seaQuest: Whale Song

I feel chatty tonight, so let's try a recap post. I'm doing this cold. First time I'm watching this episode since the 90s.

Originally aired: February 6, 1994

In the teaser we have the rotted carcass of a whale up on a beach. Only the bones are bleached, yet it looks like they tried to make it look like the bones still had traces of meat on them. That's one confused prop department. Cut to stock footage of a ship, which might actually be a whaler, reeling something in that might actually be a harpoon. Something that may be a wounded whale reels in the water.

Some people on a sub, one of whom is the child of Dom Deluise. I think it's Peter, but I'm not up on my Brothers Deluise except for that Daddy's contracts must stipulate they have to appear in any show he guests in eventually because I don't think I've seen one of them that could act. But I find Daddy Dom annoying too. Maybe I'm a bad judge of these things. Peter will be back next season as a regular. He has a mullet this time.

The guys on the sub discuss how the ship they're watching is a Scandinavian Whaler and it has a catch. So they need to tell their boss, who is brooding alone in his cabin. Also none of them sleep anymore. The boss angsts about how they could turn this ship in, but nobody cares. Because this is seaQuest and the environmentalists are always the villains. Peter Deluise suggests that he's willing to do whatever it takes and the boss wants him to only say that if he really means it. So Peter pinky swears on his mullet and stubble that he really really for gosh, cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-die-stick-a-needle-in-my-eye, means it. Boss tells him to get some sleep, which is kind of assy since they just said no one on the boat sleeps.

More stock footage of the whaler and yeah, it's a real whaler. The sub watches it doing its work and then torpedoes it. We get a good shot of the periscope and a cgi explosion erupts amidships on the whaler. We cut back to the sub before anybody is supposed to notice that there's no smoke and very little fire or foam or anything. Boss says to the boys that they have crossed over. Now they can start their career doing cold reading on the SciFi channel. Solemn looks on the sub.

Credits.

By the way, I caught an episode of Seven Days last night. I think Don Franklin just really is barrel-chested. He's got the same look about him there as he does when he wears his UEO khakis.

Krieg esposits to us about having a perfect orange. It's so perfect. It's so perfect. It's great. It's an orange. He says it's not a real orange. It's a synthetically perfect, engineered fruit. It's no good. He wants one that's bruised or has half a worm in it. Krieg grew up in the old days, back when you could get food poisoning in the military and the crusty surgeon would just kick you in the head a few times until you puked and saw stars. Krieg is complaining to O'Neil, Ortiz, and Ford.

O'Neil tells us it's just breakfast and Krieg should eat his damned eggs already. Ah, but they're not eggs. O'Neil points out that they don't have cholesterol or fat. Krieg rises and starts ranting about how the ship never needs to resupply. All its food is grown in a lab. Who knows what's in it? Uh, I think as the guy who handles all the supplies Krieg should have a good idea. Who knows what this stuff is doing to us?

Ford says he likes it. Of course Ford would. Ford is a mass-produced, genetically engineered stock character. Krieg points out that he doesn't have any breakfast, but Ford just got off watch. he came into the mess, looked at everyone's food, sat down, and let Krieg rant for a while about food. Clearly the man isn't hungry. Krieg is told that it's just food, but he holds up the meat patty and says it's not real meat.

O'Neil, and I like Ted Raimi but he's really annoying in this scene, expositions to us that raising cows was outlawed because of their methane farts damaging the ozone layer. I think some of the writers just really hated environmentalists. Every one of them on the show is a nutball, a psycho, or both. I mean, let's leave aside whether or not bovine feces are an ozone depleter. This is a real theme of the show. We never meet a good environmentalist except for Bridger and we never get to see him being one. He just says he agrees with the aims, but not the methods, of the crazies. The idea seems to be that the real environmentalists are those who fight other environmentalists, who are actually nuts and want to destroy humanity for the sake of a tape worm and salmonella.

Noyce is talking about weather patterns in the North Sea. It can be rough, but three ships in a month or so? And all the ships are whalers? He's on the phone with Bridger. Bridger wants to know why he gets to do this job. Whaling has been illegal since 2000 in seaQuest. Noyce says that so is smoking cigars in restaurants but people still do it. And you know what kind of people? Evil people. They want to steal your teeth and sell them to motivational speakers that honeymoon as voodoo priests. Also they get together once a year in a big convention and make toasts to "Pure evil!" and kicking puppies.

Noyce is talking about how they have trade agreements with these whaling nations. I guess this isn't the UEO anymore, it's just the US Navy. Why would the UEO, a transnational organization, have trade relationships with nations? Anyway, Noyce tells Bridger that he'd better bring a coat and a launch will be waiting for him. But this is a captain's dilemma episode. Are they writing out Bridger or the rest of the cast?

