Before 9/11...
Before Oklahoma City...
Before mp3s...
Before South Park...
Before geek was cool...
And way before Nirvana...
Before there was a Wanderer...
...there was 1983. In that distant time, shrouded in the thick mists of history, there was MTV.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
seaQuest: Treasures of the Tonga Trench
Originally aired: October 9, 1993
This is the "funny" episode. A lot of shows have one in their first season when they're trying things out to see what the cast and writers can pull off. Shows set in small towns usually have a Picket Fences weirdness story. Shows with brainy characters do a mystery. But everybody does humor. Usually not that well unless the cast and writers have a lot of experience.
A UEO efficiency expert, an overweight black man, comes on board. His job is to make sure seaQuest is up to standards. This involves a lot of timed drills, and he's just looking for excuses to write them up. Ford and Bridger hate him and don't make it easy. Ford deliberately delays a rescue drill so the time is six seconds from missing an excellent grade just to show him up. Bridger tries to prove his manliness. This leads to the efficiency expert claiming he has the buttocks of a sixteen year old boy. Seriously. He invites Bridger to touch it and see for himself. If he were actually hitting on Bridger that would be awesome, but it's 1993. He's not.
Meanwhile, Krieg is out studying for his sea crab piloting test when he gets caught by a giant squid and thrown around. He comes up right and discovers these glowing gemstones on the sea floor, like nothing anybody has ever seen before. Certainly not the props guys that made them out of quartz with a light bulb stuck inside. Krieg instantly thinks these are worth a fortune. They'll replace diamonds in wedding rings. He enlists a few pals to help him with the extraction, which quickly leads to everyone but Bridger, Ford, and Captain Buttocks the Efficiency Expert knowing and wanting in.
It all falls apart when they do a lights-out drill and Bridger, Ford, and the Buns of Steel catch Lucas running through the halls trying to hide the goods. But then a giant squid attacks the boat. Krieg's giant squid. Turns out it's attracted to their lights and they use a probe to lure it away. Krieg sells the stones to Captain Buns. Westphalen discovers afterwards that they're actually giant squid feces and they'll stop glowing in a day or two.
If that sounds dumb, it is. It has some funny character moments and Lucas gets some good lines, but it's not a good episode at all. I flat out don't believe that a whole ship would go as crazy as they did over a legally dubious claim to a rock of questionable value. Not all pretty stones are worth a lot. If the stones secreted some chemical that lowered inhibitions or something, I could believe they were all getting high off the things.
In the end, Bridger only punishes Krieg this time. Despite the fact that Lucas was a willing, eager co-conspirator. Taking these two episodes together it seems like Lucas's only sin was not being sucked into profiteering. Way to raise a kid, Bridger.
This is the end of the first disk of season one, by the way.
This is the "funny" episode. A lot of shows have one in their first season when they're trying things out to see what the cast and writers can pull off. Shows set in small towns usually have a Picket Fences weirdness story. Shows with brainy characters do a mystery. But everybody does humor. Usually not that well unless the cast and writers have a lot of experience.
A UEO efficiency expert, an overweight black man, comes on board. His job is to make sure seaQuest is up to standards. This involves a lot of timed drills, and he's just looking for excuses to write them up. Ford and Bridger hate him and don't make it easy. Ford deliberately delays a rescue drill so the time is six seconds from missing an excellent grade just to show him up. Bridger tries to prove his manliness. This leads to the efficiency expert claiming he has the buttocks of a sixteen year old boy. Seriously. He invites Bridger to touch it and see for himself. If he were actually hitting on Bridger that would be awesome, but it's 1993. He's not.
Meanwhile, Krieg is out studying for his sea crab piloting test when he gets caught by a giant squid and thrown around. He comes up right and discovers these glowing gemstones on the sea floor, like nothing anybody has ever seen before. Certainly not the props guys that made them out of quartz with a light bulb stuck inside. Krieg instantly thinks these are worth a fortune. They'll replace diamonds in wedding rings. He enlists a few pals to help him with the extraction, which quickly leads to everyone but Bridger, Ford, and Captain Buttocks the Efficiency Expert knowing and wanting in.
It all falls apart when they do a lights-out drill and Bridger, Ford, and the Buns of Steel catch Lucas running through the halls trying to hide the goods. But then a giant squid attacks the boat. Krieg's giant squid. Turns out it's attracted to their lights and they use a probe to lure it away. Krieg sells the stones to Captain Buns. Westphalen discovers afterwards that they're actually giant squid feces and they'll stop glowing in a day or two.
If that sounds dumb, it is. It has some funny character moments and Lucas gets some good lines, but it's not a good episode at all. I flat out don't believe that a whole ship would go as crazy as they did over a legally dubious claim to a rock of questionable value. Not all pretty stones are worth a lot. If the stones secreted some chemical that lowered inhibitions or something, I could believe they were all getting high off the things.
In the end, Bridger only punishes Krieg this time. Despite the fact that Lucas was a willing, eager co-conspirator. Taking these two episodes together it seems like Lucas's only sin was not being sucked into profiteering. Way to raise a kid, Bridger.
This is the end of the first disk of season one, by the way.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
seaQuest: Games
Originally aired: October 3, 1993.
So back during WWIII there was this Dr. Mengele type that made bioweapons for several powers. I call bull. There really are such people, but anybody with that kind of knowledge has their movements tracked and tracked well. One of my mom's professors used to be an engineer on a nuclear submarine. Just for ordinary working knowledge of a submarine reactor he had:
1) A list of countries he was forbidden from visiting
2) Every time anybody did a background check on him it came back all red flags and he had to call up the Navy and request permission to disclose information about himself
3) The last time he tried to travel, they just confiscated his passport.
And that's ordinary guy type security. A bioweapons genius like the guest star of the week would get at least that. I don't believe that he could go off the grid without a manhunt, let alone work for multiple countries at once.
But ok, the wars ended in 2010 and the nations that employed him decided to do a truth and reconciliation thing and handed him over to the UN. The UN in turn tried him and built a prison in the Arctic where he was kept, apparently frozen most of the time. That's sort of a stretch. He can clearly live through the freezing. They sentenced him to life. So are they going to hold him until his frozen, slower-aging body finally dies? They also deleted every record on him and burned the hardcopies. I don't believe that with 1993 technology, let alone what would be available in a future you could foresee from 1993. Not even pictures survived. Just the name. Dr. Zellar.
Turns out the power plant blew at the prison. It's on fire. So the warden and the prisoner, the only survivors, get transferred off by seaQuest. Only they make sure we know within the first 5 minutes of the show that the guy who says he's the warden is really the prisoner. He cut off the warden's fingertips to graft on top of his own and use to pass the ID check.
So he gets loose on the ship and hijinks ensue. He holds the ship ransom with a toxin he claims to have manufactured and wants Bridger and Ford to fire their nukes on UEO headquarters to start the war up again.
By the way, one of Zellar's hits was to wipe out a scientific expedition in the Indian Ocean headed by Westphalen's brother. Lucas finds this out when he discovers the one file left on Zellar, part of the testimony against him. Lucas does this after Bridger catches him playing some kind of 3D combat game where he's fighting a poorly-rendered skeleton with a sword, using some kind of controller that he wears as a glove. Most of the graphics in this show aren't quite retro-future yet, but that really is.
So Ford and Bridger decide that in order to save the ship, they have to launch the nukes. They do this under Zellar's observation and they do indeed have two keys to launch. This is stupid. Worse, it's actually idiotic. They were just talking about scuttling the boat to stop him and the spread of this toxin (They can't seem to decide if it's a weaponized bacteria or virus or if it's some kind of super chemical weapon.) and now they're caving for what? Self-preservation? Totally out of character. We get some good drama as no one can stop the launch and the missiles fire, though. Everyone on the bridge loses it.
Back in the missile control room, Bridger wants the toxin handed over. Zellar laughs and tosses it to the floor, where it shatters. Ford tried to catch it and gets a face full of death. Only not. He doesn't die instantly, so they assume it's a fake virus. Zellar helpfully confirms that it is. Bridger tells him shucks, those were disarmed nukes programmed to just plunge into the ocean after X minutes of flight too. Gotcha.
Then Westphalen charges in. She's got a gun and she wants Zellar to beg for his life. He's chuckling and telling her to get it over with. He's killed a lot of people and he can't be expected to remember her brother. She shrugs and pops a vial of stuff out of her pocket. Now he's freaked. I guess death by bioweapon isn't fun.
I think Homeland Security is probably reading this blog now.
He starts begging, and she tosses the contents of the vial in his face. He starts to scream, until he realizes that he isn't dying. Gotcha again.
This is all done very well. It has a cat and mouse aspect about it, even if it is hard to believe Zellar knows places to hide from the crew of a sub after being on board for a few days when they live there. The dialog isn't very creaky for once, and Bridger doesn't have a speech about feelings. The crew are believably afraid of this guy, which stands to reason if he was the terror of the world when most of them were in high school.
