seaQuest: Greed for a Pirate's Dream

This is in my head now that I just made a comment on it, so I probably better do it now before I forget the episode again.

Remember that large, pompous scientist from early in the season? The one that wanted to shove a suppository into a magma tube? Well he's back because it just popped out, shot in a beautiful arc across a not-really-deserted island, and landed. So he's back to retrieve it and get its data.

On the island are a band of treasure hunters. They want the French crown jewels. If you're not up on the story, rioters stole the lot during the revolution. Most of the collection was recovered, but then France sold them off in 1885. So the notion that you could find a large Tower of London-style collection buried somewhere by pirates in the late 1700s (This is the timeframe indicated in the dialog.) is daft. If you want to see a notable piece, the Hope Diamond is surrounded by gawkers in Washington. It was cut (Yeah, there was a bigger diamond.) from one of the major pieces.

So there's this band of treasure hunters and the seaQuest comes to the island, minus Bridger and Lucas, to get the "magma buoy". It's top secret for reasons that are never made clear. Is volcanology a major security issue in the future? Since the suppository landed on the island, odds are it's going to explode pretty soon. Ford tries to warn off the treasure hunters, but they aren't hearing it and he's not backing down on the secrecy thing. Much wringing of hands ensues, including one of the loopier treasure hunters firebombing a launch and marooning Ford, Krieg, the guest star (he didn't have to change his clothes!) and some redshirts. So they're all going to die, except they're not because Westphalen illegally takes command of the ship and orders torpedoes fired on the magma tube to open it up early and release the pressure short of the island.

There are two uncompelling conflicts in the episode. The first is Ford's desire to save the treasure hunters vs. the need (never explained) to keep the suppository secret. This is treated like a huge command dilemma for him, but no effort was made to set it up. They tell us that the magma buoy is very, very secret. Ok, but why? Not one line of dialog explains why Ford should want the secret kept except that he's a mindless drone with his orders. We either have to believe that, or believe Ford is some kind of amoral, careerist monster, to think this is a serious dilemma for him.

The second conflict is entirely about the treasure hunters, guest stars we have never seen before, will never see again, and thus don't care about. One of them is very obviously cracked, another has an unrequited love affair. Big deal. They have to decide to give up the dream they've invested years in (none of which we have seen) or risk their lives for what for most of the episode is not a credible threat to them.

Then it ends with a save that lets everyone win. Ford does the right thing. Westphalen saves them. The treasure hunters get their treasure. No one has to give up anything and everyone wins. We close with a crack about how the UEO says Westphalen only needed five torpedoes, not nine, to save everybody. Who is going to pay for them?

Weak. This show has a very bad habit of undermining its own good ideas and this episode is no exception. It's hard to care about the treasure hunters because we're never given a motive aside eccentricity and greed. It's hard to care about Ford's dilemma because it's a no-brainer. With some dressing up and a few changes, the episode could be much stronger. There's no reason the guest stars needed a perfect ending. They could have gotten away with one identifiable piece to vindicate themselves but at the cost of a few lives. That would have put some teeth in the greed in the title.

I'm debating how I want to handle future episodes. A lot of the recent crop have been stinkers that are fairly hard to write about. Watching them twice isn't helping. I think I might do recaps on episodes that have something going for them, or some particularly funny gaffes, and just do reviews like this or the earlier entries for more mundane episodes. That still provides the recaps when it's fun for me, but lets me move on gracefully when they aren't. The guys at TV Without Pity must have incredible stamina.