As they enter Piedmont, they discover bodies everywhere. An old man runs up to them appearing crazed. The men suddenly begin to suffer violent seizures and die within seconds.

Gen. George Mancheck (Braugher) quarantines the area and calls in five top scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Bratt). Part of the team heads off to investigate the town, complete with protective biohazard suits. There they discover the dead littered everywhere and signs that some people died a violent death. After tracking the satellite, which has been opened, they also find a colicky infant girl. Just as they are about to leave, the crazed old man attacks them and he's knocked unconscious.

They are quickly sequestered in a high-tech underground lab. Their job is to figure out what they are dealing with and stop it if it needs to be stopped. The general wants to nuke the area, but Stone thinks they should wait and see what they are dealing with. The president decides to side with Stone for the moment and hold off on calling in an air strike.

As the team leaps into action, the pathogen, which has been code-named Andromeda, begins to mutate, quickly escaping the quarantined area. What started out as an airborne pathogen begins to jump between different animal species as it continues to mutate as if it had a mind of its own, leading Stone and the others to suspect that Andromeda may just not be of this earth.

While the scientists struggle to understand Andromeda, an investigative journalist named Jack Nash (McCormack) finds himself on the wrong side of a government conspiracy and trapped in the path of the deadly disease.

Mutating a classic

In 1969, Michael Crichton published his first novel, The Andromeda Strain, while he was still in medical school. Now, nearly 40 years later, the material seems all the more timely considering the fear that a pandemic might be just around the corner. While the book was originally turned into a memorable movie in 1971, directed by Robert Wise, the A&E miniseries does an effective job of exploring the material and updating it for today's world.

Back in 1969, the idea of bio warfare and biohazard suits was new. Now we can see how far ahead Crichton's thinking was. While the miniseries veers away from the novel eventually, as it must in an effort to create a compelling thriller, many of the novel's themes are still intact.

The Andromeda Strain is very effective when it focuses on the scientists and the growing panic of everyone involved when Andromeda begins to spread. The first half of the miniseries, which airs on Monday night, is well paced and exciting to watch. As for Part 2, the story heads into the fantastic and begins to fall apart as the storyline involving the military conspiracy and the investigative journalist bogs down the tale unnecessarily.

Part 2 is also hurt by the fact that the character development could have been better. Still, the attractive cast helps keep the story moving even if we don't care about them as much as we might have.

It's hard to adapt a novel to the screen, even if you have four hours. In the end, The Andromeda Strain could have been a better miniseries. However, while the miniseries may not quite offer up the mystery that the first movie did, or break ground as the book did with its look at biowarfare, it does make us think and that's what a good miniseries should do.