Krieg is on the phone with somebody. The guy on the phone tells him that he will not supply any red meat, real eggs, or alcohol. Besides, Krieg still owes him for the interactive video headsets. That might actually be a reference to a previous episode. Those were stolen, Krieg claims. But the guy on the phone knows that he traded them for a still. I know nothing about brewing, but I could make a still. It's not that complicated. Why did Krieg have to trade apparently expensive video helmets for some buckets and metal tubing? Is he just that dumb?

Phone guy tells Krieg that you can't brew beer from engineered barley. They bred the buzz out of it. Another theme of the show: scientists are always ruining our fun. Krieg claims that two pounds of ground beef is a medical emergency and gets hung up on.

Stock footage of the Pentagon cuts to Bridger in his khakis striding badassedly through a trapezoidal hallway. Two uniformed guys open the doors for him. Bridger walks into the office beyond, all spit and polished. He salutes crisply and a balding, gray-haired general sort grabs the descending hand, pats it, and looks meaningfully into Nathan's eyes as he smiles. They're just going to go up to this place in the Appalachians and watch the herd for a few weeks. Just the two of them.

Grabby General says he wants to keep it informal since they're old friends. Nathan doesn't think so. Bridger gets introduced to two other old military guys and Grabby tries to ply him with liquor. They're off-duty and all that. The two other generals are cutting into a very red piece of meat and suggest Nathan try it. Bridger objects and Grabby sighs about him following the rules. Grabby wants to be called Frank. Then the guys talk to Nathan about seaQuest and science. They ask him if he misses war, but Bridger does not. He wants to know why he's there.

Oh, we lost some whalers. Bridger points out that they were breaking UEO law. Grabby doesn't care if they were floating whorehouses. It's an outright act of aggression. And you know, Grabby has a small point here. These ships were sunk, presumably with loss of life. The fact that they were breaking the law doesn't change the fact that this is murder and piracy on the high seas. Bridger has had a stiffer back about this kind of thing before, albeit with the bad guy stealing his toy boat maybe other variables were in play. Are we meant to believe that Bridger is ok with murdering whalers? That doesn't seem consistent with past characterization. Then again Bridger did punish Lucas for not breaking the rules.

The generals give Bridger the order to hunt down and kill the sub. Bridger tries to bow out, but Grabby says he's got the right boat. Bridger does not catch on that it's being implied he will be removed from the ship if he refuses this mission. Grabby chases off his cronies, gets himself a drink, and repeats the orders.

Nathan protests that the seaQuest is armed with nuclear weapons for search and rescue purposes. Earlier it was science. What will it be next? Next on seaQuest: the waltz competition! Grabby tells Bridger that he will end the careers of everybody on the boat if Bridger refuses. He has twenty-four hours to decide. Bridger gives him the fuck off salute and leaves.

This is an interesting piece of setting. Apparently the military personnel aren't really UEO people. They're Navy people on loan to the UEO. So the US can still blackmail them like this.

A launch returns to the ship like in the credits. Docking bay. Ford welcomes Bridger back. Bridger asks where Lucas is. He needs Lucas badly. He's been in withdrawals. Sorry, that's where my brain went. It gets worse.

Ford says Lucas is sleeping, he thinks. Bridger demands he be roused. I can see the scene now. Lucas is masturbating with Darwin looking on. Darwin says something and Lucas loses his train of thought. He gets up, pants down, and cusses out Darwin. He whines that he can't do it with Darwin watching and then Crocker throws the door open.

"God damn, Lucas, again?!"

Ford and Crocker share meaningful looks.

Bridger's room. He's stroking a model of the seaQuest. There's a knock and it's Lucas. He's wearing his rainbow bath robe and a yellow t-shirt, but he only has one lock of hair out of place. No pillow creases. He doesn't look sleepy at all. He tells Bridger he was having this "dream" about driving these girls to the beach on a motorcycle. Nathan hopes Lucas was wearing his "helmet". Lucas says he just had his underwear on. Bridger promises to let him get back to his "dream" as soon as possible. The boy wasn't asleep.

Lucas has a seat and we cut to a wide enough angle to see his legs. He's wearing some kind of sleep pants or something. Dark green. Nice color, really. I have a hoodie about that shade. Bridger opens up all the great work Lucas has done and Lucas says but there's still more to do. For an unwilling captive on the boat he sure is happy to be there. Bridger says that this has been a great experience to help him decide what to do with his life.

Lucas, absolutely beaming and wide awake, says that this is what he wants to do. Does he mean the military? Science? Just living on the boat? Well maybe he does, maybe not, Bridger floats. Lucas asks if he's being fired. No. But he's being thrown off the boat. Lucas is struck. Brandis managed a little blush there, or maybe it's the makeup. Hard to tell.

