The cast deal with a crisis in THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN: PART ONE(2008).
© A&E

Mania Grade: C+
TV Mini-Series: The Andromeda Strain
Episode: Part One
Starring: Benjamin Bratt, Magda Apanowicz, Andre Braugher, Viola Davis, Ana Galvin, Daniel Dae Kim, Rick Schroder, Ted Atherton
Written By: Michael Crichton, Robert Schenkkan
Directed By: Mikael Salomon

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TV Review: THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN: PART 1

There are a ton of problems with this mini series which reared their ugly heads right away. The most painful and obvious of which are the flat as an IHOP pancake cast members – the worst of which is easily Rick Schroder. Every opportunity he takes to try and chew the scenery is cringe inducing. This guy wants to play these tough weathered parts and it just doesn’t work. He never successfully sells himself as being a tough military man. It’s like if Ralph Machio attempted to play the part of an aged martial arts teach training the new group of ninjas. It just doesn’t work. Part of the charisma free cast may be the fault of the writing and directing George Lucas style though. This is a possibility because Daniel Dae Kim also falls a bit flat in his role and we know he has charisma and acting ability because we see it nearly every week on Lost.

The first two hours of this mini series is executed using the Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer play books. The Andromeda Strain doesn’t have the look and frenetic feel of films like The Rock or Armageddon but it does feature similar setups and chapters throughout the first two hours. For example there’s one scene that’s been in so many of these films – you know the scene – where each of the best people in their fields of study are brought together to combat this situation and they have introduce themselves and spell out their credentials. Not only that, there has to be two of the members that have conflict due to a previous situation and two others that have the spark of a romance. Just add salt for a perfect and familiar soup!

The set up of the mini series is that a satellite crashes in a small town carrying a micro organism that kills anyone exposed to it within seconds. Quickly the entire town is decimated and military pulls together a team of experts to investigate the situations and make recommendations to the government of what actions to take. Of course, within seconds Rick Schroder’s character wants to nuke the city while the lead scientist played by Benjamin Bratt wants to further investigate the situation. There are some plot twists and lots of behind the scenes political machinations happening to attempt to deepen the story arc. The problem is each beat feels like a beat we’ve seen hit many times before in better films. Also, the film is buried in toms of medical techno babble that while explained to a simple degree just seems overwrought.

Another complaint is the use of technologies that don’t exist yet or that have just started to become a possible reality. This film appears to be set in the now but the tech is at least 10 years in the future and more for some of the things in the underground lab where these doctors are working. It was easy to believe once long ago that the government had access to all of the fantastic technologies that we wouldn’t see in the public for years but nowadays when most military tech is revealed on cable television shows it just doesn’t sell, especially tech this far in the future. It seems like nearly everybody has video chat capabilities at full 30 frames per second, the computers are all run with touch screens utilizing gestures, computers can also do just about any kind of medical work literally “asked” of them, and “e” paper is a commonality in covert operations these days. Most of this technology is in its early life now but far from as advanced as we see in this film. This may seem like a minor complaint but it’s important because the heavy handed tech goes a long way in confusing the time in which the film is supposed to be set.

Buried under all of these complaints is still a Michael Crichton story, a good one, so that’s what makes it worth stick around for. When you dig through the flashy tech and stiff dialogue, and formulaic character development there’s still an interesting science fiction story here to be told. The ideas of nanotechnology and how the government attempts to place blame on an easy to sell villain are interesting and relevant ones. The cliffhanger does set up a somewhat predictable story arc for part two but being a Crichton fan I have expectations of something interesting to come for part two.