I don't remember the original, so the plot was all new to me. It may have looked like it was derivative of other stories, but that all depends on which one came first.Unlike more modern programmes that have 2 - 3 stories running in them this one was an old fashioned Sci Fi story from the golden age of Sci Fi when the PC was nowt but Sci Fi itself, and Aliens were all bad guys, so the Beeb had to try and Jazz it up a bit with the addition of a spy sub plot, but hey it didn't really detract from the story too much.If you like your Sci Fi old school then this is for you, but if you want multi layered complex story lines move on.The truth of the matter is that the acting was brilliant, and in particular the beautiful Miss Reilly kept this old sci fi buff watching through to the end. Well worth the watch. 10 out of 10 for Miss Reilly(she is a stunner).

Despite some of the disparaging comments on here, I gave this a go and I think it was more than worth an hour and a half of my time. I enjoy Si-fi that's more based on ideas than SFX, and this was a prime (if somewhat truncated) example. I agree they could have done with more time but I didn't see anything wrong with the acting, Tom Hardy being particularly good. All in all very watchable stuff, which deals with issues from the more interesting end of science fiction..p.s, paulj-murphy, I know you probably wanted to look smart but they didn't send any messages to Andromeda, they only conversed with the computer, which wasn't millions of light-years away after all...

This is a totally pointless remake of the 40 year old TV series that launched Julie Christie. No such luck this time round. The film opens with a completely irrelevant rock-climbing scene and then deteriorates. There is just enough to hold some interest in the early scenes, set in an unrealistically empty government research laboratory, with just four scientists - evidence of BBC cost-cutting? All the cash seems to have gone on one special effect.But when the military appear, the whole storyline collapses. Even the acting is wooden, with good actors such as Jane Asher and Tom Hardy unable to rise above the poor material they have to perform with. The risible debates - good scientist against wicked soldier, human against alien, risk-taking biologist against cautious computer scientist - are couched in the crude terms of a 1950s American B-movie. Before the end - no spoilers but utterly predictable - the only question I'm left with is "why am I wasting my time watching this rubbish?"

Any schoolboy would be ashamed of the scientific mistakes in this. For example, the team send radio messages to Andromeda and get immediate replies! Andromeda is millions of light years away and so any radio signals would take millions of years to get there and back! Also, at one point in the story a technician saves a genome or record of the entire genetic code of a human being on a single floppy disk! Fred Hoyle would be rotating in his grave.The acting is equally bad. The two male leads are the "geekiest" type of anoraks one could possibly hope not to meet, and they are as wet as they come. Neither speak their lines clearly. And the Army General is about as nonmilitary as you could get...he looks like your average window cleaner.Please please please just go back to making them the way they originally did in the sixties, BBC...