This Forgotten 5-Part Sci-Fi Series From ‘Star Trek’s Creator Is the Perfect Late-Night Binge

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Andromeda (Lexa Doig) sitting in a chair in Andromeda. Image via Andromeda Productions

Published May 27, 2026, 11:09 PM EDT

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After Star Trek: The Original Series aired its last episode on June 3, 1969, with "Turnabout Intruder," creator Gene Roddenberry turned his attention to other projects like The Questor Tapes, a TV movie released 8 years later that was meant to be the pilot for a new series. Of course, he wouldn't find that level of Star Trek success again in his lifetime until Star Trek: The Next Generation. But after his lifetime? Roddenberry still wouldn't find that level of success outside the Star Trek franchise, but he did enjoy moderate success with two projects he left behind: Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda (aka Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda), and the latter, finally, is available on streaming, 20 years after it aired its final episode.

'Andromeda's Systems Commonwealth Mirrors 'Star Trek's Federation

Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett, came across the two series in Roddenberry's archives, and gave the green light for both to be developed into series. Earth: Final Conflict hit airwaves first in 1997, and its success paved the way for Andromeda's release three years later, in 2000. Kevin Sorbo, best known as the titular hero of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, was brought on as the lead character, Captain Dylan Hunt of an intergalactic government known as the Systems Commonwealth. If the idea of a collective governing body whose membership consists of representatives across the known universe sounds familiar, it should. It mirrors Star Trek's Federation, and is a concept Roddenberry would visit time and again throughout his proposed projects.

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

01

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.

AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.

  • You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
  • You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
  • You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
  • The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.

  • You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
  • You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
  • You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
  • In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Blade Runner

You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

  • You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
  • In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
  • You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
  • In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

  • Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
  • You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
  • Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
  • In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.

  • You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
  • You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
  • You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
  • In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

In Andromeda's case, the Systems Commonwealth is a constitutional monarchy established thousands of years in the future. The Commonwealth, with its capital in Tarn-Vedra, consists of representatives from three galaxies: our own Milky Way, Triangulum, and Andromeda. The backstory, as we learn in the pilot episode "Under the Night," is that the Commonwealth was at war with a parasitic species, humanoid in appearance, known as the Magog.

To prevent the Magog from spreading into the galaxy under its umbrella, the Commonwealth begrudgingly relents during peace talks, and allowed the Magog access to a key planet. That planet just so happened to belong to the Nietzscheans (and yes, that's purposeful — they religiously follow the works of one Friedrich Nietzsche), who are none too pleased and secretly attempt to sabotage the Commonwealth and seize control in retaliation.

Dylan Hunt Wakes Up in the Long Night in 'Andromeda'

With the series now in context, "Under the Night" sees Dylan in command of the starship Andromeda Ascendant, which harbors a powerful artificial intelligence he calls "Andromeda" that controls the computer systems aboard. It isn't long before the ship is left severely damaged after a surprise attack from the Nietzscheans. Dylan orders his crew to evacuate, choosing to go down with his ship as any good captain would, only he's attacked by his first officer, a Nietzschean known as Gaheris Rhade (Steve Bacic), who tries to kill him. Dylan thwarts the attempt on his life and kills Gaheris, just as the Andromeda Ascendant becomes stranded on the edge of the event horizon of a black hole.

They become frozen in time until 303 years later when the Andromeda Ascendant is pulled from the event horizon by the crew of a salvage ship, the Eureka Maru (Roddenberry isn't terribly imaginative when it comes to names, with this echoing the Kobayashi Maru, while the name "Dylan Hunt" was used not once but twice before by Roddenberry, in Genesis II and Planet Earth). The crew consists of pilot and con-artist Beka Valentine (Lisa Ryder); engineer Seamus Zelazny Harper (Gordon Michael Woolvett); Dr. Trance Gemini (Laura Bertram); and Rev Bern (Brent Stait), science officer, among others.

 The Original Series' Related

They rescue Dylan and the ship's AI android avatar Andromeda (Lexa Doig) and bring him up to speed on what's happened over the last 300+ years, primarily that the Systems Commonwealth is no more, and they now live in the era known as "The Long Night," a period marked by lawlessness, conflict, and great instability. Aghast, Dylan calls on the crew to join him and bring justice back to the galaxies, looking to "rekindle the light of civilization."

The first season garnered less-than-spectacular reviews, with a review from SciFiNow summing up the consensus as "It's a cliché but decent enough... but the problem is that Andromeda falls into Star Trek: Voyager territory by playing it safe and not doing enough to develop its characters." Andromeda would stay in production for five full seasons before airing its last episode, "The Heart of the Journey (Part Two)," on May 13, 2005, the victim of a change in viewer interest away from its syndicated kin to more serious fare (per Collider). Nevertheless, Andromeda is worth checking out, a chance to see the last of Roddenberry's original creative output at work, now made easier than ever thanks to streaming.

Andromeda is now streaming for free in the U.S. on Tubi.

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Release Date 2000 - 2005

Network Syndication, SyFy, Global TV

Directors Jorge Montesi, Richard Flower, David Winning, Peter DeLuise, Brad Turner, Allan Harmon, David Warry-Smith, Martin Wood, Mike Rohl, Michael Robison, Allan Kroeker, T.J. Scott, J. Miles Dale, Brenton Spencer, George Mendeluk, Michael Robinson

Writers Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Larry Barber, Paul Barber, Robert Engels, Ethlie Ann Vare, Naomi Janzen, Emily Skopov, Gordon Michael Woolvett, John Whelpley, Gillian Horvath, Scott Frost, Alfredo Septién, Lawrence Meyers, Steven Barnes, Turi Meyer

  • Cast Placeholder Image
  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Lisa Ryder

    Beka Valentine

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