Are things getting better for "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda?" Ashley Edward Miller, a staff writer for the show, seems to think so, teasing some new gadgets and character arcs to expect for the second season of the syndicated series.

"We'll see a new force lance configuration in 'All Too Human' and we'll see some cool stuff from the Pyrians in 'Pitiless As the Sun,'" Miller told a recent online chat with the Australian Andromeda Alliance. "They've got a pretty unique suite of capabilities that geeks like myself should find quite entertaining. The Pyrian design is great -- all CGI."

It won't be just the effects that will be explored in more detail, but Rommie's (Lexa Doig) artificial intelligence also will be tackled more this season.

"One (artificial intelligence) will be a very dangerous adversary for Rommie, but in a strange way ... he's the hero of the story," Miller said. "That'll be in 'All Too Human,' a story that I'm particularly proud of in a lot of ways.

"The assumption of (science fiction) television has always been taht AIs should be on some quest for humanity. AIs, and Rommie in particular, should be on a quest for their own identity, a uniqueness that defines them on their own terms. As an AI, Rommie doesn't view the world the same way that we do, but she does feel. The interesting question is, what does that mean to something like her? Hopefully this season we'll start to find out in a meaninful way."

While there are no planned additions to the Andromeda Ascendant crew in the near future, Miller said that a lot of work has gone into making the series as realistic as possible.

"I strongly advocate the position that 'Andromeda' should be hard (science fiction) to the extent possible," he said. "The truth is, we try to put things as simply as we can, and when we do go into more

expository detail, it's because we're trying to get across some fairly hardcore broad strokes of some pretty cool physical phenomenon.

"I've heard a number of people refer to Harper's (Gordon Michael Woolvett) description of quantum entanglement as the best lay description they'd ever heard. I'm quite proud of it."