"Star-Crossed" - Episode #120 (slight spoilers below) (Click here for synopsis)

This week's show had Rommie falling in love with an android, interleaved with the Andromeda hunting another High Guard ship, apparently used as a terrorist center. The Restorian thread, started in "Ties that Blind" is apparently resolved and there is good continuity with the FTA ships and the mention of Beka's brother.

As far as characterization, both the regular and guest cast did a good job, with Kevin Sorbo and Lexa Doig being particularly good in the poignant final scene. On the other hand, a scene where Dylan reacts little to the death of hundreds did not seem consistent with some previous episodes. Also, Rommie seemed to fall for Gabriel unbelievably hard and fast, showing uncharacteristically little intelligence in how she handled herself.

Speaking of Rommie, we were again treated with a scene of her arguing with other "selves". While this is a fun idea, it is hard to swallow given her character's portrayal as a single AI network that inhabits or manifests itself in various images, robots or androids. Similar comments could be made about Gabriel, though in his case the strangest thing is his free communications with his ship, even after Harper apparently severed this link.

Other inconsistencies I noted included continued unexplained absences (Rev this time), hard to believe with a small crew. For that matter, it is not clear how much High Guard ships need any crew, since while the Andromeda had and appeared to need many crew at various stations (as in the pilot), she functions well with few and The Balance of Judgement (TBoJ) apparently did fine with none!

The love affair was interesting as was the information on how "synthetics" are "now" viewed. As previously noted, Rommie did seem to "fall" awfully hard and fast for Gabriel, but their romance still made for some touching and ultimately tragic scenes. I would have preferred if they left out the AI "sex" scene, though it throws interesting light on the idea of STD's since Rommie was possibly "infected" by Gabriel at this time.

The story line involving TBoJ and the Restorians had good action and showed Dylan as a man not afraid to make very hard decisions. It was hard to believe he immediately knew Rommie was "infected" (Gabriel could have still been sending intel to TBoJ), but his prompt action to save his ship made sense if he did know this.

The way Dylan finally dealt with TBoJ, "seemed" impossible since I would expect it would have been detected and easily avoided. The possible explanation might be that TBoJ/Gabriel combination somehow wanted the missiles to succeed (as with the Pax in "The Mathematics of Tears" ). If this was the case and was brought out it would have heightened the impact of the final fates of TBoJ and Gabriel.

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

Review 05/09/01 by Larry Kramer

(c) 2001 Larry Kramer (See Copyright Disclaimer)