Did he do something wrong? Just tell him and he can change! I think we have to accept that Lucas's character arc this season is complete. The ship is his home now. Bridger says it's not Lucas, it's him. He just can't go on cavorting with a teenager like it was legal. People are going to talk, despite the fact that Lucas has continually played hard to get and Nathan can't get past first base. If I were Lucas I don't think a leather-faced old man would do it for me either. Does that mean I'm gay? Does the gay panic defense work if you beat the crap out of yourself, don't actually have a problem with gay people, and aren't actually afraid at any point?

Bridger says he's resigning. Ford will be in charge for the interim and after that, Lucas might not want to be there. Lucas asks what happened at the Pentagon. Bridger tells Lucas the plot. Bridger can't take sides on the issue of executing people vs. whales, since both are illegal I guess. Lucas says that the means might justify the ends and I'm not sure if he's defending the hunt and kill order, or the pirates. Bridger isn't sure what he's going to do and for now he's doing nothing. He's quitting. But Nathan wanted Lucas to hear it from him. Lucas blows him off and storms out, slamming the door. It makes a very wooden sound, just like a metal hatch.

Bridge. Nathan has his resignation letter in Ford's hands and like every other TV person that ever lived, he cannot accept a resignation order. Nathan tells him that his last order is to send it up the chain immediately. He wants to be ashore at first light. He says the boat is no longer his home and they shake hands. Ford calls him Nathan. Crocker is astonished and doesn't want to shake hands. He's holding out for a grope he doesn't get. Bridger walks out. I bet that letter never gets sent.

Moon Pool. Bridger is back in his clothes from the pilot and explaining to Darwin that they will be leaving. Westphalen shows up. She's not in uniform either. She has a tank top, a shirt over it hanging open, and blue slacks. When prompted, she says she doesn't know if she would resign but for Nathan it's the right thing. He thanks her. They start to hug and end up kissing.

Dramatic music plays as another whaler gets in the sites. If we need to be reminded that they're pirates now, Peter Deluise is wearing a white shirt with black horizontal stripes. The sub fires on the whaler. A cgi torpedo misses the whaler, goes right beyond it, and blows up a much bigger ship. It looks like a huge ferry or a cruise ship. The ship is real, but the explosion is CGI. I refuse to believe they could not see that ship behind the other ship when it clearly had to be close and is much larger than the whaler. This is a contrived crisis.

The pirates tell us it's a cruise ship. And the pirate boss gapes.

Nathan is walking along the beach as sad music plays. He's back on his island and listening to a radio report. This is the fourth terrorist attack, and the first time a luxury liner was targeted. How long has he been on the island? Bridger shakes his head and sighs at the news. Then it cuts to telling us that Clinton celebrated his birthday at his home in Arkansas. Darwin jumps in the ocean and Bridger spots him and shakes his head.

Close up of a hand lighting a candle with a match and blowing the match out. It's pirate captain. He closes his eyes and bows his head in front of a collection of lit candles. He walks out and sees the others. One asks what they will do now. Captain Pirate doesn't understand the question. Peter tells us that this is way beyond activism. No, they're just a news blip. Someone will win the lottery or whatever and everyone will forget. Captain Pirate maintains that you're either a soldier or a victim. The others suggest that no, now they are as bad as the bad guys are. It's wrong.

Pirate Captain makes the point that a suitcase bomb and one delivered by jet aren't all that morally different. Ok. Peter Deluise says they're going to leave their captain. And do what? Surrender. They're victims, not soldiers. Whale song plays on the soundtrack.

Bridger is at some kind of palatial resort with a reflecting pool. Same clothes still. It's the home of Nathan's connection, Malcolm. He's from an older episode that I can't be bothered to look up right now because this one is fairly decent even if the plot is completely stupid. Nathan wants to know who is sinking the ships. Malcolm says he's not in that game. Bridger for the first time articulates a sensible point when he says that if he has to pick between people and whales, people win. So...why did he resign again? Nathan says Malcolm knows who did it. He says so did Nathan.

News footage on the screen. A Maximillian Scully was lost at sea. The newsman says maybe it was an assassination. Stock footage of a Greenpeace boat. Malcolm expositions that Scully was blown up by his own bomb and his face is all burned up...which means he has cosmetic scars. He came to Malcolm to borrow money for an old Russian sub that three men could man. Malcolm didn't raise the alarm because he had no idea a guy that liked to blow up whalers would start blowing up whalers again if given a sub that could blow up whalers. Malcolm talks about how people like them like to disappear sometimes. Nathan, Malcolm, the Regulator, and Scully.

The ship. Krieg is hustling along with a bundle. He calls for Lucas as he enters his room. For reasons I prefer not to speculate upon, Lucas's robe is neatly folded up and resting on a stack of boxes. In Ben's room. Turns out Lucas is hiding in the vent. Why? He's a stowaway now. He's dressed in a navy blue turtleneck and a white jersey, which is a pretty good combination. He has to stow away on the ship while Ford is still in charge? Ford would kick him out? Why?

