This miniseries was mostly a 7.5 or so for me, until the last half of the final part where they proceeded to:<br /><br />- Basically ignore (they threw in a casual explanation) the two survivors of Piedmont sub-plot <br /><br />- Ignore the sub-plot (even if it was a horribly clichéd one) of the estranged wife of Dr Stone, and rebellious son <br /><br />- Ignore the fact that there were airborne rubber eating Andromedas above Piedmont when the helicopters flew over <br /><br />- Turn the Andromeda strain into a visible on-screen entity <br /><br />- Provide no clear reason for why Dae Kims character died upon throwing a thumb <br /><br />- Flub the ending of the reporter sub-plot, so it became a total "Who Cares?" <br /><br />- Give Andromeda an actual (and completely dumb) origin, rather than leave it mysterious like the novel <br /><br />- Bore us all to death with environmentalist clichéd 1960s Star Trek-esquire moralising <br /><br />- Bore us past death to "government conspiracy" plot line that's so horribly overdone <br /><br />- Provide no reason as to why there was lots of rubble falling down the central shaft<br /><br />But perhaps the most burning of the flaws with this miniseries was the action that occurred when the nuclear fail-safe was activated. Besides being motivated by a plot contrivance rather than logically occurring as it did in the novel, it was also horribly dragged out.<br /><br />I recorded this and watched it back via Sky+ (Tivo-esque machine for those of you not in the UK) and I must have fast forwarded through most of that climbing and crawling sequence. It actually seemed to me like because they had a few ex-24 stars, they felt like the thing needed to happen in real time. <br /><br />Do film-makers really think we need to see every excruciating detail of climbing up ladders, climbing down ladders, throwing thumbs, climbing into vents, climbing out of vents, crawling across a floor, crawling up a wall, struggling to remove a key-card, struggling to remove a thumb.<br /><br />Just get to the point, we don't want to see 10 minutes of padding in a 15 minute "action" sequence!