But the epilogue does not work. When he found out they were going to the arctic, Krieg bought a load of thermal underwear for the crew, planning to sell them at a profit to his captive audience. Lucas found out about this early on and apparently turned him in to Bridger. End of the show, Krieg and Lucas are hand-washing the underwear and have to personally deliver it to various stations. Lucas asks why he's being punished, which is a pretty good question. Bridger explains that he hates people who take advantage of others (Krieg) and he also hates people who find out about this happening and then turn the perpetrators in. What? So what was Lucas supposed to do? Demand a share of the profits? Would that have been better? Or silently stand by? I think this is supposed to be a "don't be a tattletale" thing, but it makes no sense. If that were the case, then why is Krieg being punished for something Bridger would have to not consider a serious infraction in order to care more about Lucas ratting him out than Krieg doing it in the first place. If it's supposed to be some kind of induction into the Navy code of silence, then that still raises serious questions about what Bridger is trying to teach Lucas. If it's meant to be a team builder, then it's uncharacteristically individualist. Nobody but Krieg and Lucas are doing it. Furthermore, Bridger is generally ambivalent at best about Lucas becoming militarized. So what the hell?
I have a feeling there was supposed to be a bigger subplot here, but it got cut. There are no deleted scenes to help me figure it out. But maybe the writers had a solid episode come out with no major clunkers and didn't know what to do so they fixed it until something broke.
So back during WWIII there was this Dr. Mengele type that made bioweapons for several powers. I call bull. There really are such people, but anybody with that kind of knowledge has their movements tracked and tracked well. One of my mom's professors used to be an engineer on a nuclear submarine. Just for ordinary working knowledge of a submarine reactor he had:
1) A list of countries he was forbidden from visiting
2) Every time anybody did a background check on him it came back all red flags and he had to call up the Navy and request permission to disclose information about himself
3) The last time he tried to travel, they just confiscated his passport.
And that's ordinary guy type security. A bioweapons genius like the guest star of the week would get at least that. I don't believe that he could go off the grid without a manhunt, let alone work for multiple countries at once.
But ok, the wars ended in 2010 and the nations that employed him decided to do a truth and reconciliation thing and handed him over to the UN. The UN in turn tried him and built a prison in the Arctic where he was kept, apparently frozen most of the time. That's sort of a stretch. He can clearly live through the freezing. They sentenced him to life. So are they going to hold him until his frozen, slower-aging body finally dies? They also deleted every record on him and burned the hardcopies. I don't believe that with 1993 technology, let alone what would be available in a future you could foresee from 1993. Not even pictures survived. Just the name. Dr. Zellar.
Turns out the power plant blew at the prison. It's on fire. So the warden and the prisoner, the only survivors, get transferred off by seaQuest. Only they make sure we know within the first 5 minutes of the show that the guy who says he's the warden is really the prisoner. He cut off the warden's fingertips to graft on top of his own and use to pass the ID check.
So he gets loose on the ship and hijinks ensue. He holds the ship ransom with a toxin he claims to have manufactured and wants Bridger and Ford to fire their nukes on UEO headquarters to start the war up again.
By the way, one of Zellar's hits was to wipe out a scientific expedition in the Indian Ocean headed by Westphalen's brother. Lucas finds this out when he discovers the one file left on Zellar, part of the testimony against him. Lucas does this after Bridger catches him playing some kind of 3D combat game where he's fighting a poorly-rendered skeleton with a sword, using some kind of controller that he wears as a glove. Most of the graphics in this show aren't quite retro-future yet, but that really is.
So Ford and Bridger decide that in order to save the ship, they have to launch the nukes. They do this under Zellar's observation and they do indeed have two keys to launch. This is stupid. Worse, it's actually idiotic. They were just talking about scuttling the boat to stop him and the spread of this toxin (They can't seem to decide if it's a weaponized bacteria or virus or if it's some kind of super chemical weapon.) and now they're caving for what? Self-preservation? Totally out of character. We get some good drama as no one can stop the launch and the missiles fire, though. Everyone on the bridge loses it.
Back in the missile control room, Bridger wants the toxin handed over. Zellar laughs and tosses it to the floor, where it shatters. Ford tried to catch it and gets a face full of death. Only not. He doesn't die instantly, so they assume it's a fake virus. Zellar helpfully confirms that it is. Bridger tells him shucks, those were disarmed nukes programmed to just plunge into the ocean after X minutes of flight too. Gotcha.
Then Westphalen charges in. She's got a gun and she wants Zellar to beg for his life. He's chuckling and telling her to get it over with. He's killed a lot of people and he can't be expected to remember her brother. She shrugs and pops a vial of stuff out of her pocket. Now he's freaked. I guess death by bioweapon isn't fun.
I think Homeland Security is probably reading this blog now.
He starts begging, and she tosses the contents of the vial in his face. He starts to scream, until he realizes that he isn't dying. Gotcha again.
This is all done very well. It has a cat and mouse aspect about it, even if it is hard to believe Zellar knows places to hide from the crew of a sub after being on board for a few days when they live there. The dialog isn't very creaky for once, and Bridger doesn't have a speech about feelings. The crew are believably afraid of this guy, which stands to reason if he was the terror of the world when most of them were in high school.
But the epilogue does not work. When he found out they were going to the arctic, Krieg bought a load of thermal underwear for the crew, planning to sell them at a profit to his captive audience. Lucas found out about this early on and apparently turned him in to Bridger. End of the show, Krieg and Lucas are hand-washing the underwear and have to personally deliver it to various stations. Lucas asks why he's being punished, which is a pretty good question. Bridger explains that he hates people who take advantage of others (Krieg) and he also hates people who find out about this happening and then turn the perpetrators in. What? So what was Lucas supposed to do? Demand a share of the profits? Would that have been better? Or silently stand by? I think this is supposed to be a "don't be a tattletale" thing, but it makes no sense. If that were the case, then why is Krieg being punished for something Bridger would have to not consider a serious infraction in order to care more about Lucas ratting him out than Krieg doing it in the first place. If it's supposed to be some kind of induction into the Navy code of silence, then that still raises serious questions about what Bridger is trying to teach Lucas. If it's meant to be a team builder, then it's uncharacteristically individualist. Nobody but Krieg and Lucas are doing it. Furthermore, Bridger is generally ambivalent at best about Lucas becoming militarized. So what the hell?
I have a feeling there was supposed to be a bigger subplot here, but it got cut. There are no deleted scenes to help me figure it out. But maybe the writers had a solid episode come out with no major clunkers and didn't know what to do so they fixed it until something broke.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
seaQuest again
Treasures of the Mind
Originally aired: September 28, 1993.
This one really pissed my Mom off. Seaquest finds the Library of Alexandria, more or less. So all the countries around the Mediterranean want a piece of it. Meanwhile, the UEO dispatches a team of psychics to help Bridger with the negotiations, but really to find a leak on board. They in turn are trying to sabotage the conference so they can retire.
It starts with Ford in one of the minisubs, using a giant hose full of pressurized water to blow away the bottom. This is like extracting fossils with dynamite. They used to do it, but it's a great way to wreck the site. Ford is squealing like a cowboy as he, uh, rides the hose.
The writing is still clunky, but we're getting more character development. Lucas has a thing for Hitchcock, who ends up shoving her breasts in his face. It's one of those scenes where you wonder how many times the actors started laughing and ruined the take. By the way, all the female cast that go over to the library (there's an air pocket) go over in one piece swimsuits. All the men? Shorts and t-shirts. Right. I've got a lot of trouble believing professional women would actually do that in this kind of setting. I could buy it for the scientists, maybe. But none of them actually go over. So again I want to know where they change their clothes. Lucas was in a wetsuit when he went over. Then he's in dry clothes in the library? So is Bridger. If they're in what they wore under wetsuits, it should be drenched. If they came over with clothes in plastic bags or something, they need a place to change. Yet all we ever see of a minisub is a small cockpit and an area with benches for seating.
What the women are doing is actually sort of practical. Swimsuits would dry fast and fit under a wetsuit pretty well. But it's dumb that they have the contrast with the men. It's just naked T&A, like the uniforms they used to paint on Marina Sirtis in TNG. Marketing sexism.
But that aside, it's a pretty decent episode. The guest stars aren't hamming it up like crazy trying to grab every scene from the regular cast. The preaching about emotions is kept under control. It even deals with a real world issue. Museums are full of stolen or otherwise provenance unknown artifacts that, if they belong to anybody living, belong to somebody else. England has the Elgin Marbles, for example. They're named after the guy who took them out of Athens. The Greeks want them back. The guy running the Antiquities department for Egypt has been fairly successful at getting artifacts repatriated. He's a bit loopy on TV but you can at least see where he's coming from.