Ben has food, but Lucas isn't hungry. Ben says that Lucas can't sneak around the boat because apparently Ben was supposed to take Lucas to the surface and drop him off. But Lucas says Bridger isn't coming back and he doesn't care. Now when did Lucas develop this powerful attachment to the boat sans Bridger? We've never seen him really be friendly with the guys he's supposed to be friends with.

Ben tells Lucas Nathan did what he thought was right. Nothing. Ben maintains that if Lucas is discovered he's in big trouble. Not a problem, Lucas will say he blackmailed Ben. Something about smuggling beef on board. Ben unwraps the beef, a frozen solid hunk of plastic that the camera is careful not to get close to. Lucas asks how it's coming. Not good. It's been frozen at absolute zero since it was outlawed. So for at least several years this meat has been frozen...and they want to eat it?

Lucas suggests a microwave. If anybody smells it, everyone will want a piece. But it's dead cow! And you haven't lived until you've had it cooked over an open grill with melted cheese and mustard and relish like his father used to make him. This is making things worse. Ben remembers beef from his childhood and Lucas has never had it. So it's probably been frozen for going on twenty years.

Ford calls all off-duty officers and Ben tells him hands off the beef. Lucas says that's no problem. By the way, they all went to the docking bay because Bridger is back. Ford never sent the letter. This is stock dialog for a stock scene for a stock plot. The writers are giving us some good character moments, but they're really phoning in the rest.

We cut to someplace with men cheering as two men in different colors of spandex fight each other. The camera pans to a fat man playing with a pair of joysticks. He's playing Scully. The men in spandex are real actors fighting, but they go all hologram and disappear after the green guy beats the beige guy. That's a very clever way to portray realistic holograms. If only they thought of it for the pilot. Or watched an episode of Star Trek with the holodeck gone awry. I know this is meant to be near future, but if you can get photorealistic, dynamic, 3D holograms like that then there's no excuse for having the Professor in a curtain of mist.

Scully wants to play again. Fat guy says he's played it to death and he's owed a beer anyway. So they get one at the bar. Scully is feeling him out for a job on a whaler. Fat guy is suspicious. They go back and forth about how the pay is good but the Sea Commission will lock you up for life for...whaling? That seems a bit extreme. I could see maybe a minimum security prison term, but life? Anyway Fat Guy decides to hook Scully up. Scully has much better scars in this scene.

Back on the boat, Lucas sneaks into the Moon Pool and turns on the vocorder. He calls Darwin. They start to have a talk and Bridger walks in on them. Apparently he ordered Lucas off the boat. That's not how I interpreted the conversation, but ok. Lucas stammers that they went ashore but Lucas told Krieg he was going to get a tattoo and join the Italian Navy and they would make him wear a speedo and get his entire body shaved except for his head. They'd make him oil up before every shift on duty and as the youngest and prettiest guy on the boat... At this point Bridger gives up.

Lucas explains that the ship is his home. Bridger says he came back because he missed Lucas. Lucas missed him too and does a good job of looking choked up before they hug.

Cut to Krieg's, where he's putting the meat on a grill. He's singing to himself and wearing a Florida State sweatshirt and a backwards baseball cap. Right next to the meat, on top of the grill, is a stainless steel bedpan. I'm not kidding about that. Ben has his hand on it. He throws a few paper packets into it. Then he goes and pulls out a signed bat he starts slicing on with a knife. For fuel, I guess.

Scully is alone in his sub, tracking the whaler he found out about.

Extreme close up of Krieg's burger. All that meat, and there had to be five or six pounds of it, for a single burger? He's fondling it when the alert sounds. It sounds nothing like the normal klaxon, so for a second I thought he set off a fire alarm. But it's just your usual battle stations thing which results in a large band of people marching into the bridge with Westphalen, still out of uniform, at the head.

Bridger tells the crew the stats of the Russian sub. What happened to all these extras? They just walk into the bridge and vanish. Does Weatphalen even have a bridge station?

WHSKR display panning over coral and a whale. Ortiz tells Bridger and they tail the cetaceans. They technobabble and Hitchcock gets a reaction shot. They found the sub in about thirty seconds of effort.A cgi sub chugs along. Bridger babbles course instructions and wants the weapons armed.

Lucas comes into the bridge. The doors are open despite always being closed during alerts. He walks right over to Bridger and explains that he's scared. So's Bridger, so Lucas should go back up Ortiz. This is not the first time the kid's seen combat. Why is an obsolete sub so scary?

Scully spots the seaQuest. The whaler too. He fires on the seaQuest and scores a hit which shakes the ship. Now the bridge doors are closed. They're taking on water. A door closes itself to contain the water. Scully turns to run and Bridger sends Crocker over to arrest the whalers. In mid-fight? The ship takes one shot and knocks the propeller off the Russian sub. Lucas was afraid for this?

