When I spotted the ads for A&E's recent miniseries, The Andromeda Strain, I have to confess I was skeptical if it would be good or not. The original film, with Arthur Hill (Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law), David Wayne (Batman fans remember him as Jervis Tetch aka The Mad Hatter) James Olson (Hawaii Five-O), and Kate Reid (Dallas), and directed by Robert Wise (Star Trek the Movie). That film captured the suspense and the stress the characters were feeling masterfully and frankly, I thought it would be an extremely tough act to follow.

The cast for the miniseries was a good one, led by Benjamin Bratt (Homicide: Life on the Streets, Law & Order), Andre Braugher (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer), Daniel Dae Kim (Crusade, Lost, 24), Rick Schroder (24), and Eric McCormick (Will & Grace), and had real promise. What puzzled me is that this film was on A&E instead of SciFi Channel which, considering the original film and this miniseries were produced by Universal Studios, who own the SciFi Channel.

One major thing became apparent right off the bat: the script had been modified in an attempt to bring it up to date. Trouble is, they made it not as believable as the original was. One major problem was Rick Schroder's character. I can't see a Major being so confrontational with a General as he was. The moment it was discovered that General Mancheck wasn't being straight with the Wildfire team, Rick was jumping on the General just as hard as Dr. Stone was. Also, the script brought up questions and never resolved them. No fault can be laid on the cast. They took what they had and did the best they could with it.

One other thing that bothered me was the entire subplot featuring Eric McCormack as reporter Jack Nash. I'm sorry, but he was simply not believable as the reporter and the way the story had him slip into the troops is totally not realistic. I'm sorry, but I don't believe he could just show up like that and the troops accept him without confirmation from higher authority.

Now, I did like the conspiracy angle of this version of the story, which was much more detailed than in the original film, mainly due to the addition of the Jack Nash storyline. That part was fairly well defined and was made somewhat believable by the scriptwriter.

Overall, it was a good show with a good cast, but there are so many holes and so many parts that made no sense that it takes what could have been a better miniseries and ruined it. Next time, I'd recommend sticking more to the original storyline and be careful with the updating to keep it more realistic as even science fiction has to have a certain believability to it for fans to accept it. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this one a 6 for a good effort, but poor results.

If you missed the A&E showing of this miniseries, it comes out on DVD this Tuesday, just a week after the final part was aired. Check it out at your local rental store before you buy it is my recommendation.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS: It is with great sadness I note the passing this week of Robert Justman. His was a career in which he was involved in dozens of shows and movies that delighted fans, ranging from the old Superman show with George Reeves to the pilot for Mission Impossible, from an episode of Disneyland (later known as Disney's Wonderful World of Color), the TV Movie, Gideon's Trumpet starring Henry Fonda, to a couple of shows some of us have heard about, Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation. Justman was saluted by Rick Berman by naming a shuttlecraft on the Enterprise-D after him. The Justman appeared in the episodes Suspicions and Gambit Part II.

We send our love, our thoughts and prayers to his family at this sad time. Thank you so much for sharing him with all of us.

AIN'T THAT WEIRD: This week, our search for the weird takes us to Tokyo, Japan where a woman was arrested for living in a man's closet for a year. It seems she sneaked into the house almost a year ago, and started living in a closet in the house. She even manage to slip an unused mattress into the closet without detection. Things went bad for her when the owner of the house discovered food going missing and caught his mysterious guest with the aid of security cameras which beamed to his cell phone. The question of how she managed to avoid being detected for a year remains unanswered.

Think about it.

Photos:  Wikipedia