The main thing is, do the artifacts get split up or kept together? Bridger wants to keep them together and smashes an amphora and threatens to torpedo the site if they don't agree to leave the collection intact. It's good TV and a nice wet Picard moment. It would never actually work, but it's fun to watch.
Oh right. Also on the clothing. It looks like early on they didn't have wetsuits for all the main cast. It's pretty conspicuous how only one or two people are in the blue on black seaQuest wetsuits that show up a lot in season two. Everyone else in the shot wears just about anything else, including Bridger diving in in a shirt and shorts. He'd probably freeze to death at the depths seaQuest is supposed to run at. Heh. I guess that's what you get when you blow the budget on special effects.
Originally aired: September 28, 1993.
This one really pissed my Mom off. Seaquest finds the Library of Alexandria, more or less. So all the countries around the Mediterranean want a piece of it. Meanwhile, the UEO dispatches a team of psychics to help Bridger with the negotiations, but really to find a leak on board. They in turn are trying to sabotage the conference so they can retire.
It starts with Ford in one of the minisubs, using a giant hose full of pressurized water to blow away the bottom. This is like extracting fossils with dynamite. They used to do it, but it's a great way to wreck the site. Ford is squealing like a cowboy as he, uh, rides the hose.
The writing is still clunky, but we're getting more character development. Lucas has a thing for Hitchcock, who ends up shoving her breasts in his face. It's one of those scenes where you wonder how many times the actors started laughing and ruined the take. By the way, all the female cast that go over to the library (there's an air pocket) go over in one piece swimsuits. All the men? Shorts and t-shirts. Right. I've got a lot of trouble believing professional women would actually do that in this kind of setting. I could buy it for the scientists, maybe. But none of them actually go over. So again I want to know where they change their clothes. Lucas was in a wetsuit when he went over. Then he's in dry clothes in the library? So is Bridger. If they're in what they wore under wetsuits, it should be drenched. If they came over with clothes in plastic bags or something, they need a place to change. Yet all we ever see of a minisub is a small cockpit and an area with benches for seating.
What the women are doing is actually sort of practical. Swimsuits would dry fast and fit under a wetsuit pretty well. But it's dumb that they have the contrast with the men. It's just naked T&A, like the uniforms they used to paint on Marina Sirtis in TNG. Marketing sexism.
But that aside, it's a pretty decent episode. The guest stars aren't hamming it up like crazy trying to grab every scene from the regular cast. The preaching about emotions is kept under control. It even deals with a real world issue. Museums are full of stolen or otherwise provenance unknown artifacts that, if they belong to anybody living, belong to somebody else. England has the Elgin Marbles, for example. They're named after the guy who took them out of Athens. The Greeks want them back. The guy running the Antiquities department for Egypt has been fairly successful at getting artifacts repatriated. He's a bit loopy on TV but you can at least see where he's coming from.
The main thing is, do the artifacts get split up or kept together? Bridger wants to keep them together and smashes an amphora and threatens to torpedo the site if they don't agree to leave the collection intact. It's good TV and a nice wet Picard moment. It would never actually work, but it's fun to watch.
Oh right. Also on the clothing. It looks like early on they didn't have wetsuits for all the main cast. It's pretty conspicuous how only one or two people are in the blue on black seaQuest wetsuits that show up a lot in season two. Everyone else in the shot wears just about anything else, including Bridger diving in in a shirt and shorts. He'd probably freeze to death at the depths seaQuest is supposed to run at. Heh. I guess that's what you get when you blow the budget on special effects.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
More seaQuest
It's the second attack of the semi-obscure early 90s scifi shows! I'm writing this half as I watch.
The Devil's Window
Originally aired: September 18, 1993.
Oh man, the summary makes this one sound bad. Maybe this show really is awful.
We open with someone expositioning us about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Cut to Jonathan Brandis sitting next to the Guest-Star of the Week trying to look fascinated and failing. He was probably staring at a hole in the set. They exposition back and forth with him, the guest star, Bridger, and Westphalen. The guest star is going on and on about how he's going to shove a probe into a volcanic vent. It's full of bacteria that no one has ever seen, which makes it a giant biohazard. Westphalen thinks bringing it on board is risky. Imagine.
They spot Darwin outside. Lucas let him out. So it's time to call him back because, uh, we don't know? He's in the way of the cameras? Turns out one of the capsules from the vent...weren't we shoving something into the vent? They're pulling stuff out with a minisub. The capsule ruptures and Darwin swims right through it. And credits.
I think Lucas is wearing the outfit from the credits in this episode.
We're back and they're going down. The giant-ass probe is shaking the hell out of the ship as they go down with it. Water is splashing out of the moon pool in the bridge. Lucas is listening to music in his room when he gets the need to visit the head or something. There's no reason given for why he suddenly looks worried and drops what he's doing.
By the way, the probe/platform/whatever can be released by pushing a giant, red button labeled "release". Seriously. Bridger has his hand over it while Hitchcock and Ford take the helm. Does it really take two people to drive a sub? That seems like a bad idea. What, is each of them in charge of half the engines? Anyway, Ford and Hitchcock are sitting playing with their joysticks. Everyone looks constipated and then we're fine. Bridger takes his hand off the big red button. The extras on the bridge are congratulating themselves.
Lucas is back at work now. What did he get up for? Darwin's behind him looking forlorn. Lucas doesn't see. He has black and white photos up against the tube. Lucas would have been born what, about 2001?? B&W photos of what?
Bridge. Brider is pulling at his collar. He feels warm. O'Neil, getting his first personality of the series, screams out, "Captain!" What? Darwin is sick in the moon pool at the bridge. O'Neil and Bridger dive in. Guest star is mad that Westphalen is taking off, but dammit she's a doctor, Guest Star!
Cut to Brigder and O'Neil hauling a very fake dolphin prop through the tubes. They're lost in the tubes. O'Neil is freaked out. Ted Raimi manages to sell it despite the creaking voice.
Cut to the moon pool. Westphalen is impatient waiting for them. Back to the tube. Darwin looks less fake now, but his jaw is still bobbing open every time they bounce the prop. A hallway somewhere. Lucas is plastered to the tube window. Bridger comes up and does some hand signals to him.
Moon pool. We finally arrive and wasn't the whole tube sequence wasted time? We knew Darwin was sick and they were hauling him to the moon pool. This episode must have come in short. Lucas is mooning over Darwin. Westphalen doesn't know what's wrong. The thingie that lets Darwin talk doesn't translate his metaphors about sickness. Lucas is taking this hard. I can buy this in a boy and his dog way.
O'Neil is explaining how he speaks all these languages but he somehow "got" Darwin. Ok.
Bridger's room. The Doc is going on about Darwin's white cell count being bad. Enter guest star. He wants to press on. This is the plot of the episode. Guest star shows off a prop. It's supposed to go into the magma. They didn't tell Bridger about it. It looks like the head of a tampon. Bridger doesn't care. I have trouble believing that Bridger didn't know about a major part of a scientific mission involving his own boat until just now.
Bridger phones someone who is worried that he owes Bridger money. The guy on the other end wants to introduce his family to Bridger. Turns out this guy is some kind of vet. The vet wants to see Darwin. Bridger, who is in civvies now, isn't sure. He goes to the bridge and wants to drop the platform early. Scienguest freaks. Bridger orders the ship to the vet.
You know, I'm not buying this episode. It's one of these canned amoral scientist vs. compassion plots. With a dolphin as the victim. I can buy that Bridger would care. I might even buy that he would scrap the mission. But eh. The scientist isn't selling it for me. He talks like Dr. Doom.
Ward Room. The scienguest rants at Admiral Noyce. This doesn't work out. "He's lost his mind! ... I'm sorry I didn't bring my personal astrologer." Heh. The admiral hangs up and Westphalen and Ford actually have to restrain the guy to keep him from, what, calling the Secretery General of the UEO? Um...ok... Look, it's his life's work. But this guy has no medium setting.
Moon pool. Bridger in a wetsuit petting Darwin. Darwin is glad Bridger is there. Ok. It's sweet. Later, they're hoisting Darwin out of the pool to take him to the vet, I guess.
Vet. All the UEO guys changed into kahki uniforms. Why? Did they take the time on the minisub to switch? I can buy that there are separate wet and dry uniforms, but they'd switch in the middle of a trip? When taking a sick "crewmember" to a doctor? This kind of undermines the point that they're supposed to care about Darwin like he were a human.
Ward Room. Ford checks on scienguest. He's down until he sees some dolphins swimming. Then he's moved. So he's not going to be a complete jerk? We have a humanized guest scientist? On a scifi show? I've barely ever seen that.