Scully refuses to answer the phone, so Bridger gets in a sea crab to go over. He tells Lucas to take it eash and Lucas, who looks slightly embarrassed now, tells him the same. This is the part of the episode where Bridger talks to the crazy guy.

Scully's ship. Bridger walks in on him with his candles. Scully thinks Bridger is there to kill him. Bridger hopes not. Scully cocks his head to show off his scars. He complains about how things shook out. Bridger tells Scully what he is doing is wrong. Scully thinks he's a hero and he has to do it. He starts in on a speech about being frightened for the world, the sea, the whales. He wants to make the final sacrifice for the cause.

Bridger tells Scully he needs to come back and go to jail. Max says that's killing him. But that's ok, Bridger lets him have a moment along with his ship. Max goes right for the torpedoes. He opens a tube and the camera looks at him from inside it. Bridger hears the sound of the tube firing. Scully shot himself out it. Given the dialog, that was no surprise. Bridger goes home and stalks up to the bridge.

He shoots the sub and it cracks in half and blows up. Everyone is very sad. Lucas goes down to Bridger, who tells him to get to sleep. Lucas wants to know if Bridger just killed a man right in front of him. No, that was Scully's choice.

Cut to Scully swimming in the ocean, because the bends would never get him.

Cut to Krieg's burger. He puts some mustard on it as the door gets knocked on. Bridger comes in and thanks Krieg for letting Lucas stay on board. Lucas is like a brother to Ben. Bridger gets this priceless look on his face and says he hopes not. Then he smells the cooked meat behind Ben's back. It's a cheeseburger. A real one. Illegal. Bridger takes it out of Krieg's hands and walks off into the hall with it.

In the hall, Nathan goes to the garbage, looks both ways, and takes a big bite. Another. Then he throws it away.

The End.

As a Captain's Dilemma episode, this is just a complete failure. Scully is totally, obviously in the wrong. Even if the whalers are in the wrong too that does not make him right. I just can't believe any person with a head properly screwed on would have problems with that and indeed Bridger is the only guy in the whole episode who seems to. Since we've seen Bridger repeatedly make it clear he's not going to kill people in the name of the environment, or even gravely inconvenience business, this sudden indecision makes no sense. I care about the whales too, but it's in no way clear to me how they are so important that they could justify acts of piracy and murder. Especially not such as continue unabated even after civilians get in the way. I know there are real people who try to ram and disable whaling ships, but even they aren't sinking the damned things. There's no explanation for how the most extreme and crazy part of the environmental movement is suddenly mainstream in the future, especially considering how it wasn't when Schraeder wanted to turn off all the factories all of two episodes ago.

But as a character episode this serves as a good conclusion to Lucas's arc for the season. I know he never really acted like a prisoner on the seaQuest, and in theory he decided to stay some time ago, this is the first time we really get resolution to it. It's also the first time we see him and Bridger both admitting that they care for one another in a father-son sort of way. In the face of Bridger's personal rejection, Lucas tells the guy he greeted with "who the hell are you?" that whatever Bridger saw as wrong with Lucas, Lucas could change. That's a huge distance. On Everwood, this sort of arc was the whole point of the first season.

We don't spend enough time on it, or with Lucas, for it to have the same impact here. Worse, Lucas vanished for the previous episode and the show has focused on other characters for a while now. The writers didn't earn the good conclusion by building to it and developing the character arc consistently over the season (and this is 16 of 23 so it's a bit early anyway) but once they decided to give us some closure and progress on Lucas's relationship to Bridger and the ship, they did a decent job with relatively few scenes and dialog. Bonus points for establishing that Lucas isn't just looking for a father figure. He stays when Bridger leaves. They don't really sell us on it, but he stayed despite Bridger because he feels at home with and apparently cares for others on the crew.

This would have gone so much better with the deleted scene from Nothing But the Truth too. If that were present, I could buy that Lucas was still a bit fragile with the whole battle under the seas business. There he turned to Westphalen, who Bridger kissed this episode. I know it's not really in the genre, but those three could have made an interesting family-esque dynamic. It would possibly have done a lot to ground the show in its goofier moments. Plus it puts the reason the teenaged girls were supposed to watch in the featured position. Except for standing around, being the doe-eyed victim a few times, and flashing dimples, they didn't really write Lucas as a teenaged sex symbol. I know he was probably on Seventeen or Tiger Beat or whatever, but at least so far they haven't really trotted him out in tight clothes and he's only had one spotlight episode that was really about him.

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.

More seaQuest incoming

Just watched another one. I realized that trying to watch the episode cold and review it at the same time wasn't working out well for me. I'm ok for the first act or so but then I get more and more harried as the episode goes on. So I'm going to try watching once and then coming back and watching again for the review and evisceration.

