Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda

“The Mathematics of Tears”

3 stars.

Air date: 1/29/2001
Teleplay by Matt Kiene & Joe Reinkemeyer
Story by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz
Directed by T.J. Scott

"They were playing Wagner. It's the most fun I've had in about six months." — Tyr

Review Text

In brief: Different-feeling and intriguing, although sometimes a bit rough and cartoonish. An acceptable balance of several strange parts.

The hilarious above-mentioned deadpanned line of dialog comes at the end of an extended fight scene in "The Mathematics of Tears" — a scene that transcends the ordinary by being a weird sequence of choreographed action/chaos which is, yes, underscored by Wagner and takes on a life of its own.

After the string of mediocrity that preceded it, "Mathematics" is an acceptably entertaining episode that gets an A for effort and high marks for being bizarre. It's not the tidiest package ever conceived (indeed, there are parts of it that are just plain messy), but it somehow comes together and works on its bottom line. Director T.J. Scott and the post-production people bring order to what initially looks like madness, and they have a reasonably good sci-fi premise to work with. It all ends with that big fight sequence, which manages to be chaotic, elaborate, pleasing, funny, and ludicrous all at once, in an entertaining way.

The story is one of those mysteries where the solution comes in the form of a sci-fi twist, but even then "Mathematics" still has two entire acts to go, with still more mysteries to solve and fights to be fought. It begins with the crew discovering another High Guard starship, the Pax Magellanic, which is in fact a sister ship of the Andromeda. Amazingly, several members of its crew are still alive, having mysteriously not aged in 300 years ... for reasons that are at first uncertain and then later made clear. The senior officer is Lt. Jill Pearce (Monika Schnarre) and the ship and its survivors have been stranded all this time without the use of their slipstream drive. Apparently, their chief engineer, Dutch (Nathaniel Deveaux), spent a century working to fix it before giving up. Now that's patience.

Rommie attempts to interface with the Pax's AI system to find answers, but discovers only memory gaps and scrambled computer confusion; the Pax AI apparently suffered extreme damage. One interesting aspect here is the way Rommie sees her sister ship as a literal sister; they'd known each other back in the Commonwealth days, and Rommie hopes to restore the ship's AI to its previous state of awareness. Beka calls it a family affair.

The story's primary twist is that Lt. Pearce is actually a walking, talking, lying version of the Pax's AI in android avatar form. She's hiding something important about the fate of most of the ship's crew, which she claims had died while on the surface of a nearby planet destroyed by a Nietzschean attack. Tyr doesn't buy it; the Nietzscheans don't destroy hospitable planets even to eradicate their enemies. He tells Dylan to draw his own conclusions rather than take Pearce's word at face value. This advice seems particularly prudent once Pearce has been revealed as the Pax's AI. The ship's crew are all androids she created to ease the pain of loneliness.

The main plot flow of "Mathematics" is actually fairly light. It exists as a key into the flashback narrative and later the climactic showdown between Our Heroes and the Pax's androids. The truth lies in Pax's traumatic, deeply buried secret, which Rommie finds only after extensively digging through memory files: The Pax was programmed to love, and she loved her captain. When the captain ordered her to self-destruct during a crisis, the Pax refused and instead used her confused love as a tragic logical instrument to destroy her captain and crew rather than herself. Hell hath no fury like a starship scorned.

This idea brings up a few interesting questions about the nature and dangers of AI emotionalism: The Pax's captain essentially had an affair with his starship, something not permitted by the rules of the High Guard (but don't despair, Dylan/Rommie fanfic writers!), and for good reason — the cataclysmic events of the Pax's past provide a good demonstration. Certainly the captain must shoulder some of the blame for the confused actions of an AI with which he should not have become intimate (the sci-fi ideas here fall somewhere in between the intriguing and the absurd).

As the story's secrets are uncovered, the Pax sends its androids to attack Dylan and his crew on the docked Maru — which brings us to that big fight scene. It's intercut with cyberspace flashback images that resolve the secrets of the plot. Meanwhile we have chaotic scenes where Harper, Beka, and Tyr fight off an attack of androids. This attack involves a lot of shooting and stunt coordination that has the ebb and flow of a choreographed number. The whole thing is underscored by classical Wagner, a choice that seems so unexpected and droll (and yet is justified by the plot) that it elevates the sequence to some sort of madcap brilliance. And Tyr's line about the fun inherent in fighting to the tune of Wagner is an instant classic in my book.

What doesn't work in "Mathematics" is the way plot developments are sometimes conveyed with choppy, whiplash execution. There is, for example the matter of Harper deactivating all the androids with a single line of exposition that simultaneously drops the bombshell that they are in fact androids. It's a questionably executed moment that feels more like the script grinding away than events actually unfolding.

There's also the way Dylan offers reinforcement for having figured out the nature of Pax's android avatar by explaining that Jill Pearce is derived from translating and mutating Pax Magellanic from Latin — which is an entirely rushed, implausible, and unnecessary bit of exposition.

I also found it strange and unintentionally amusing the way the androids — initially so perfectly lifelike and human — move like jerky robots and make whirring noises after the plot reveals that they're androids. Pretty hokey, if you ask me.

And lastly, there's the deus ex Tyr that never accounts for how Tyr got from the Andromeda to the Maru to help save the day. (Useful reminder: There are no transporters on this series.)

On the other hand, I don't care too much about these flaws. I liked many of the stylistic choices, like the use of gold for the Pax, the oddly disconnected look and feel of the flashback sequences, the strange AI figure that greets Rommie in Pax cyberspace, the sheer artistry of some of the photography in the final fight, and the framing of the shot where Rommie and Rev talk about the mathematics of tears.