Vet. The vet tells Nathan Darwin is going to die, and they know so little about how dolphins handle sickness. Vet offers Nathan a beer. Nathan says he feels sorry for Lucas. Darwin is now the closest he's had to a "pal". The vet offers Lucas a beer. He's only sixteen. Then he'll get two! This is kind of Picardish. Nathan doesn't think to invite Lucas to stick around, but the vet does. Lucas tries to open his beer.
Scienguest wants to know how long they have to wait for Darwin to die. O'Neil lays into him for being insensitive. Lucas is thinking about what Darwin was saying as he stares at his beer. He opens it, lifts it up, then starts talking again. They figure out that Darwin doesn't want to die alone. Lucas reaches for his beer again. It's non-alcoholic. It gets within two inches of Brandis's mouth. Standards & Practices. Definitely.
So they're going to go find Darwin's dolphin family. This is stretching it for a multi-billion dollar submarine. Lucas is reading exposition about dolphins to us out of a script hidden in a book. Well maybe not. Cut to the moon pool. Westphalen has a pink wetsuit. Why? Because she has a uterus?
They find a match to Darwin's calls and Darwin hears and starts thrashing. Smiles on the bridge. They found Darwin's mother. Ok. Pretty easy considering. Bridger, Lucas, and O'Neil rush to the moon pool to let Darwin out. Darwin starts calling for Bridger, who tells him to take off.
Jonathan Brandis's sad, worried expression and mannerisms were very similar to Sarah Michelle Gellar's. Only he doesn't stick his head into his navel.
Anyway, Darwin's with his family and they go back to dump the probe/platform/tampon into the black smokers. Westphalen wants more safety procedures. Scienguest still doesn't care. You know, one would think as a scientist he would get that what could infect Darwin might infect people.
Lucas mopes in his room. O'Neil mopes in the mess. Bridger mopes on the bridge. Ford says he's depressing everyone. Heh.
Ward Room. Vet is on the phone asking Westphalen what they're up to. He identified the bacteria from Darwin. They're bringing up the goodies. Now they think of it. Westphalen calls the moon pool, but no one hears over the machinery. Darwin dives out of the pool and knocks Bridger away from the pods o' bacteria. And his friends brought seaweed that must be The Cure.
So dolphins can outrace a top of the line sub? I don't buy it.
Westphalen is thrilled over the seaweed. Heh, she called the tampon a ceramic suppository. Darwin wants Lucas and Bridger to swim with him. Lucas spends all the second season doing this.
Bridger starts going on about how the computer can't understand feelings. Ok. Whatever. It's bad dialog. He schmaltzed about feelings for about thirty seconds.
Oh! Sciencebump! Ballard is talking about discovering black smokers.
And now it's over. Ok. It wasn't bad exactly. It's a fairly standard scifi plot. It just wasn't that great either. There seemed to be a lot of filler. The scienguest is all over the place. He's mad that he's being delayed. He will accept no compromises. Then he's tired and wants a nap. Then he's mad again. Then he has a little understanding. Then he's mad again. I think it would have went better if he hadn't been chewing so much scenery early on.
The regular cast are doing perfectly well, but the dialog did clunk along a lot. Hitchcock still doesn't have a personality.
The Devil's Window
Originally aired: September 18, 1993.
Oh man, the summary makes this one sound bad. Maybe this show really is awful.
We open with someone expositioning us about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Cut to Jonathan Brandis sitting next to the Guest-Star of the Week trying to look fascinated and failing. He was probably staring at a hole in the set. They exposition back and forth with him, the guest star, Bridger, and Westphalen. The guest star is going on and on about how he's going to shove a probe into a volcanic vent. It's full of bacteria that no one has ever seen, which makes it a giant biohazard. Westphalen thinks bringing it on board is risky. Imagine.
They spot Darwin outside. Lucas let him out. So it's time to call him back because, uh, we don't know? He's in the way of the cameras? Turns out one of the capsules from the vent...weren't we shoving something into the vent? They're pulling stuff out with a minisub. The capsule ruptures and Darwin swims right through it. And credits.
I think Lucas is wearing the outfit from the credits in this episode.
We're back and they're going down. The giant-ass probe is shaking the hell out of the ship as they go down with it. Water is splashing out of the moon pool in the bridge. Lucas is listening to music in his room when he gets the need to visit the head or something. There's no reason given for why he suddenly looks worried and drops what he's doing.
By the way, the probe/platform/whatever can be released by pushing a giant, red button labeled "release". Seriously. Bridger has his hand over it while Hitchcock and Ford take the helm. Does it really take two people to drive a sub? That seems like a bad idea. What, is each of them in charge of half the engines? Anyway, Ford and Hitchcock are sitting playing with their joysticks. Everyone looks constipated and then we're fine. Bridger takes his hand off the big red button. The extras on the bridge are congratulating themselves.
Lucas is back at work now. What did he get up for? Darwin's behind him looking forlorn. Lucas doesn't see. He has black and white photos up against the tube. Lucas would have been born what, about 2001?? B&W photos of what?
Bridge. Brider is pulling at his collar. He feels warm. O'Neil, getting his first personality of the series, screams out, "Captain!" What? Darwin is sick in the moon pool at the bridge. O'Neil and Bridger dive in. Guest star is mad that Westphalen is taking off, but dammit she's a doctor, Guest Star!
Cut to Brigder and O'Neil hauling a very fake dolphin prop through the tubes. They're lost in the tubes. O'Neil is freaked out. Ted Raimi manages to sell it despite the creaking voice.
Cut to the moon pool. Westphalen is impatient waiting for them. Back to the tube. Darwin looks less fake now, but his jaw is still bobbing open every time they bounce the prop. A hallway somewhere. Lucas is plastered to the tube window. Bridger comes up and does some hand signals to him.
Moon pool. We finally arrive and wasn't the whole tube sequence wasted time? We knew Darwin was sick and they were hauling him to the moon pool. This episode must have come in short. Lucas is mooning over Darwin. Westphalen doesn't know what's wrong. The thingie that lets Darwin talk doesn't translate his metaphors about sickness. Lucas is taking this hard. I can buy this in a boy and his dog way.
O'Neil is explaining how he speaks all these languages but he somehow "got" Darwin. Ok.
Bridger's room. The Doc is going on about Darwin's white cell count being bad. Enter guest star. He wants to press on. This is the plot of the episode. Guest star shows off a prop. It's supposed to go into the magma. They didn't tell Bridger about it. It looks like the head of a tampon. Bridger doesn't care. I have trouble believing that Bridger didn't know about a major part of a scientific mission involving his own boat until just now.
Bridger phones someone who is worried that he owes Bridger money. The guy on the other end wants to introduce his family to Bridger. Turns out this guy is some kind of vet. The vet wants to see Darwin. Bridger, who is in civvies now, isn't sure. He goes to the bridge and wants to drop the platform early. Scienguest freaks. Bridger orders the ship to the vet.
You know, I'm not buying this episode. It's one of these canned amoral scientist vs. compassion plots. With a dolphin as the victim. I can buy that Bridger would care. I might even buy that he would scrap the mission. But eh. The scientist isn't selling it for me. He talks like Dr. Doom.
Ward Room. The scienguest rants at Admiral Noyce. This doesn't work out. "He's lost his mind! ... I'm sorry I didn't bring my personal astrologer." Heh. The admiral hangs up and Westphalen and Ford actually have to restrain the guy to keep him from, what, calling the Secretery General of the UEO? Um...ok... Look, it's his life's work. But this guy has no medium setting.
Moon pool. Bridger in a wetsuit petting Darwin. Darwin is glad Bridger is there. Ok. It's sweet. Later, they're hoisting Darwin out of the pool to take him to the vet, I guess.
Vet. All the UEO guys changed into kahki uniforms. Why? Did they take the time on the minisub to switch? I can buy that there are separate wet and dry uniforms, but they'd switch in the middle of a trip? When taking a sick "crewmember" to a doctor? This kind of undermines the point that they're supposed to care about Darwin like he were a human.
Ward Room. Ford checks on scienguest. He's down until he sees some dolphins swimming. Then he's moved. So he's not going to be a complete jerk? We have a humanized guest scientist? On a scifi show? I've barely ever seen that.
Vet. The vet tells Nathan Darwin is going to die, and they know so little about how dolphins handle sickness. Vet offers Nathan a beer. Nathan says he feels sorry for Lucas. Darwin is now the closest he's had to a "pal". The vet offers Lucas a beer. He's only sixteen. Then he'll get two! This is kind of Picardish. Nathan doesn't think to invite Lucas to stick around, but the vet does. Lucas tries to open his beer.
Scienguest wants to know how long they have to wait for Darwin to die. O'Neil lays into him for being insensitive. Lucas is thinking about what Darwin was saying as he stares at his beer. He opens it, lifts it up, then starts talking again. They figure out that Darwin doesn't want to die alone. Lucas reaches for his beer again. It's non-alcoholic. It gets within two inches of Brandis's mouth. Standards & Practices. Definitely.
