People only remember (if they remember this show) how incredibly schlocky and terrible this show became. Granted, it had more seasons being a trainwreck than being watchable.
The TLDR of the production is that a regular writer on Star Trek Deep Space 9 was made the producer of Andromeda at the start. He wanted to create something alternative to Star Trek, but that, budget permitting, was as good. There were tussles behind the scenes for control between him, and the executives & Kevin Sorbo who wanted the show to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.
Eventually during season 2, the TV executives were brave enough to ask the question “What if we fired this experienced writer and put Kevin Sorbo in charge?”. The rest is history.
That all aside, the early stories in Andromeda showed a kind of interesting puesdo-Trek universe that had fallen into piracy and disorder, but the show was still optimistic that the spark of the old civilization could be rebuilt.
I await your jeers.
Their personalities were a bit different, and wash was a pilot not an engineer.
Mostly, Harper is a sleaze bag where wash is more of a giant married man-child.