he second season premiere, "The Widening Gyre", left the Andromeda's engineer, Seamus Harper (Woolvett), with Magog larvae in his stomach that would eventually hatch and eat their way out, devouring him. Medication kept the larvae dormant, but it was a temporary solution.
As "Ouroboros" opens, the crew watches as Rev Bem (Brent Stait) tells them in a hologram message why he has left the ship to ask "questions, wherever they might lead." Harper is upset. Rev, a Magog, was his best hope to find a way to get the larvae out of his stomach before they hatch. When his medicine
suddenly stops working, Harper's time begins to run out.
With only a week to figure out a solution, Harper, with the help of the Perseids, who have scientific and mathematic abilities, comes up with a plan that just might work. The Perseids are thrilled to help. Harper's plan involves an attempt to create a machine that will allow him to fold space, a process he knows he can use to rid himself of the larvae.
However, before Harper and the Perseids can finish creating the machine, strange things begin to happen. Capt. Dylan Hunt (Sorbo) finds himself 300 years in the past in the middle of the last battle the Andromeda fought before it got caught on the edge of a black hole. But as he steps through a door, he's suddenly back in the present with a confused Romie (Lexa Doig) trying to figure out how he vanished from one spot to end up in another.
Things get even stranger as Tyr (Keith Hamilton Cobb), Harper and the Perseids must contend with a hall breach in the machine shop, even though they are 50 meters from an outside bulkhead; Beka (Ryder) and Trance (Bertram) find themselves facing a killer android from the past and attacking aliens from the future, not to mention running into the last people they expected to see; and Dylan and Romie try to get to the bridge to move the ship away from the Perseids' planet, which is suffering the same fate as the Andromeda.
As the past, present and future collide, the crew of the Andromeda find themselves in a fight for their lives that will leave one of them changed forever.
Interesting, intriguing and in flux
After a tremendously successful first season, Andromeda has been struggling a bit this year to find its rhythm. With the loss of actor Stait (Rev Bem) due to an allergic reaction he had to his makeup, Andromeda could have pulled back and gotten more conservative or tried to replace Bem
with another actor. Instead, they set about reinventing one of the other characters, which will undoubtedly cause a new dynamic to emerge on the series.
"Ouroboros" was written by the series' former co-executive producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and a sterling episode it is. Wolfe has combined the elements of the first part of the second season and tied them together in an exciting and confidently told story which will spin the show around, opening the door for the uncharted territory to come as the season continues.
The big irony is that Wolfe, who co-developed Andromeda based on notes written by Roddenberry, left the series early this season due to creative differences. His voice drove the series during the first season, so it's difficult to know what the future holds as Andromeda continues.
The most notable change is that one of the characters' personality and appearance are altered forever based on the events in "Ouroboros." It wouldn't be fair to go into who or what kind of changes are involved, but they are significant and the actor appears up to the challenge.
While "Ouroboros" ties up some loose ends and gives the fans an acceptable exit for Rev, it will be interesting to see how the series fares without Wolfe's steady hand. While the storytelling may have been a bit uneven this season, Andromeda has an appealing cast, excellent production values
and plenty of grand moments.
