Reviews online this month (ratings given are out of 10):
• One Doctor Who goes out in style in The Caves of Androzani
• Praise for Andromeda's sisterly meeting of ships
• Star Trek's Deep Space Nine survivors return in print
• and The X-Files becomes more laboured in Empodocles

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Andromeda’s sister ship, the Pax Magellanic is discovered adrift amidst the remains of a shattered planet. Her crew has not aged a day in the 300 years since the battle which bereft them of their Captain and Slipstream drive. It soon becomes apparent that all is not well with Rommie’s erratic and confused ‘big sister’ or her seemingly perfect crew…

From the truly creepy pre-title sequence right through to the Wagnerian shootout finale, The Mathematics of Tears is perhaps Andromeda’s most complete episode to date, combining action set-pieces and stunning visuals with thought-provoking musings on the nature of Being and the Soul, love and the family, and also giving Tyr his first chance to shoot something in ages.

The almost throwaway ending, which sees Rommie in a roundabout way asking Rev if he thinks she has a soul, is beautifully played by Lexa Doig and Brent Stait, and is a fitting coda to a story that leaves you wondering how a series that began in such a cardboard cut-out fashion could produce an episode of this quality only mid-way into its first season.

Let’s take a trip down to New Orleans, where Annabeth Gish’s Agent Monica Rayes, last seen in This is Not Happening, is investigating a case in which a sacked office worker has shot his two ex-bosses. Nothing especially remarkable, you’d think, but Rayes, with her undefined powers of intuition, has a vision that connects the case to the unsolved murder of Doggett’s son some years earlier.

With Scully in hospital with pregnancy complications – a nurse asks both male FBI agents whether they’re ‘the husband’ – Rayes turns to Mulder rather than going straight to Doggett. And from there the fun continues. As well as a few great lines from Mulder that make one excessively happy to have him around, the really good element of the episode is the increasing bewilderment that Patrick is putting into Doggett. The ex-cop is getting further and further out of his depth, and there’s a palpable sense of confusion and uncertainty behind his front of control.

Rayes, however, is a little disappointing after her entertaining first appearance. The producers must be careful not to let her become superhuman; instead she must maintain the vulnerability and nervousness that made her so appealing.

Extra points for the territorial snarlings of Mulder and Doggett, which will undoubtedly run and run. Their tussle after Doggett finds out that Mulder’s been looking into his son’s death is extraordinary. The conclusion lets the episode down, though, saying by no means as much about evil as it thinks it does, and certainly nothing helpful.