Andromeda
"Double Helix"

Airdate: November 5, 2000

Captain Hunt uses the might of the Andromeda to intervene in a scuffle between a band of Nietzscheans turned pirates and a group of Than. While awaiting the arrival of a large fleet of Than who want nothing more than to blow the pirates into stardust, Dylan asks Tyr to help him negotiate a peace settlement. As the Nitzscheans are affiliated Orca Pride, one of those who betrayed Tyr's own Kodiak Pride twenty years previously, crosses and double crosses abound as the lone Nietzschean must eventually decide what is in his best interests.

Do you see how they deny me Gaheris Rhade? Bastards.

While it will take a whole lot more than "Double Helix" for me to, if not like, then at least be able to stomach the character of Tyr Anasazi (Keith Hamilton Cobb), this is a damn good start thanks in large part to the return of Dylan's second in command Gaheris Rhade (Steve Bacic). Why oh why they couldn't have switched Bacic and Cobb I'll never understand, but you take what you can get I suppose. And what we get -- courtesy of some of my favorite scribes, Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer -- is a flashback to a conversation between Hunt and Rhade, back when they were still friends.

While Tyr is off doing the horizontal lambada with pirate-chick Freya (Dylan Bierk), Hunt recollects the time Rhade explained the differences between Nietzscheans and humans. While we puny, backward humans -- as typified by Dylan -- still believe in the idea of love, Nietzscheans, although most respecting of the power of physical attraction, give it no such magical properties. They have managed to scientifically categorize it and yet can still get their rocks off in what looked like fun and exciting ways. And while, on the surface, it might look the same, there are some interesting forces at work beneath the surface of the mating dance.

An interesting facet of the Nietzschean society is its balance of power. While the males do have more than one wife, and therefore an insane number of children, it is the females it seems who, by determining whom they will marry, bestow honor and power on the males. Embedded in their cultural psyche seems to be the notion that unless a man is a husband and father, he's nothing. And so he must do whatever it takes to win (i.e. lie, cheat, steal) in order for his DNA to be deemed worthy of being passed on to the next generation. It's kind of an interesting spin on the must-have-a-man-in-order-to-be-fulfilled psychosis exemplified by magazines like Cosmopolitan and shows like Ally McBeal, although one could say it was merely a step backwards in human evolution to a time where the Alpha Male got all the chicks.

"Double Helix" opens up Tyr's backstory and gives us a peek behind his tough-guy facade. Buried beneath layers of surliness -- and a ton of hair -- is wounded pride and a desperation to prove that he is worthy to live forever by means of passing on his DNA. His pride having been destroyed by treachery, he nonetheless doesn't seem to recognize the similarities between his own situation and Hunt's. Both seek to reclaim some semblance of their lives that was lost due to the betrayal of close allies.

For his part, Hunt seems to be continuing on his path of enlightenment that was begun in "D Minus Zero". Although Tyr is not Gaheris, they do share a heritage and while Dylan ignored Rhade's subtle warnings in the past, he finally seems to understand what he was being told and applying his newfound knowledge accurately predicts and squashes the pirate Nietzscheans' attempt to take over the Andromeda.

Despite the fact that Tyr vehemently denies having truly sided with the Orca Pride, it is clear that Hunt does not believe him. Neither does he hold it against the Nietzschean. Although he has learned that he cannot fully trust Tyr to do what's right, he now has a better understanding of the man and his way of thinking.

It's a twisted relationship, but one that has potential.

-- Linda M. Najera

Andromeda is syndicated. Check your local listings for show times.

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