So they're going to go find Darwin's dolphin family. This is stretching it for a multi-billion dollar submarine. Lucas is reading exposition about dolphins to us out of a script hidden in a book. Well maybe not. Cut to the moon pool. Westphalen has a pink wetsuit. Why? Because she has a uterus?
They find a match to Darwin's calls and Darwin hears and starts thrashing. Smiles on the bridge. They found Darwin's mother. Ok. Pretty easy considering. Bridger, Lucas, and O'Neil rush to the moon pool to let Darwin out. Darwin starts calling for Bridger, who tells him to take off.
Jonathan Brandis's sad, worried expression and mannerisms were very similar to Sarah Michelle Gellar's. Only he doesn't stick his head into his navel.
Anyway, Darwin's with his family and they go back to dump the probe/platform/tampon into the black smokers. Westphalen wants more safety procedures. Scienguest still doesn't care. You know, one would think as a scientist he would get that what could infect Darwin might infect people.
Lucas mopes in his room. O'Neil mopes in the mess. Bridger mopes on the bridge. Ford says he's depressing everyone. Heh.
Ward Room. Vet is on the phone asking Westphalen what they're up to. He identified the bacteria from Darwin. They're bringing up the goodies. Now they think of it. Westphalen calls the moon pool, but no one hears over the machinery. Darwin dives out of the pool and knocks Bridger away from the pods o' bacteria. And his friends brought seaweed that must be The Cure.
So dolphins can outrace a top of the line sub? I don't buy it.
Westphalen is thrilled over the seaweed. Heh, she called the tampon a ceramic suppository. Darwin wants Lucas and Bridger to swim with him. Lucas spends all the second season doing this.
Bridger starts going on about how the computer can't understand feelings. Ok. Whatever. It's bad dialog. He schmaltzed about feelings for about thirty seconds.
Oh! Sciencebump! Ballard is talking about discovering black smokers.
And now it's over. Ok. It wasn't bad exactly. It's a fairly standard scifi plot. It just wasn't that great either. There seemed to be a lot of filler. The scienguest is all over the place. He's mad that he's being delayed. He will accept no compromises. Then he's tired and wants a nap. Then he's mad again. Then he has a little understanding. Then he's mad again. I think it would have went better if he hadn't been chewing so much scenery early on.
The regular cast are doing perfectly well, but the dialog did clunk along a lot. Hitchcock still doesn't have a personality.
Friday, January 18, 2008
seaQuest: DSV. The Pilot
Some background going in here.
seaQuest (that's the correct capitalization...I don't know why) is Star Trek, but it's set in the near future. The notional date is 2018. Some kind of resource-driven World War Three happened in the 2010s. All the natural resources on dry land have been more or less exhausted, so under the sea they have farms, mining, you name it. Whole submarine communities exist. The politics are dominated by supernational alliances (confederations) that have united to protect their undersea claims.
The seaQuest is a top of the line submarine with nuclear weapons, flying satellites, moon pools, a dolphin, and a teenaged genius played by the late Jonathan Brandis. This is pretty much the peak of his career. The NorPac Confederation (that's us) built it after the war, but gave it over to the UEO (the UN/Federation, underwater) to use as a peacekeeping vessel. It's about the size of a modern aircraft carrier and as of the start of the show two-thirds of its crew are scientists.
Originally aired September 12, 1993.
We open on a guy in a little sub. He's running away from some miners in other subs because he was prospecting across the border. They're shooting at him and he barely makes it home safe. The other guys call for military support and a bunch of attack subs arrive, apparently within minutes. Well, I guess it is on the border. They want clearance from home to blow the crap out of the mining settlement the prospector is from. This sort of thing could possibly start a war, I guess. That's a bit of a stretch but it's the pilot and they need to set things up fast.
Then here comes seaQuest. Pretty much the whole bridge crew is present, minus the doctor, the genius, the crusty cop, and the captain. Everyone phones home and the present captain, a middle-aged blonde woman the DVDs say was in Charlie's Angels (This would be the original show from the 70s) gets orders not to fire her nuclear missiles and start World War Four. By the way, in this scene everyone is wearing khaki shirts and black ties. I think that's supposed to be the NorPac military uniform, since later they all have dark jumpsuits. The intention seems to have been that seaQuest was handed over to the UEO after the incident. That seems a little weird.
So Charlie's most middle-aged Angel is snarling, biting, and chewing the scenery about how she really wants to just blow someone up. It's what they were all trained to do, and these standoffs are getting on her nerves. She decides to fire her nukes anyway. Don Franklin, playing Commander Ford, waits until she has her hand on the nuclear weapon joystick before pulling it off. She had to use a key to turn the nuke keyboard on in the first place. I'm pretty sure it's standard procedure that you have to have two people agree on site to release a nuke. I know it was at some point in the Cold War. So really you should need two keys anyway. They get this right in a later episode, I think.
Ford relives Captain Stark of command and we zip ahead to thirteen months later. SeaQuest is in UEO hands now and undergoing a refit. An Admiral explains to Ford that the ship needs the right man to command her, somebody with military and scientific experience. Scientific? Ok. I don't get how running an atom smasher or teaching a dolphin to talk is going to make you a great peacekeeper, but whatever. The ship is being refitted to have a large science contingent. They're trying to pull a Next Generation here, obviously. The show isn't a complete knockoff, but the similarities are very strong. Enter retired captain Nathan Bridger, played by Roy Scheider. I remember my Dad told me that he read an article where Scheider's publicist claimed he's six feet tall. Yeah, and I have a tan. The Admiral pretty much tells Ford to play stupid and incompetent as part of a scheme to get Bridger to take command and rejoin the Army, er Navy, er peacekeepers.
Bridger designed seaQuest. He was in the Navy for years but retired after his son (also in the Navy) got killed. He made a promise to his wife never to have anything to do with the Navy again and went into science. I can buy that. He retired to a Caribbean island that looks a lot like Hawaii. Geography aside, the nature shots are beautiful in this show. Dolphins leaping and waves crashing get a little old, but the footage is really good. Bridger's wife died about ten months before this point, so after the crisis with Charlie's Craziest Angel.
So the admiral, Admiral Noyce, shows up on Bridger's island and talks him into coming aboard seaQuest just to look her over. No pressure on that command thing. They do a tour that introduces us to the main cast. Crusty Cop is the chief of security, who served with Bridger before. The chief engineer is an intense young lady type with no personality. She used to be married to the crooked morale and supply officer, who is mad because his guys only stocked family films for the crew's entertainment. I have trouble believing a bunch of sailors really thought Bambi and Mickey Mouse were what the crew needed, but ok. We're going to see more of two other bridge officers later, but in the pilot they're just guys at consoles.
Bridger designed seaQuest with tubes full of water all through it, big enough for a dolphin to swim in. The idea was to have Navy-trained dolphins on board. Ok. He had a dolphin at his island, Darwin. The Admiral kidnapped Darwin and put him in seaQuest. Bridger is happy to see the dolphin right up until he recognizes it. Then it starts talking to him in a nasal computer-generated voice. Communicating with dolphins was a project of Bridger's and he tried to do voice but ended up with hand signals. Enter teenaged genius, Lucas. He figured it out. He's on a submarine that is built for, and plans to go into, combat as a minor because his father is a big contractor and pulled some strings because of an unspecified discipline problem.
Lucas is not Wesley Crusher. He doesn't want to grow up and be Bridger, or even join the military. He doesn't really save the ship very often, but he's usually helping out when it is saved. He seems to live on board full time. He's arrogant and dripping sarcasm, almost going out of his way to make sure he's not liked. Lucas runs around in baseball shirts for some reason, but I don't think they ever had him show any interest in the sport itself. In the second season, he spends a lot of time in a wetsuit. Lucas more or less smarts off to Bridger and bails. Their first exchange:
Bridger: Who the hell are you?
Lucas: Who the hell are you?
I think back in the day that's when I started liking Lucas.
While Bridger is meeting the cast, Captain Stark is talking with an ambiguously German industrialist. It seems he used to own half the ocean, but the UEO confiscated most of it. He wants it back, and he figures he can get it if seaQuest is taken out. Stark wants revenge for being relieved of command and told she's crazy. He sets her up with an attack submarine. She starts attacking settlements, hoping to draw seaQuest out.
Bridger is looking around seaQuest when he notices it's moving. That drives him up a wall. I'd be offended if I got kidnapped too. This is all part of the Admiral's plan. The ship is berthed at Pearl Harbor, so once they're committed to the channel (big bay, narrow channel) they have to get all the way out before they can turn around. He's stuck for a while at least.
In a bit of funny editing, while Bridger can't hitch a ride back on a minisub until they're clear of the channel minisubs are constantly coming and going dropping off supplies. This just doesn't make sense. Plot hole.