So tonight I did the cold watch of Nothing But the Truth. It's Die Hard on a Sub, I think. I've never seen Die Hard, but they filmed part of the second one around here. Mercenaries bought by a militant environmentalist take over the boat while it's got a skeleton crew. Lots of Lucas, Ford, Krieg, and Hitchcock with a much smaller dose of Crocker and all the cameos Roy Scheider could film in a single day, but it's very good for a bottle episode that's just ripping off a movie.

Later tonight or tomorrow I'll do the usual treatment.

seaQuest: Knight of Shadows

It's This One. The one with the ghosts on the sunken ship. The point at which the show completely gives up one of its major conventions. You could sort of look past the psychics in Treasures of the Mind since their powers were handled vaguely. They just "felt" things like TV psychics claim to do while playing twenty questions. That's not too big a deviation from reality. Next season, the new doctor will find a hair piece that turns her into Jean Grey, but at this point the show had been trying to maintain scientific plausibility. Here's where it goes straight to hell for a generic ghost story.

You know, I can see the problem for the writers. The ship can't plausibly go to a planet of the week and meet the new set of metaphor-driven crinkly foreheads. Without that, what do you have? This was probably written in late '92. At the time, doing a story arc on weekly TV was very uncommon unless it involved rich women clawing each other in the pool. If they'd gone that way, the show probably could have managed with the more mundane arrangement. You don't have to invent wonder particles or the planet next door to justify having something happen. But it would have demanded they think out their world a lot more too. My dim memories of season three (which I don't think I'm buying unless it's really cheap) suggest that they finally woke up to that too late.

Ok. I guess it's time to turn the thing on. Come, let us mock together.

Originally Aired: October 31, 1993

Cheesy generic black photo album. Bridger is looking at shots of his wife and his dolphin. He takes one of his wife out and talks to it before shoving it into the scanner like Lucas suggested six or seven episodes ago. He's telling the image of his wife "a love story". He's trying to explain it in terms of temporary insanity.

Flashback. He's in bed the night previous. Bridger has a big wooden bookcase in his room. He's reading a book and the mist curtain comes on. The professor is giving him directions. Bridger gets up to take a look. He plays with the controls. No response. The directions keep repeating.

He phones Lucas. Lucas is sleeping in a seaQuest t-shirt.
"Lucas, the hologram is babbling."
"So?"

Lucas says he didn't do anything. Bridger wants him to come over and look at it in the middle of the night. While he waits for Lucas he pages through what looks like it's supposed to be a ship's- nope, charts. A ghostly hand reaches out, touches him, and a woman's voice asks Bridger to help them.

He says what and Lucas, in a rainbow-striped bathrobe, asks what. He looks at the controls. Bridger had the repeat key locked. They have the usual conversation where Lucas asks if he's ok. Bridger is fine. He turned off the mist curtain, but now it's back on and showing a woman asking for helm. A man's translucent face rises up and tells Bridger to get away. It shoots out of the mist and knocks him across the room.

When Lucas came into the room he was hitching his robe closed. Did he have it dangling open the whole way over? If he wanted to be covered (and in a t-shirt why does he need to be covered?) wouldn't he have seen to that before he left home? Did he forget to put on underwear? Honestly, if the kid sleeps in a t-shirt, he's probably covered all the important stuff too.

Credits. Extended credits with thunder and lightning. Wisconsin had a cheese shortage in '93. IT was all here.

Bridger is telling Westphalen about how he woke up strangely invigorated. She's dabbing at his back. She tells him that he fell out of bed. He was not hurled by a ghost. Bridger wants a meeting with some scientist who does hypnotic regression. It's the scientist from last episode. He's asking about the vision.

Ford wants to know where they're going and why. This is his only scene all episode.

The scientist, Levine, is Freuding about the vision. Bridger says he wasn't dreaming. O'Neil is getting music, which Bridger wants to hear. Generic spooky music ensues. It wasn't Bridger's wife. Ortiz is getting an echo on sonar. It's a ship! The CGI shows a choppy outline of a ship. That's good bad CGI for once. I can buy a sonar display putting out something like that. Then they get visusals and Bridger wants to send the probe in. This gives Hitchcock something to do, but her breasts aren't out so I think the writers got confused. CGI of a WHSKR running around a CGI shipwreck even though Hitchcock uses those controls pictured to use the hyper-reality probe.

Ward room. Crocker is explaining the story of the Titanic, er, George, about how the ship slowly sank and only two people died. Bridger is complaining that a life boat would not have made it six hundred miles in two days and there was this woman. Krieg (he's senior staff? Lucas I can sort of buy as a special dispensation, but the morale officer?).

They put up a newsreel. It's the woman from Bridger's vision and she's the owner's wife. Another guy in the newsreel looks directly at the cast for a second. As they break up, the paused video has the bad guy turn and look at Bridger and Westphalen again.