"Mathematics" is far from great sci-fi or great television and is sometimes, well, silly. But it manages to elevate silliness to an art form that ends up looking pretty creative.

Next week: Tyr goes bananas.

Previous episode: The Pearls That Were His Eyes
Next episode: Music of a Distant Drum

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Comment Section

17 comments on this post

    I just knew this episode(and, consequently, this series) was headed nowhere good when they have Dylan arbitrarily kiss Jill.

    But Capt. Kirk is a far more interesting character than Capt. Dylan Hunt

    Let's face it, Wilson (the softball from Cast Away) was more interesting than Dylan.

    That's right, Wilson was a volleyball. Thanks Jammer. In any case, a volleyball, a softball, & a soccer ball are each more interesting than Dylan.

    this was the second really good episode in the whole andromeda series (after "angel dark...")
    and one of the very few episode in the series which had smething serious and interesting to say

    Just watched this for the second time.

    I enjoyed the first viewing, but this time left a bad taste in my mouth. Apart from anything else, this episode really left me nostalgic for the much more multi-ethnic crews of the Trek series. Between Dylan, Wagner and the stereotypical (and very German, facially) evil blonde Pax, this episode had a much heavier Aryan vibe than my level of politically correct white guilt is able to handle.

    Speaking of which, that final fight scene...Ugh. In terms of the plot, there was absolutely no reason for it. Dylan asked Pax point blank to call off the androids, and she just wordlessly stared at him in return, before the question was forgotten. Given the musical accompaniment and the way Tyr enters in slow motion, there was a very strong sense that the only reason why said sequence was there at all, was purely because Tribune was expecting it to appeal to their brainless white male meathead target demographic.

    2 stars from me. There are some redeeming moments, particularly in terms of the initial mystery, and Harper's usual comic relief. It's not painful, in other words; but there are several plotholes. One half star off for the final action sequence, and another for the Master Race. ;)

    As Jammer says - a madcap and totally unhinged episode that actually had some interesting things to say and some moments of execution that worked really well.

    There should be a sci-fi space program that plays opera music in the background all the time.

    Love this episode, easily 4 stars. It’s a grand space opera — even using Wagner — the delves deeper into this show’s unique concept of AI controlled ships that have female avatars with intimate relationships to their captains. Considering how the Andromeda holograph was dressed in episode 1, I hadn’t expected this show to be self-aware on this point, so the risky introspection of Mathematics is delightful.

    I agree with Jammer that the action and AI real special effects are really well done here. And the episode’s oddness makes it a genuinely creepy mystery. Well done.

    JAMMER How can you say that something youbhave THREE STARA too is NOT GREAT OR EVEN GOOD SCI FI OR GOOD TV?? Isn't that a contradiction?? Hope you can PLEASE respond when you can. Thanks for your reviews.

    So the High Guard bans fraternization between captains and ship AIs, but makes the ship AIs look like *that*?

    Um… ok.

    This really was a phenomenal episode. I still have seen only a tiny fraction of ANDROMEDA episodes, but I really appreciate the ones which focus on the series' unique qualities.

    The overall concept of High Guard vessels having AI avatars is very creative. I think Rommie is a great character although I haven't yet seen any episodes which focus on her too much. Certainly this one featured her, but this didn't feel like a Rommie centric episode, as opposed to a Dylan episode. The exploration of sister ships as actual sisters is a great idea, but sadly there wasn't enough time between Rommie and Pearce proper.

    I also have to say that I found the digitized unclear version of Pearce laughable. They had her moving like she was in a dance club and it just seemed silly and didn't fit.

    Dylan's action puzzled me a bit. I found it hard to believe that he would buy Pearce's story outright. And then when she amended her story to explain why she killed the rest of the crew...again, he seemed way too accepting and forgiving of her actions and story. You would think he'd be a little more guarded. But based on the opening scene between him and Beka, with Dylan clearly missing a standard High Guard crew I can see, to a degree, why he would initially take things at face value. At that point in the story, Dylan believes he's speaking with a fellow High Guard officer who has gone through a similar experience of being stuck in time for 3 centuries.

    The main thing I enjoyed about the opening Beka/Dylan scene is how well it illustrates the fact that everyone on board (save Dylan and Rommie) have their own personal agendas. It reminds me of DS9 and how dramatically interesting it made that series to see so many characters having their own worldviews. And ANDROMEDA features this as well, but not quite as much.
    Speaking of which I will definitely need to review the earliest episodes, because I can't for the life of me remember or figure out why Tyr stays on board the ship. He clearly doesn't like Dylan and could care less about the restoration of the Commonwealth.

    The episode also made me wonder just how the Andromeda is operating with such a skeleton crew. It was one thing to see in STAR TREK III, but that was for a particular short mission. The Andromeda, however, is constantly flying through space. I know it's a show and we just go along with it for the sake of the overall story, but I can't help be curious.

    I wish more time had been spent developing exactly what happened between Pearce and her captain. What we see is intriguing, but I wanted a lot more details. Why and how did it come to be that the captain fell in love with Pearce? How long had this relationship been going on? Was it a secret from the rest of the crew? They easily could've done away with the android crew attacking the Andromeda crew and focused more on these details, in my opinion. But "Action Hour" will out.

    I know this may seem like I didn't enjoy the episode, but I really did. I, like you, just wish more time was spent on story rather than the repetitive and monotonous laser battles.

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