So they no more than get outside Pearl Harbor and they start hearing about the sub blowing people up. No question of sending Bridger back now. They don't exactly explain why not, but I think we're meant to gather that a minisub would be an easy target. I can buy that.
The rebel sub (That's what they call Stark Crazy's sub.) comes up on seaQuest and hits her with a torpedo. There's a little bit of damage, but then their computers go offline. They can't return fire. They run away down a trench below what the rebel sub can take and try to do repairs. Lucas -who is asked to look into it, he doesn't take it on himself like Wesley might- goes digging in the computer and finds out they have a virus eating it alive. Furthermore, the virus is set up so that if he tries to mess with it, it'll take the whole ship down instead of just weapons and propulsion.
Meanwhile, the sub goes off and attacks some more people. They give chase with the ship running crippled, until Bridger (who has by now given up and accepted command after Ford offered it like a dozen times) decides they can work around the virus. I guess no one else thought to rewire the ship, since that's about what they do in a montage. They trail around and pick up survivors from the other attacks too. Lucas determines that the virus is from 13 months ago, which leads Bridger to check the records and see that Stark was the only senior officer on board at the time of infection.
Stark and Bridger have a nice little conversation over the viewscreen in his office. He taught her back at the Academy. Stark doesn't know where Bridger is even though it says 'seaQuest' on his jumpsuit. She's not just crazy; she's stupid. How did she program a computer virus? Anyway, the main thing seems to be so Bridger can snark at her later on.
Our heroes catch up to the rebel submarine, but they still can't target it. Bridger's been training Darwin to tag stuff with some kind of radio beacon. So they rig Darwin up with some dolphin SCUBA and fire him out a torpedo tube. He tags the ship. The rebels are taking a full minute to load all their torpedoes and fire, so on their bridge a guy is reading off a countdown when seaQuest fires. Stark thinks Bridger is bluffing until she hears the beacon on her hull. Her crew bails and she screams and rants at them as the torpedo takes the sub out.
...that's more plot summary than I usually do. It's a pilot episode. The first half of it is really about introducing the cast. Not a lot happens except Bridger touring the ship and meeting people. The action is concentrated heavily in the second half. The story, such as it is here, is mostly about Bridger deciding to come back to the Navy despite promising his wife he never would. Lucas ends up convincing him in the epilogue.
It's not a bad episode. It sets up an interesting, versatile format. They could go a lot of different ways with it. The ship is more openly military than Trek ever did, and there's some real tension between the civilians and the navy guys. The effects are very good for 1993. I think it's almost all CGI, but it's hidden well by undersea murkiness. I like it, but it's not the heart-pounding adventure it was when I was a kid. The differences between it and Trek develop as the series goes on. Back then, the idea that you'd do scifi in the near future was just weird. I guess the direction was very strong towards plausible future tech in the first season. I remember the guy who found Titanic doing science clips over the credits, but those aren't on the DVD.
The second season is something completely different, but later on this season we get glimpses of what they ended up trying to do. Ratings for this season were awful, but back then you could still get a whole season of a show with bad ratings. Cable was almost all rerun networks. I remember liking the first season the most, though. We'll see if that holds.
seaQuest (that's the correct capitalization...I don't know why) is Star Trek, but it's set in the near future. The notional date is 2018. Some kind of resource-driven World War Three happened in the 2010s. All the natural resources on dry land have been more or less exhausted, so under the sea they have farms, mining, you name it. Whole submarine communities exist. The politics are dominated by supernational alliances (confederations) that have united to protect their undersea claims.
The seaQuest is a top of the line submarine with nuclear weapons, flying satellites, moon pools, a dolphin, and a teenaged genius played by the late Jonathan Brandis. This is pretty much the peak of his career. The NorPac Confederation (that's us) built it after the war, but gave it over to the UEO (the UN/Federation, underwater) to use as a peacekeeping vessel. It's about the size of a modern aircraft carrier and as of the start of the show two-thirds of its crew are scientists.
Originally aired September 12, 1993.
We open on a guy in a little sub. He's running away from some miners in other subs because he was prospecting across the border. They're shooting at him and he barely makes it home safe. The other guys call for military support and a bunch of attack subs arrive, apparently within minutes. Well, I guess it is on the border. They want clearance from home to blow the crap out of the mining settlement the prospector is from. This sort of thing could possibly start a war, I guess. That's a bit of a stretch but it's the pilot and they need to set things up fast.
Then here comes seaQuest. Pretty much the whole bridge crew is present, minus the doctor, the genius, the crusty cop, and the captain. Everyone phones home and the present captain, a middle-aged blonde woman the DVDs say was in Charlie's Angels (This would be the original show from the 70s) gets orders not to fire her nuclear missiles and start World War Four. By the way, in this scene everyone is wearing khaki shirts and black ties. I think that's supposed to be the NorPac military uniform, since later they all have dark jumpsuits. The intention seems to have been that seaQuest was handed over to the UEO after the incident. That seems a little weird.
So Charlie's most middle-aged Angel is snarling, biting, and chewing the scenery about how she really wants to just blow someone up. It's what they were all trained to do, and these standoffs are getting on her nerves. She decides to fire her nukes anyway. Don Franklin, playing Commander Ford, waits until she has her hand on the nuclear weapon joystick before pulling it off. She had to use a key to turn the nuke keyboard on in the first place. I'm pretty sure it's standard procedure that you have to have two people agree on site to release a nuke. I know it was at some point in the Cold War. So really you should need two keys anyway. They get this right in a later episode, I think.
Ford relives Captain Stark of command and we zip ahead to thirteen months later. SeaQuest is in UEO hands now and undergoing a refit. An Admiral explains to Ford that the ship needs the right man to command her, somebody with military and scientific experience. Scientific? Ok. I don't get how running an atom smasher or teaching a dolphin to talk is going to make you a great peacekeeper, but whatever. The ship is being refitted to have a large science contingent. They're trying to pull a Next Generation here, obviously. The show isn't a complete knockoff, but the similarities are very strong. Enter retired captain Nathan Bridger, played by Roy Scheider. I remember my Dad told me that he read an article where Scheider's publicist claimed he's six feet tall. Yeah, and I have a tan. The Admiral pretty much tells Ford to play stupid and incompetent as part of a scheme to get Bridger to take command and rejoin the Army, er Navy, er peacekeepers.
Bridger designed seaQuest. He was in the Navy for years but retired after his son (also in the Navy) got killed. He made a promise to his wife never to have anything to do with the Navy again and went into science. I can buy that. He retired to a Caribbean island that looks a lot like Hawaii. Geography aside, the nature shots are beautiful in this show. Dolphins leaping and waves crashing get a little old, but the footage is really good. Bridger's wife died about ten months before this point, so after the crisis with Charlie's Craziest Angel.
So the admiral, Admiral Noyce, shows up on Bridger's island and talks him into coming aboard seaQuest just to look her over. No pressure on that command thing. They do a tour that introduces us to the main cast. Crusty Cop is the chief of security, who served with Bridger before. The chief engineer is an intense young lady type with no personality. She used to be married to the crooked morale and supply officer, who is mad because his guys only stocked family films for the crew's entertainment. I have trouble believing a bunch of sailors really thought Bambi and Mickey Mouse were what the crew needed, but ok. We're going to see more of two other bridge officers later, but in the pilot they're just guys at consoles.
Bridger designed seaQuest with tubes full of water all through it, big enough for a dolphin to swim in. The idea was to have Navy-trained dolphins on board. Ok. He had a dolphin at his island, Darwin. The Admiral kidnapped Darwin and put him in seaQuest. Bridger is happy to see the dolphin right up until he recognizes it. Then it starts talking to him in a nasal computer-generated voice. Communicating with dolphins was a project of Bridger's and he tried to do voice but ended up with hand signals. Enter teenaged genius, Lucas. He figured it out. He's on a submarine that is built for, and plans to go into, combat as a minor because his father is a big contractor and pulled some strings because of an unspecified discipline problem.
Lucas is not Wesley Crusher. He doesn't want to grow up and be Bridger, or even join the military. He doesn't really save the ship very often, but he's usually helping out when it is saved. He seems to live on board full time. He's arrogant and dripping sarcasm, almost going out of his way to make sure he's not liked. Lucas runs around in baseball shirts for some reason, but I don't think they ever had him show any interest in the sport itself. In the second season, he spends a lot of time in a wetsuit. Lucas more or less smarts off to Bridger and bails. Their first exchange:
Bridger: Who the hell are you?
Lucas: Who the hell are you?
I think back in the day that's when I started liking Lucas.
While Bridger is meeting the cast, Captain Stark is talking with an ambiguously German industrialist. It seems he used to own half the ocean, but the UEO confiscated most of it. He wants it back, and he figures he can get it if seaQuest is taken out. Stark wants revenge for being relieved of command and told she's crazy. He sets her up with an attack submarine. She starts attacking settlements, hoping to draw seaQuest out.