Hallway. They just got out of the maglev. Lucas is wearing his baseball jersey, white, over a gray t-shirt. Jeans. Why is he with them?

Bridge. Hitchcock is expositioning about how the stacks are covered and sealed so some stuff inside might have air in it. There's also a light on inside. Crocker spits and declares the ship haunted. Crusty, superstitious sailors are never wrong on TV. Westphalen asks what was said by the ghost and Bridger conveys the "help us" line. Lucas gets a reaction shot.

Lucas's room. He's in the dark with a flashlight under his face goofing off. Doctor Levine wants him to come along to the shipwreck, which isn't at all endangering a minor. Lucas is game. Levine gravely tells him that they're entering a world where logic and science do not apply and all we have to depend on is myths and superstition? How did this guy get his PhD? What is it in? He was a geneticist or an epidemiologist last episode. Did Levine send away for his doctorate to a place advertised during an episode of Unsolved Mysteries?

I paused right here to type that all up because I'm sure the next dialog is even worse. Right now Lucas is frozen with his mouth half-open and looking terrified. The collar on his shirt is very wide. Until now his clothing has usually fit. Wouldn't this run afoul of some navy regulation? I guess myths and superstitions are all we have to decide with.

Lucas was apparently not stunned and instead amused. He proclaims this very cool. I'm guessing this is on the level of a carnival ride for him, so I can buy it. Lucas doesn't so far come across as gullible enough to buy that spiel normally. Bridger explains that Lucas is coming along as a bodyguard. Because he has a whole boat of heavily-armed soldiers trained for combat, so an untrained blonde teenaged boy with an IQ in the stratosphere is the logical protector for them all.

Levine explains that in many legends (Is his doctorate in folklore?) that children are immune to the effects of the paranormal. Apparently because they're the most likely to believe in it without help. Lucas protests that he is not a child. Bridger smirks. "We know you're not a child, but you're the closest thing we have to one."

Lucas: "You two really believe this boat is haunted?" He's dubious and I think wondering about the advisability of letting a man like Bridger have control of nuclear weapons. By the way, in the real world field commanders usually have to get the ok from a head of state and a secretary of defense to launch.

Bridger: "Yes...I don't know what that means, but we feel we have to pursue it." He talks about how this is what science is all about and...ok. Sort of. I don't think many real scientists would waste a lot of time on Crocker's sea tales, except for the one about this brothel in Panama that he can neither confirm nor deny.

Tiny minisub with no changing room. No one has changed clothes, but Lucas is wearing a jean jacket over his jersey. They dock with the wreck, seal, and open up. At this point, Westphalen remembers that oxygen under pressure for a century might be dangerous. They could get the bends. She has badges to let them know if the air goes bad. Oh, they had to cut through a lock.

Levine tells them to keep imaging the white light of their aura all around them. What if they don't have white auras? Bridger confirms the air is safe. Crocker demands he spit before he goes in. So do the other sailors. Lucas's jacket is his seaQuest denim shirt which was normal clothing, not outerwear, a few episodes ago.

Hitchcock wants Bridger to see the generator. Turns out it's been rigged to provide power. They also have membranes set up to extract oxygen. As Westphalen talks about this the machines come to life and she freaks out when she sees a skeleton. Turns out it's a guy that shot himself through the head. Crocker says suicide on a ship is really dangerous. Bridger offers to let him wait on the launch.

Levine explains that spirits hang around to finish past business. Hitchcock gets sent off to a lower deck so they don't have to pay her for the rest of the week.

Stateroom on the wreck. Westphalen isn't feeling well.

Lower decks, Hitchcock foils their plans by showing up again in the episode. She finds a flooded cabin with a skull floating in it. The porthole has been sealed with candle wax. Two bodies, maybe part of the band. So far they're up to four people who were not on the ship's manifest.

A door opens beside Lucas after Crocker checks it and finds it closed. White fabric is pulled just out of sight from the door. Westphalen is yanked in and there's a ghost in a white dress. They try to open the door, but the handle was on fire. Now it's not and it's cold for Bridger.

Inside. Westphalen approaches the ghost and it vanishes. Male ghost claims she is meddling with forces she can't comprehend. Male ghost expositions about how they need to go. It knocks Westphalen over and she finds a diary or something. He explains that this is his personal hell and is about to hit her when he sees the diary open. Cheesy FX of lightning play over the ghost's body. He reads in the diary "I hate him!" and starts howling in despair. Everyone hears and then the door is blown open.

They help Westphalen up and she's calling it "her" diary now. Crocker is spreading salt. Lucas wants to know why, and it's to keep the devils away. They spit for good luck.

