Andromeda - Season 3 Collection 5

Rating:
Summary: Final episodes of Season Three
Review: 319 - Illusion of Majesty - Dylan and the crew take a wrong turn ending up in the Prolon System where they discover a princess who is not what she appears to be.
320 - Twilight of the Idols - Dylan and the crew set out to find a colony that disappeared. We discover the surprising story behind the Genites and their creator - an old friend of Dylan's from before the fall - a person who is still alive.
321 - Day of Judgement, Day of Wrath - Michael Shanks (Stargate SG-1's Daniel Jackson) reprises his role as the Balance of Judgement's AI. He forces Rommie to steal a new High Guard vessel and forces Harper to build a new avatar. Includes a battle between the Balance of Judgement Avatar and the Resolution of Hector's Avatar (played by Christopher Judge - SG-1's Teal'c). In another part of the story, Tyr begins his move to take unite the Prides under his banner (third SG-1 crossover, the actor who played the Tokra Martoof plays a Drago Kasov field marshall. One of my favorite episodes as I am also an SG-1 fan and the SG-1 actors play very different roles from what we are used to seeing.
322 - Shadows Cast By A Final Salute (season three finale). Tyr makes his move and forces Dylan into a confrontation which threatens to shatter the new Commonwealth fleet and the Commonwealth. A massive battle between the Commonwealth forces and a variety of enemies. Tyr leaves at the end but does he make it? Watch Season Four to find out. Excellent but dark episode.

Rating:
Summary: The last of the old Andromeda
Review: Not the end of the series but the end of the series as envisioned by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The show had great potential and was living up to it, but Tribune wanted to go in a different direction. The first two seasons showed how closely it was tied in thought to the last three seasons of ST DS9 (RHW also wrote/produced for them). Character and idea development gave way to fantasy and lowering the intellectual standard. I still enjoy the show, but clearly season 4 and the upcoming season 5 are like another show.

319 - Illusion of Majesty. In this episode, the crew ends up in a garbage dump star system and cannot get out. A woman who poses as a princess and a priestess as a scam promises to get them out. Much innuendo later, Dylan outwits everyone to get out. Not a great episode.

320 - Twilight of the Idols. Excellent episode. In this one we find Dylan's old mentor and Admiral still alive after 300 years in the form of Michael Ironside's character. Finally a person who can out maneuvre Dylan. This is like a classic Andromeda with good conflict and tension and a moral delimma that is left unresolved.

321 - Day of Judgement, Day of Wrath. Another good episode. An old adversary, the founder of the Restorians, and a former commonwealth ship AI comes back to take over another ship in the new commonwealth. But before that, he takes over Andromeda's avatar and leaves everyone questioning. This show was filled with emotional tension and was quite good. It helps that in real life Shanks and Doeg are married.

322 - Shadows Cast By A Final Salute. Bittersweet episode. Very good one but sad as it sent the show into a whole different universe from how it was created. Tyr finally makes his move and promises to deliver the Andromeda to the Drago Kazov. But, really, he has his own agenda: the annhilation of the Drago Kazov home planet. Keith Hamilton Cobb leaves the series in style and Andromeda never quite recovered.