Bridger is looking around seaQuest when he notices it's moving. That drives him up a wall. I'd be offended if I got kidnapped too. This is all part of the Admiral's plan. The ship is berthed at Pearl Harbor, so once they're committed to the channel (big bay, narrow channel) they have to get all the way out before they can turn around. He's stuck for a while at least.
In a bit of funny editing, while Bridger can't hitch a ride back on a minisub until they're clear of the channel minisubs are constantly coming and going dropping off supplies. This just doesn't make sense. Plot hole.
So they no more than get outside Pearl Harbor and they start hearing about the sub blowing people up. No question of sending Bridger back now. They don't exactly explain why not, but I think we're meant to gather that a minisub would be an easy target. I can buy that.
The rebel sub (That's what they call Stark Crazy's sub.) comes up on seaQuest and hits her with a torpedo. There's a little bit of damage, but then their computers go offline. They can't return fire. They run away down a trench below what the rebel sub can take and try to do repairs. Lucas -who is asked to look into it, he doesn't take it on himself like Wesley might- goes digging in the computer and finds out they have a virus eating it alive. Furthermore, the virus is set up so that if he tries to mess with it, it'll take the whole ship down instead of just weapons and propulsion.
Meanwhile, the sub goes off and attacks some more people. They give chase with the ship running crippled, until Bridger (who has by now given up and accepted command after Ford offered it like a dozen times) decides they can work around the virus. I guess no one else thought to rewire the ship, since that's about what they do in a montage. They trail around and pick up survivors from the other attacks too. Lucas determines that the virus is from 13 months ago, which leads Bridger to check the records and see that Stark was the only senior officer on board at the time of infection.
Stark and Bridger have a nice little conversation over the viewscreen in his office. He taught her back at the Academy. Stark doesn't know where Bridger is even though it says 'seaQuest' on his jumpsuit. She's not just crazy; she's stupid. How did she program a computer virus? Anyway, the main thing seems to be so Bridger can snark at her later on.
Our heroes catch up to the rebel submarine, but they still can't target it. Bridger's been training Darwin to tag stuff with some kind of radio beacon. So they rig Darwin up with some dolphin SCUBA and fire him out a torpedo tube. He tags the ship. The rebels are taking a full minute to load all their torpedoes and fire, so on their bridge a guy is reading off a countdown when seaQuest fires. Stark thinks Bridger is bluffing until she hears the beacon on her hull. Her crew bails and she screams and rants at them as the torpedo takes the sub out.
...that's more plot summary than I usually do. It's a pilot episode. The first half of it is really about introducing the cast. Not a lot happens except Bridger touring the ship and meeting people. The action is concentrated heavily in the second half. The story, such as it is here, is mostly about Bridger deciding to come back to the Navy despite promising his wife he never would. Lucas ends up convincing him in the epilogue.
It's not a bad episode. It sets up an interesting, versatile format. They could go a lot of different ways with it. The ship is more openly military than Trek ever did, and there's some real tension between the civilians and the navy guys. The effects are very good for 1993. I think it's almost all CGI, but it's hidden well by undersea murkiness. I like it, but it's not the heart-pounding adventure it was when I was a kid. The differences between it and Trek develop as the series goes on. Back then, the idea that you'd do scifi in the near future was just weird. I guess the direction was very strong towards plausible future tech in the first season. I remember the guy who found Titanic doing science clips over the credits, but those aren't on the DVD.
The second season is something completely different, but later on this season we get glimpses of what they ended up trying to do. Ratings for this season were awful, but back then you could still get a whole season of a show with bad ratings. Cable was almost all rerun networks. I remember liking the first season the most, though. We'll see if that holds.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
DVD plans
If everything goes according to plans, I'll start watching either Everwood or seaQuest tomorrow night. I'll probably kick out episode reviews right after I'm done with watching, while I still remember everything.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Hey, I have a blog!
I should probably post to it one of these days. I'm not gone; I just don't have much to say right now.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
1635: The Cannon Law
So another 1632 book. I went out and bought it a few days ago and burned right through. I spent six hours last night reading it. It's that good. Like the others, it's not a particularly deep or intellectual book. But what it is is a fun political thriller.
The book before this in the continuity ended with the Pope declaring his neutrality in the wars of religion, which was a great boon for our heroes since it badly damaged the case of the mostly-Catholic antagonists. But the last book also had a very bad romance running through it. There's essentially no romance in this book at all. A cardinal working for Spain exceeds his instructions and tries to depose the pope and become the new pope. This would be bad for our heroes, who have just managed to break up the alliance against them. Towards the end, open warfare breaks out.
It's good to see after The Baltic War that things can still go wrong for our heroes, and they go badly wrong. The only groaner is that having just freed those good guys in enemy hands over the course of the Baltic War, we're right back to having some more imprisoned. And the same guy is being sent after them. Come on. I read that plot already. Twice.
As I mentioned in my past review, I've gotten more and more bothered by the absence of gay people in the series. The author went out of his way to get a large cross-section of American diversity into the series, but there hasn't even been an intimation that someone might be gay in all the books...until now. There are two references in The Cannon Law. The first is to a cardinal who the point of view character of the moment thought came across as pretty gay. It was treated neutrally and came across about what you'd expect for someone who had no real issues with gay people.
The second is less flattering, but the protagonist here is maybe eighteen and under a lot of stress. He's being shot at and his wife has been captured by the enemy. One of his early modern Italian friends starts up with a mocking falsetto. The guy laughs, but says he feels guilty about doing so. Well, ok. It's a step. It would be weird if every time homosexuality came up the responses were uniformly positive and he has some pangs of conscience about the fact.
Maybe in another dozen books we'll have an actual gay character show up.
The book before this in the continuity ended with the Pope declaring his neutrality in the wars of religion, which was a great boon for our heroes since it badly damaged the case of the mostly-Catholic antagonists. But the last book also had a very bad romance running through it. There's essentially no romance in this book at all. A cardinal working for Spain exceeds his instructions and tries to depose the pope and become the new pope. This would be bad for our heroes, who have just managed to break up the alliance against them. Towards the end, open warfare breaks out.
It's good to see after The Baltic War that things can still go wrong for our heroes, and they go badly wrong. The only groaner is that having just freed those good guys in enemy hands over the course of the Baltic War, we're right back to having some more imprisoned. And the same guy is being sent after them. Come on. I read that plot already. Twice.
As I mentioned in my past review, I've gotten more and more bothered by the absence of gay people in the series. The author went out of his way to get a large cross-section of American diversity into the series, but there hasn't even been an intimation that someone might be gay in all the books...until now. There are two references in The Cannon Law. The first is to a cardinal who the point of view character of the moment thought came across as pretty gay. It was treated neutrally and came across about what you'd expect for someone who had no real issues with gay people.
The second is less flattering, but the protagonist here is maybe eighteen and under a lot of stress. He's being shot at and his wife has been captured by the enemy. One of his early modern Italian friends starts up with a mocking falsetto. The guy laughs, but says he feels guilty about doing so. Well, ok. It's a step. It would be weird if every time homosexuality came up the responses were uniformly positive and he has some pangs of conscience about the fact.
Maybe in another dozen books we'll have an actual gay character show up.
Let's do the time warp again
No progress on the DVD review project, by the way. I've been having trouble sleeping again and it throws my days off.
I pick up the phone and...
...it's Kim. On her cellphone. I hate those things, by the way. People are always yelling into them in public, using them while driving, and they're always full of static. I just don't like the idea of always being in contact, or potentially in contact, either. Yeah, you can turn off the phone but I've been to enough theaters to know that doesn't happen.
She's on the way over to talk about that documentary. It's an hour before sunset. Kim's good at timing that, late enough to wake me up but early enough to claim it's a mistake and really there's no difference. Ok. I'm completely out of patience.
I mentioned my door policy before. Kim's coming over (She just announced this, no asking.) to irritate me probably for a year or two. She did wake me up. Close enough, and Kim has complained before about "indecent dress". Usually I'm so over-dressed that she probably thinks I agree with her.
I do layers, mostly so it's easy to shed a few if I get too hot or pile a couple on if I have to go out. The insulation in the house isn't great, so it can get a bit nippy this time of year. It's an old house
built back in the 40s, so the insulation isn't great and the heat vents come out along the central line of the house instead of around the perimeter. Along the outside it gets pretty chilly. Big rooms too. The original owner built most of it himself, which I think is pretty cool. The family told us he lived next door with his father and worked on the house with his brothers when they finished work every day. Nice story. His sister lived next door until she kicked off about ten years ago. She got kind of bad towards the end and started coming over asking for him sometimes.
Anyway, I dress warm inside too.
