New "Andromeda Strain" Beefed Up!

Andre Braugher, who plays the nefarious Gen. George Mancheck in A&E's upcoming SF miniseries The Andromeda Strain, told SCI FI Wire that the show goes well beyond the original Michael Crichton book and 1971 movie version. "It's very anticlimactic, the book and the film," Braugher (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) said in an interview at the miniseries' Hollywood premiere on May 7. He added: "You've got the Andromeda; it's suddenly somehow benign, but then you've got a reactor thing, you know? ... But that movie wouldn't have held up today, you know what I mean? So it had to be re-imagined.

" The premise remains the same: A satellite falls from the sky, and most of the townspeople of a small Utah hamlet die suddenly. A group of top scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Benjamin Bratt), race time in the top-secret underground lab called Wildfire to uncover the mystery of the deaths before the cause--a contagious agent called Andromeda--can spread. Writer Robert Shenkkan has updated and expanded the story well beyond the parameters of the original 1969 book and Robert Wise's movie, taking a lot of the story outside Wildfire and boosting the action elements. "I think our screenwriter and [director] Mikael [Salomon] together have done a really wonderful job bringing that together," Braugher said. The movie also adds environmental, political and military storylines.

"Some of the themes that were added today just were not there," Braugher said. "I mean, the whole idea about the vent mining and the use of resources today in a cavalier manner that will become useful to us, you know, sometime in the future? That cautionary tale is entirely inserted. ... It's quite timely for now. We happen to be in the middle of using up and exploiting all of our resources, you know?" The four-hour miniseries also brings the investigation of an infectious disease into the 21st century, though it was a novelty in storytelling in the '60s. "[Audiences have] become very used to the idea of infectious and biological weapons and stuff," Braugher said. "And things traveling around the globe. I mean, the world just happens to be a little bit smaller today than it was in 1968, when Crichton wrote the book.

" The Andromeda Strain, which also stars Eric McCormack, Ricky Schroder, Daniel Dae Kim, Christa Miller and Viola Davis, premieres May 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT and continues May 27 at the same time.