footage and images accompanied by script extracts (147m 17s), along with PDFs of the scripts for the whole serial, a handy docu- mentary (“Andromeda Memories,” 34m 36s) and a commentary track on “The Face of the Tiger” shared by director Michael Hayes and star Peter Halliday. The three-disc set also includes a well-illustrated and -documented booklet by Andrew Pixley, which provides viewing notes for the serials. One scrap of A FOR ANDROMEDA survives because it was featured in the BBC’s long-running viewers’ let- ters show POINTS OF VIEW, hosted by the drolly patronizing Robert Robinson, who dismisses science fiction as the sort of nonsense he wouldn’t watch before handing over to ventriloquist’s dummy Mickey the Martian (voiced by Ray Alan) to crack jokes.
Set in Britain in a square- seeming 1971, with a Harold Macmillan-lookalike Prime Minis- ter (Maurice Hedley) in office, the serial is narrated by the Quater- mass-ish senior researcher Profes- sor Ernest Reinhart (PEEPING TOM’s Esmond Knight), though the plot is mostly carried by the younger, angrier, more unconven- tional Dr. John Fleming (Halliday). Receipt of the first coherent sig- nal from outer space (from the Andromeda galaxy) is taken sur- prisingly casually by the scientists of Bouldershaw Fell research sta- tion, with early episodes spend- ing as much time on earthbound sub-plots as the potentially awe- inspiring material. Judy Adamson (Patricia Kneale), a PR woman, is spying for Major Quadring (Jack May) of the security services. Fleming’s idealistic friend Dennis Bridger (Frank Windsor) is tapped for information by Kaufman (John Hollis), sinister representative of the Intel corporation. Like Quater- mass, Reinhart and Fleming have to cope with military and political interference, which is credibly
fussy and small-minded. General Vandenberg (Donald Stewart), a successor to Colonel Breen of QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, in- sists that Bouldershaw Fell not get sidetracked from anti-missile research, but eventually sees the military applications of An- dromedan scientific revelations. Decoding the binary signal, Reinhart and Fleming (in a devel- opment perhaps inspired by Universal’s THIS ISLAND EARTH) build a computer which gives them instructions to create life, whereupon Fleming—whose see- sawing is infuriating in all ver- sions of the story—turns against the project. Driven biochemist Madleine Dawnay (Mary Morris) takes over and develops an or- ganism in a tank. Hayes reveals that Dawnay was scripted as male, but—reasoning that in the future there would be more women in positions of authority— he cast Morris (later a memorable Number Two on THE PRISONER) in the role. Christine (Christie), a dark-haired junior programmer, is compelled to electrocute herself on exposed terminals which are a feature of the alien machine. The creature which emerges from the tank looks like Christine, though her motives are unfathomable. Named Andromeda (André, for short), she collaborates with the authorities to such an extent that Great Britain experiences an eco- nomic and technical revival. Fleming is worried about the long- term effects of relying on Androm- eda tech even as he becomes more sympathetic to the creature her- self. In a key scene, fortunately in the surviving episode, Fleming aggressively role-plays with An- dromeda, pinching or stroking her while asking “Nasty or nice?” then kisses her. Their developing rela- tionship is sexually-charged but chaste, and the serial’s climax in- volves Fleming helping the girl escape from the facility, seemingly
to drown in a cave—though the possibility of her surviving for a sequel is there. Andromeda sets a precedent for Mr. Spock and many other characters: half-hu- man, half-alien, supposedly un- emotional but nevertheless sexually intriguing. It’s a plum role, but none of Christie’s successors match her in it. Discs Two and Three of THE ANDROMEDA ANTHOLOGY con- tain all six episodes of Hoyle and Elliot’s THE ANDROMEDA BREAK- THROUGH (263m 48s), which was broadcast in 1962. Though Christie is glimpsed in some film footage, Susan Hampshire takes over here as Andromeda, rescued from drowning by Fleming (a re- turning Halliday). The action is shifted to the middle Eastern state of Azaran, a newly-independent former British colony, where Intel are influencing the struggling young government and have re- constructed the Andromeda com- puter—by using the data passed on by the murdered Bridger in the first serial. André and Dawnay are lured to Azaran to work with the computer, and Fleming—now
acting like a secret agent-cum- social conscience—follows to work against the corporation. The megalomaniac Intel employee Mademoiselle Gamboule (Claude Farell),another character unusu- ally cast as female, becomes the power behind the ruler of Azaran, triumphing in a boardroom struggle with Kaufman, who is given more depth of character here while remaining a menacing villain. Processes initiated by the Andromeda computer bring about vast climate changes that threaten all life on Earth (whether by de- sign or misapplication is much discussed but never settled) and Gamboule seeks to maintain a monopoly on a world-saving counter-process.
The serials are astute politi- cally, even if they fail to foresee
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