A for Andromeda

Well, part of it is. The good news is that there is now a BBC DVD set containing what remains of "A for Andromeda" (the whole of the last episode, and stills from the others linked with text commentary plus a few scenes which were probably taken by people filming their TV sets, or possibly from copies of copies sent to TV companies abroad) and the whole of the sequel "The Andromeda Breakthrough". The bad news is that it is now extremely unlikely that we will ever see the 'lost' episodes, unless some alien race intercepted the TV transmissions from 1962...

Having been a bit too young to watch them when they were originally televised (I was only 6 at the time, and only just remembered that they existed when I found the novelisations as a teenager) but having read and reread the books many times, I was thrilled to find the DVD set. I just wish that more of the first series had survived with Julie Christie (don't get me wrong, I've completely fallen in love with Susan Hampshire's Andromeda, but I wish I had more of Julie Christie's for comparison as well).

Dr. Fred Hoyle has a special place for me, he was the author who first got me interested in computers (through his book "The Black Cloud" which contains a description of programming in those days, as well as AforA). Many of his themes were very advanced for the time and still relevant. Some of his scientific ideas are currently discredited (for instance he supported the "steady state" hypothesis, that the universe has always existed, instead of the "Big Bang") but both his fiction and nonfiction was among the best at the time. Unlike many modern SF authors his romance was low-key and suggested rather than explicit, and his plots are thoughtful rather than full of action, but I find that a nice change from modern Hollywood and TV productions, and many modern SF writers.

I first watched this TV series when I was nine years old, it terrified me, especially the scenes when "andromeda" gripped the bars and seemingly was electrocuted. I carried the images with me to school the next day and tried to engage anybody who had seen it to see if they felt as scared as me. Through IMDb I have been able to revisit the essence of the production (actors, director) A stunningly "realistic" production for it's time. I have rarely been genuinely affected by small or silver screen but " A for Andromeda" remains in my memory 45 years later, and I had no idea that the yet to be great Julie Christie was Andromeda. Does anybody have remotely the same memories as me?

John Carr

Following instructions transmitted from the Andromeda Galaxy, John Fleming (Peter Halliday) builds a highly advanced computer that in turn creates synthetic lifeforms, including Andromeda (Julie Christie) a beautiful clone of Christine, a recently deceased scientist (also played by Christie). The computer and the clone are embraced by the government when they prove themselves capable of advancing Britain's military capabilities to the global forefront while Fleming begins to fear that the alien machine and its gynoid have ulterior motives. Sadly, most of this early BBC science fiction teleplay has been lost, leaving only stills (which encompass much of the series) and episode six of the original seven. The story, written in part by astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, is intriguing, especially considering that radioed instructions from Andromeda would take a minimum of 2.5 million years to get here, suggesting that if aliens are planning on colonising Earth, they are playing a very, very long game. Julie Christie is quite good in the titular role, but Halliday is less impressive and the scenes where he is trying to 'awaken the woman' in the passionless blonde simulacrum are weak (but foreshadow Captain Kirk's numerous attempts to elicit similar emotional epiphanies in Star Trek (1966)). The initial premise and first episodes are great, but the story drifts into a routine industrial espionage yarn and the final act is a bit predictable (although perhaps less so back in 1961). Although not as good (IMO) as the BBC's previous sci-fi teleplays (the three excellent Quatermass series), 'A for Andromeda' was sufficiently popular to warrant a sequel ('The Andromeda Breakthrough' (1962)). Unfortunately the BBC had neglected to put Christie under contract and, as the star was filming her breakthrough role on 'Billy Liar' (1963), she was no longer available for low-budget sci-fi shows to be shown on the telly. The version I recently watched on-line was a well-done ~150 minute annotated compilation of producer Michael Haye's 'telesnaps', some video fragments, and the intact sixth chapter. Worth watching for genre aficionados as well as anyone interested in the history of the BBC or British sci-fi in general.

I concur with author Martin Dench. I was only ten years old when A For Andromeda was screened but I remember vividly being riveted to the TV screen. A For Andromeda dealt intelligently with the discovery of extra terrestrial intelligence and its social and political consequences. The serial was totally believable and way ahead of its time. It is one of the great tragedies of television history that the BBC wiped this series. If this had not happened it is likely that A For Andromeda, and its sequel serial, The Andromeda Breakthrough, would have become world wide cult series like The Prisoner.

There are informative articles with episode synopses in the British TV fantasy magazine Timescreen of March 1987, and the American TV science fiction magazine Epi-log of March 1992.

I had thought that the BBC had wiped all of A For Andromeda, but a whole episode, The Eye of the Tiger' is now on Youtube.

Another beloved time-capsule for "fossils" such as myself who walked the earth in what must seem quasi-Jurassic times now - the early sixties. The Beatles with Stu Sutcliffe were still in Hamburg, Arnold Schwarzenegger was 12, Steven Bradley had just been convicted in Australia of the murder of 8 year-old Graeme Thorne and I was about to sit for my final school exams.

Like half of Britain I watched the opening episode of this eagerly awaited and promoted sci-fi series which promised everything and delivered perhaps 50%. Problem was, it screened not long after QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, a totally impossible act to follow!

Long before the inauguration of S.E.T.I. (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) A FOR ANDROMEDA concerned itself with the discovery of a radio emission from the Andromeda galaxy that appeared to be a blue-print for creating life itself. (Not too much was made of DNA double-helixes and the like in 1961). This pitted scientists Dr John Fleming (Halliday) and Professor Madeleine Dawnay Morris) against one another, since neither were sure of the moral, social or scientific implications of pursuing the seeming opportunity. Naturally, stupidity won out and a being was created. Does this all sound rather familiar? Yes folks, SPECIES was a total conceptual rip-off....and no-one ever noticed!

The 'being' however (Andromeda, as she was named) was one awesomely pretty and excessively young Julie Christie, in her first screen role (It catapulted her to international success in just a few years). As always happens. the authorities fear what they don't know and Miss Christie was soon very much in harms way, much like Natasha Henstridge in SPECIES thirty five years later.

This was never GREAT sci-fi as it was way too talky and a tad low on action. However, the concluding episodes WERE good and if this exists anywhere on video in an abridged form even, it would be well worth a look, if only to see why Julie Christie broke so many hearts, one of which was Stanley Kubrick's....but that is another story!