth repeating here (as long as they are not overused). On the other hand, HG's speech to debris field was very hard to swallow, as was the overly quick defeat of "VX", which made for a rushed ending. However, other than the ending, the plot was exciting to follow, not overly predictable and generally believable.

One small thing beginning to concern me the occurrences of Andromeda's defenses not working. The ship supposedly has a sophisticated defense system including missiles, attack drones, robots and nanobots, with all systems under the control of the AI. Yet whenever convenient to the story line, the defenses do not function at all, as here with the debris field entering the cargo bay hatch unopposed. I do not want to nit-pick, but I find that lack of consistency can disturb the flow of following a story and make it less enjoyable.

Harper's creation of the immune bots, while untested were an interesting idea. If Andromeda's "immune system" is indeed not fully functional for some reason, this could make for some interesting stories in the future.

Overall, I would say while not perfect (what is after all!), this was very good episode that I enjoyed a lot.

The ratings for the episode are given below. For information on how my rating system works, click on this link.

Review 03/07/01 by Larry Kramer

© 2001 Larry Kramer (See Copyright Disclaimer)