'Andromeda' E! News Set Visit Report

As reported yesterday, this weekend's of E! News Weekend contains a segment on the new SF show 'Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda', featuring the first look at the show's sets. Thanks to Tim Hansen at Section 31, who digitised the clip, here are a full report, photos and an actual video file from the segment.

The segment started out by host Jules Asner showing a drawing of herself in a Starfleet uniform, which had been drawn by Richard Payne from California in his art class.

Jules Asner: "And speaking of Star Trek... although Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry died nearly nine years ago, his inspiration and dreams continue to expand the TV universe.

Steve Kmetko: "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda stars Kevin Sorbo, and E! News was first on the galaxy-size set of the new sci-fi series, and Greg Agnew has the intergalactic details.

Kevin Sorbo: "There is no warp speed, there are no phasers, there is no 'Beam Me Up, Scotty'. You know... all that stuff is gone."

The camera follows Kevin Sorbo walking through the large bridge set, stopping to point out the Captain's Chair. In a brief shot we then see Sorbo as Captain Dylan Hunt on the chair, flanked by his first officer Tyr Anasazi (played by Keith Hamilton Cobb) and what looks like salvage ship commander Beka Valentine (Lisa Ryder).

Greg Agnew: "Even so, the presence of Gene Roddenberry is still felt on the massive Vancouver set of the starship Andromeda Ascendant. Kevin Sorbo plays Captain Dylan Hunt, and the Captain was also a Trekkie.

Sorbo: "I said... Gene Roddenberry? Heck! I grew up a big Star Trek fan, so I was very interested to see what they had, and I fell in love with it right away."

Sorbo leads us through a small corridor set. After that, he shows the ship's medical bay, including a weird device which looks more like part of the ship's sanitary facilities than anything else.

Agnew: "The skipper welcomed E! News aboard with an exclusive tour of his starship, and we're definitely not on the U.S.S. Enterprise anymore."

Sorbo: "Once again, the reference won't be anything towards what Star Trek was. Theirs was sickbay, ours is medical bay. So there are things that are different with it. This room over, and here... I have no idea what this does. I don't know if this is a brain scan, or if this is some sort of a weird sort of spinal tap machine, I have no clue. The rest of it is pretty impressive. I would say the bridge is probably double the size of what other Star Trek shows are, because this ship is really big. It's really really big. Because space is really really big.

Agnew: "The captain packs some impressive-looking side-arms that replace the old Star Trek phasers'

Sorbo: "This is our men's... [laughs]. You see, you're making me laugh about this now, because there's been a few jokes on the set about what they actually look like. But see, I personally think that it'd be a great toy. [Laughs] So, it's just... batteries aren't included.

Agnew: "But the hardest part about commanding a starship is learning how to drive the darn thing.

Sorbo: "It's pretty much, you know, just press anything and see if the ship blows up."

Steve Kmetko: "The stardate for Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda TV debut is this fall.

Jules Asner: "Next time on E! News Daily...."

If you want to see the actual E! Segment, we have it available as a 32 MB Zip-file, containing an MPEG video clip with a length of 2 minutes and 31 seconds. Thanks go out again to Tim Hansen at Section 31 for digitising and sending in this video clip!