Rescued before Andromeda.tv, the official site of the Andromeda tv show closed, this interview was a site exclusive, reproduced here for archive interest!

This week's episode of Andromeda was written by Gordon Michael Woolvett, who plays wisecracking engineer Seamus Harper. Gordon was nice enough to take some time out and talk with us about his episode. Beware that there are some vague spoilers below.

I had always wanted to write something as a nod to The Bridge On The River Kwai, one of my favorite movies of all time. So I thought, what if you take Bridge On The River Kwai but make it a bridge across time, instead of a bridge across a physical space. When you're dealing with time travel in TV or movies, people always start at one point in time and go to another point in time. But what if you could actually build a physical bridge that they could go through between the two points in time? Each end of the bridge would exist in a different time period, with a physical structure that connects the two times. I couldn't think of any instances in all the stuff that I have read where time travel was dealt with that way. So that was sort of what got me excited and what got me going on it.

Was there an overall message that you want to get across in this episode?
Oh, absolutely. It's to beware the lust of power. In Andromeda's day and age, it is obvious, but even today, with all the branches of science and all our technology, and all the buzzwords that we come up with, all the labels that we put on things to water down what they really are, it's really very easy to intellectually argue your way into doing something that's wrong. And it's also very easy to totally justify your actions with an intellectual argument about how it can be right for society, how it can be good. At the base of the episode's message is that many things -- the search for fame, the need for being the one to make a breakthrough, or even just the drive to succeed - can cloud your judgement.

Episode 417, "Abridging The Devil's Divide," was written by Gordon Michael Woolvett, who plays wisecracking engineer Seamus Harper. Gordon was nice enough to take some time out and talk with us about his episode. Beware that there are some major spoilers below, so if you have not yet seen the episode, reading this part of the interview may tell you things you don't want to know.

Did you have any say in casting your episode? Also, what it was like to work with Michael Ironside?
That was awesome. Working with Michael Ironside and writing for Michael Ironside was such a joy. From the beginning, when we tossed aside the other idea that wasn't working, and I brought this idea fresh to the table and everybody loved it, they had said "it's gonna go in this slot, which means it's gonna star Michael Ironside, which means you have to have a part for him." There was a part that I already had, (which Michael Ironside plays) that he was perfect for. I didn't have to add anything, it just was "oh great, I can cast him in this." So he brought his character that he already plays on the show.

Initially it was going to be the Magog building a bridge. And the Magog would kidnap Harper to help them build this bridge across time. However, we wanted to have the Patriarch in it. And the Patriarch is, as you know, genetically pure and he hates the Magog. So there was no way I could have him in league with the Magog building this bridge. And I really wanted the Magog because they had kidnapped Harper before. I wanted it because the Magog are Harper's greatest fear. I wanted him to have to spend a whole episode working side by side with them. So we found a way to have it be the Patriarch and yet still incorporate the Magog. It was one of those ideas where because you can't do one thing, you come up with something else, and the something else is so much better. It's like "Whoa!"

So, the writers knew that the Patriarch was going to be in this episode, and you just had to find a way to write around it?
Yes, so I made it the Patriarch, and I made it that his people that were building this bridge, with a genetically pure motivation. I wrote it so the Patriarch and his forces were having this bridge built to import armies and forces from all over, because they don't have the time to do it now, to do it the way they would usually do it, which is to build an army the genetically pure way. So they decide to compress time, bring them all to the one point because you know the World Ship is coming, and then spend eight to ten years amassing an army and organizing, so that you're ready for the big fight. The Magog World Ship is already on its way, so the Patriarch's people are going to wait for the big war to come and then come out of hiding and surprise everyone with this huge army that nobody even knew existed.

Toward the end of the episode, Trance says that those Magog were destined to come. Destiny is a big theme in this episode. Do you personally believe, that destiny plays a big part in life and that all events are foreordained one way or another?
I don't necessarily believe that myself. However, it is a theme that Robert Wolfe set up in Andromeda from the very beginning. In "Angel Dark, Demon Bright," which is one of our best episodes from the early seasons, probably the best episode, and even in "Ourobouros," Robert Wolfe kept a major throughline showing that when you look at a situation one way, it could only turn out the way that it happened. But you look at a situation another way, the characters did act willfully, and they made it happen, so there's always a question of other outcomes. A teacher I know gives her definition of fantasy as something that is in between the explainable and the unexplainable. So you could explain it as science, or it could be unexplainable. And that's how I look at destiny. I like keeping a gray area there, so that you could interpret it either way. One of your more ardent fans on our website said that she sees not just one aspect of Harper, but "the whole man, brilliance, humor, vulnerability, and good looks." [Woolvett laughs]

Are there other dimensions of Harper that you'd like to see come out on the show?
[laughs again] I think Harper needs more scenes so he gets more money. No...[laughs] No, not at all.
My only impetus for Harper has always been to make sure there's enough of the kind of self-serving comedy where he tells the kind of jokes that are going to make him laugh, he doesn't really care if he makes anyone else laugh. He's there for himself. But to always temper that with enough seriousness so that when you're expecting the character to crack a line, he comes up with something genuine, and you're surprised. And then the next time you expect him to come up with something genuine, because it's a heartfelt moment, he says some totally asinine thing, like making a joke at a funeral, that sort of thing. And if you're always playing around with that, it's hard to do. The easiest thing for writers to do -- and I don't mean just our writers, but anyone, myself too -- when you're writing, and you come up with these zippy lines and things that you would like to say if you were in that scene, it's always the line you give to Harper. [laughs] You know, the smart-ass sarcastic remark. And so I end up doing a lot of that. And I don't get to do enough of the serious side to temper it. I wouldn't want to lose the comedy and the offensive, brash nature of the character. But I would like to see more of the serious side to balance it.

What was your favorite part of Season Four?
My episode. [laughs] No, my favorite part was seeing "Abridging the Devil's Divide" come together. The writing staff was really happy with that script, and they were really supportive of it, and I got to be involved right to the very end with rewrites and things, and Bob [Engels, head writer] was really supportive of it. Everybody just really liked it; it was really nice. I feel good about it, because I think that my episode from the prior season was a little weak. That was sort of more of my own childhood fantasy than an actual Andromeda episode.

Thanks for taking the time to talk about your episode, Gordon!