Westphalen is speaking of the ghost in the first person and crying. Lucas is paging through the diary. He notices that the diary entry for hating the ghost is a year and a half after the ship sank. Lucas has a baseball cap on backwards. Bridger somehow knows that the diary is for the woman he saw. He reads about how the author met a man that caused her to swoon by appearing.

Levine is the only one to catch on that Westphalen is possessed still and tells Bridger. He's supposed to be a scientist and he didn't notice before?

Hitchcock phones that the engine room is a wreck and seems deliberately flooded. Bridger wants to go down, but asks Lucas to stay close to Westphalen. She comes out in the ghost's dress and asking to be zipped up. She hears music. Crocker doesn't want Bridger off on his own, probably because he needs a hug. Bridger goes anyway.

Hallway. Lights go off and the male ghost tells him to get away. Bridger blows him off. New hallway is lit green and has fog in it like an 80s music video. Manghost wails and howls and comes forward out of the mist. It demands Bridger get off its ship. Bridger stands and says no. Lights come up. Ghost vanishes but says Bridger's name. Then it chuckles after demanding he leave again. Ghostman isn't all that stable.

Bridger finds Hitchcock and tells him the way. Bridger doesn't buy it and opens one of the "locked" doors easily. That's supposed to be the ghost, but I think Hitchcock is just dumb. Dining room now. Somebody is laid out on the table, the engineer. Bridger says the others must have been stowaways. Hitchcock checks out a dance card with one Lillian booked in it. An epitaph written on paper explains who the stiff is.

Bridger phones for Crocker to read the diary. Westphalen starts echoing it and stands up. She walks out and Crocker and Lucas follow. Crocker is still reading from the diary even as Westphalen recites. They reach a door and she faints. Crocker could have held the phone to her face. They're outside the captain's door now and it's bleeding. Looks like chocolate syrup.

Levine explains that this is the spirit's safe place. The blood is a manifestation of fears. Crocker is fed up and tries the door. It burns him. "That's a much better trick."

Lucas is reading the diary and expositions about how the captain sunk the ship, for Lillian apparently. Bridger wants in the room. He tries the burning handle, and it lights off before he touches it. He tries again, more fire. there's a bad rushing gas noise when it lights up. Crocker suggests Lucas burn his hand. Lucas is not thrilled about the prospect. Bridger says they need the ship's log. Lucas drops a log in his jeans. Brandis gives us that weird open-mouthed expressin again and reaches out. The handle does not burn him. It looks like makeup was hiding a little bit of acne on his temple.

He opens the door and steps in, then flames rise up behind him in a big wall and he does the usual recoiling from it thing. The door slams shut and he's inside with fire all around and manghost. Possessed Westphalen wanders off and Crocker goes with. Bridger wants to know if Lucas is ok and Lucas yells that he's ok. he found the log book. The fire is real, but nowhere near Jonathan Brandis. You can tell in the profile shots.

Manghost submits. Tells Lucas to tell Bridger to go to the ball room. Lucas stares down the ghost and the fires go out. He soberly takes the log. Manghost explains he didn't know about the stowaways. Lucas explains how manghost kept Lillian and her guy on the ship. Lil's guy died without guilt and was free to pass on. Lil is stuck here by her guilt too. Manghost doesn't know why Lil is guilty.

The two of them establish the escape clause to end the haunting. Manghost apparently never thought to ask Lil to let him go. Lucas suggests asking.

Ball room. Bridger walks in on Westphalen waltzing by herself. Another person is laid out in a white dress. Must be Lil. Bridger confirms it. Westphalen is just dancing randomly. I think Stephanie Beecham knew how to waltz because it looks fairly real. Bridger asks why she's here. She can't leave. Bridger asks if her hatred is keeping her here. She says it's manghost, who just arrived with Lucas in tow.

Manghost doffs his hat and tells Lilcorpse he never wanted it to be this way. He releases her to go to her guy. Then he touches the corpse and asks to be forgiven. Translucent Lil rises from the corpse and forgives. Manghost thanks her.

A white light descends from the ceiling and her guy has arrived, in black and white, to pick her up. She goes to him. They kiss. Now he's in color. Lil's guy beckons for manghost and he goes. They're beamed up. Westphalen groans in pain and notices their bad air badges are lit up. They all take their inhalers (sports bottles with mouthpieces) and suck once.

Epilogue. Bridger reads the log to his wife's hologram to explain the plot. Then he turns it off. Pan across the floor. Bridger's bad air badge turns red and manghost laughs.

That was the most pointless episode to date. Not a second of actual tension. The cast just walked into a play starring other people and played with special effects for an hour. Terrible. It's a bad gothic romance that fits the series not at all. We learn nothing about anybody we should be caring about except that Levine (a recurring redshirt) reads ghost stories and Crocker is superstitious. Given how much a stock character Crocker is, that's not news. What were they thinking? Wait! Don't tell me:

Originally Aired: October 31, 1993

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.

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.

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.

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.