So last year I started using UnderArmour for my bottom layer. It's light and pretty comfortable. I wouldn't use it for anything but underwear, but it does the job. It doubles as pajamas, which I don't know why I wear since I live alone. I guess it's a habit. Since I don't talk about this stuff -even now it's kind of weird- Kim has no idea. Kim's school doesn't even let boys wear short sleeves. Girls have to wear skirts, though.
I was nice. I changed into fresh clothes, even a shirt with long sleeves. I went to the door and unlocked it for Kim, then got away from it because I didn't want to ruin the surprise. She got here about ten minutes later. She knocked and I told her it was open. She comes into the porch and there I am standing in the living room. Kim rolls her eyes.
"Did I wake you up?" she makes it sound like she's never done that and I blame her for it totally without reason.
"Oh, no I was about to get up anyway." I'm all smiles. I didn't even feel embarrassed, which is a first. I mean, they paint this stuff on. I'm one step away from naked. Maybe it'll kick in later.
"Do you want to finish getting dressed?"
"All done; I'm not going anywhere."
"Ok, [Wanderer], you made your point."
"What point? Do you want some breakfast?" Kim's not looking at me. This is really getting to her. By the way, the living room is pretty light on the colors. It's a big blob of almost-white space and I've got the lights on. I usually do; sunlight and I don't get along and I could maybe take an overcast day for a while, but why ruin my fun? This is all paraphrased, by the way.
"You're seriously wearing that?"
"Yeah. It's really comfortable." That's true, actually. Maybe I missed out on the men in tights stigma by being homeschooled.
"But that's not clothes; that's underwear." Kim has her teacher voice out in full force. Sometimes she tells people to do things by thanking them for doing them. This works on kids, I guess.
"No, it's real clothing. Want to see their website?"
"That's ok. Don't you want to put something else on?"
"Nope. I'm good. You wanted to talk about 1968." I laid down on the futon, propping myself up on a couple of pillows. I read that way a lot.
"Could you please put some clothes on?" Kim's really pissed now.
"I could."
"Would you?"
"Why?"
"You're not dressed, [Wanderer]."
"Are my shins making you uncomfortable?" I own a pair of full-length tights (I guess they count as tights? Now I don't know what I think about that.) but they needed washing.
"I didn't come over here to have you make fun of me. I really want to talk with you about that show."
"Kim, I am not making fun of you. This is really what I've been wearing around the house lately. If I get cold, it's very easy for me to throw another layer on. It's comfortable and practical. If you don't believe me, turn on the Olympics sometime."
"Eventually you're going to think differently about these things." This is a threat. Kim thinks everyone's conversion is inevitable, but you might be roasting in Hell before it happens. I'm sure the best thing anyone has to think about in Hell is their fashion choices. Oh Lord, I repent my shin-flashing ways!
Normally at this point I start getting annoyed, but the way she couldn't look at me was really great. You'd think I had snakes in my hair, if I had hair. Anyway, I shrugged.
"I just don't think people should dress like that." Kim's into this fake conciliatory tone now. She thinks I'm going to make some kind of concession. "It's not appropriate."
"Isn't that between me and God?" I actually have read a lot of the Bible, and I've got a great memory. I just don't believe in it. My parents thought it was important that I have a strong background with texts that show up a lot in allusions and are historically and culturally important. There's a copy of the Ramayana somewhere around the house too.
"It will be."
"No, I mean like David in his ephod in front of the Temple. I can be more undignified than this?"
Kim did a double-take. She always forgets that I actually have read the Bible. I think it messes with her head. Apparently non-believers are not allowed, unless they do so with the intention of converting.
"That's not what it really means. This is really bothering me. Please, put some clothes on." Kim still hadn't mastered asking.
"So I was thinking the movie started off evenhanded, but really turned one-sided towards the end."
"[Wanderer], if you're going to be like this then I don't want to talk about it."
"Sorry."
She left. I think I won that one. That almost never happens.
She's on the way over to talk about that documentary. It's an hour before sunset. Kim's good at timing that, late enough to wake me up but early enough to claim it's a mistake and really there's no difference. Ok. I'm completely out of patience.
I mentioned my door policy before. Kim's coming over (She just announced this, no asking.) to irritate me probably for a year or two. She did wake me up. Close enough, and Kim has complained before about "indecent dress". Usually I'm so over-dressed that she probably thinks I agree with her.
I do layers, mostly so it's easy to shed a few if I get too hot or pile a couple on if I have to go out. The insulation in the house isn't great, so it can get a bit nippy this time of year. It's an old house
built back in the 40s, so the insulation isn't great and the heat vents come out along the central line of the house instead of around the perimeter. Along the outside it gets pretty chilly. Big rooms too. The original owner built most of it himself, which I think is pretty cool. The family told us he lived next door with his father and worked on the house with his brothers when they finished work every day. Nice story. His sister lived next door until she kicked off about ten years ago. She got kind of bad towards the end and started coming over asking for him sometimes.
Anyway, I dress warm inside too.
So last year I started using UnderArmour for my bottom layer. It's light and pretty comfortable. I wouldn't use it for anything but underwear, but it does the job. It doubles as pajamas, which I don't know why I wear since I live alone. I guess it's a habit. Since I don't talk about this stuff -even now it's kind of weird- Kim has no idea. Kim's school doesn't even let boys wear short sleeves. Girls have to wear skirts, though.
I was nice. I changed into fresh clothes, even a shirt with long sleeves. I went to the door and unlocked it for Kim, then got away from it because I didn't want to ruin the surprise. She got here about ten minutes later. She knocked and I told her it was open. She comes into the porch and there I am standing in the living room. Kim rolls her eyes.
"Did I wake you up?" she makes it sound like she's never done that and I blame her for it totally without reason.
"Oh, no I was about to get up anyway." I'm all smiles. I didn't even feel embarrassed, which is a first. I mean, they paint this stuff on. I'm one step away from naked. Maybe it'll kick in later.
"Do you want to finish getting dressed?"
"All done; I'm not going anywhere."
"Ok, [Wanderer], you made your point."
"What point? Do you want some breakfast?" Kim's not looking at me. This is really getting to her. By the way, the living room is pretty light on the colors. It's a big blob of almost-white space and I've got the lights on. I usually do; sunlight and I don't get along and I could maybe take an overcast day for a while, but why ruin my fun? This is all paraphrased, by the way.
"You're seriously wearing that?"
"Yeah. It's really comfortable." That's true, actually. Maybe I missed out on the men in tights stigma by being homeschooled.
"But that's not clothes; that's underwear." Kim has her teacher voice out in full force. Sometimes she tells people to do things by thanking them for doing them. This works on kids, I guess.
"No, it's real clothing. Want to see their website?"
"That's ok. Don't you want to put something else on?"
"Nope. I'm good. You wanted to talk about 1968." I laid down on the futon, propping myself up on a couple of pillows. I read that way a lot.
"Could you please put some clothes on?" Kim's really pissed now.
"I could."
"Would you?"
"Why?"
"You're not dressed, [Wanderer]."
"Are my shins making you uncomfortable?" I own a pair of full-length tights (I guess they count as tights? Now I don't know what I think about that.) but they needed washing.
"I didn't come over here to have you make fun of me. I really want to talk with you about that show."
"Kim, I am not making fun of you. This is really what I've been wearing around the house lately. If I get cold, it's very easy for me to throw another layer on. It's comfortable and practical. If you don't believe me, turn on the Olympics sometime."
"Eventually you're going to think differently about these things." This is a threat. Kim thinks everyone's conversion is inevitable, but you might be roasting in Hell before it happens. I'm sure the best thing anyone has to think about in Hell is their fashion choices. Oh Lord, I repent my shin-flashing ways!
Normally at this point I start getting annoyed, but the way she couldn't look at me was really great. You'd think I had snakes in my hair, if I had hair. Anyway, I shrugged.
"I just don't think people should dress like that." Kim's into this fake conciliatory tone now. She thinks I'm going to make some kind of concession. "It's not appropriate."
"Isn't that between me and God?" I actually have read a lot of the Bible, and I've got a great memory. I just don't believe in it. My parents thought it was important that I have a strong background with texts that show up a lot in allusions and are historically and culturally important. There's a copy of the Ramayana somewhere around the house too.
"It will be."
"No, I mean like David in his ephod in front of the Temple. I can be more undignified than this?"
Kim did a double-take. She always forgets that I actually have read the Bible. I think it messes with her head. Apparently non-believers are not allowed, unless they do so with the intention of converting.
"That's not what it really means. This is really bothering me. Please, put some clothes on." Kim still hadn't mastered asking.
"So I was thinking the movie started off evenhanded, but really turned one-sided towards the end."
"[Wanderer], if you're going to be like this then I don't want to talk about it."
"Sorry."
She left. I think I won that one. That almost never happens.
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