seaQuest: seaWest

Before I begin the scheduled, if delayed, evisceration, I want to say that's the least creative title ever. I know writers have trouble titling episodes, so we usually get puns or something. I've heard of a Canadian show where all the titles are the names of songs from the 80s. Is it wrong that I want to rename this episode Brokeback Bridger? You see Bridger was touring a boat when he caught sight of Lucas across the Moon Pool. He'd never thought of being with a dolphin; he was even married to a human woman for a while, but Lucas would show him the way.

I'm in the gutter tonight, but I'm looking at the stars.

Originally aired: November 28, 1993. One hopes that was after sweeps. If this was meant as a sweeps-spiking attention-grabber...

Universal bump. Again. And again.

New Ausland Confederation. The Great Barrier Reef. Gorgeous underwater photography. Murky CGI of a launch going out. We've seen this before. Ford and Krieg are inside and I missed what Krieg is worried about. A cave in? He wants to know what would happen if you die while living on the CGI mountain with a CGI base that looks like a fountain on it. Ford says he'd die.

They dock and now Bridger is on the boat too. With Crocker. They're talking about finding out what happened. Crocker has people waiting on the seaQuest in case anything happens over here on the mining base where the captain and the second in command are walking in blind. I'm sure they'll be very helpful in a montage where they look on with expressions of concern. The guys are in their UEO khaki because...why? When they've gone over to other place underwater before it's always the normal jumpsuits. Or less, like when Hitchcock bounced her chest in Lucas's face and made Jonathan Brandis's month.

The awet team finish their pow-wow and a very bad Aussie accent comes over the intercom welcoming them and telling them to go to customs or something. They walk in and find people wandering about, including two women in a yellow golf cart. Everyone seems decidedly un-distressed for having made a distress call. Nobody notices that these strangers in uniforms who could be after their pot have arrived. Bridger walks over to the side of a beat up trailer (I'm serious) sitting in the same cave set that was Leslie's Pleasure Prison last episode. A sign says the supervisor will be back in fifteen minutes. He's making his rounds, checking the hydroponics, sampling the product.

The awet team (Shut up, I think that's clever.) saunter to their next marks and the camera pans over to a buck-toothed boy in brown hair. Did I mention everyone is dressed in dusty earth tones among the miners? But no one has a jumpsuit, even though you think lots of falling dirt would militate in favor of garments with fewer places for sand to get in. The buck-toothed kid calls out for his father with some trepidation. He remembers when the revenuers finally chased down the General Lee, cornered the Duke Boys, and shot them fuller of holes than a Crocker McCrocketer Texas McCrocketer Texas Holey Thing.

Dad is miner type in earth tones. He could use a shave. He informs his son that he has seen the gentlemen in their strangely identical dress and swings his hardhat down to block his son's chest. That's a good move. I don't think Crocker's good enough to manage the head shot. Lucas probably could, though. I bet Bridger approves of him playing ultra-realistic first person shooters on a rig that gives him a hit of cocaine every time he scores a direct hit on the center of mass. It's part of his learning discipline and not to use his brain too much or he could get weird and go crazy.

The show going on in my head is so much better than the one on the screen.

Dad hands over the hardhat and his lunch box, which is right out of 1933, and tells the kid to take them home. Mom is to be informed that he shall be home as soon as he can, but she should start flushing now.

Ominous music plays as the awet team rounds a corner and enters the honky tonk. The music cuts out and everyone stares. Shot of the awet team, the least cool people in the room and since these are miner cowboys that's a pretty rough competition. Then the music comes back on. Bridger says he doesn't think they'll bite. No, just the episode.

Bridger decides to ask around. They stroll in formation into the crowd. Bridger gets to the bar and asks after Mr. Cobb, who hasn't been in yet. The bartender refuses to give Bridger more than a drink. Dad, who I think is Cobb, wanders in and sits down.

Krieg's at another table plying women with liquor. They point out that no one around seems all that distressed. The women are the entertainment. They're "singers". Krieg's too sleazy to be missing these lines but the actor isn't swinging it. He's just got this wide-eyed, guileless expression on his face like he has no idea what's going on. He asks how they got booked to a place like this and they say they're not very good singers, but this is a good place to be bad and "polish their act". Krieg misses the irony by a mile and wishes them good luck. They should have given this scene to Lucas. Brandis could have spotted the sleaze and then bugged out without wrecking his character. If Ben is what we've been lead to believe he is he should already have his pants off. The dialog could have read that way too. Who changed the plan?

Ford and Crocker come up to a poker game. They exposition to the bit players about getting a faint distress signal that vanished before they could pinpoint it, but they think it's from here. So there could have been pirates? A disaster? Nuclear core meltdown? Crazy virus? Psychopath on the loose? Besides Locke? And they send over the chief of security, ok. The first officer, ok. The morale officer because he's no loss after splicing single frames of Disney animated features into the crew's stash of porn, and the Captain? But no redshirt security? No doctor? Are they trying to facilitate a decapitation strike on the seaQuest? They didn't even scan the air or anything.

One of the poker players claims that he is the only person in distress. He claims it was a false alarm. They go away.

Dad furrows and then gets up. He goes to the pool table, says he heard what Ford said about his wife, and starts a fight. He manages to get Ford on his back on the pool table and they do some abdominal thrusting. He pulls himself on top of Ford as Berry White starts playing. Dad leans in so close, their lips almost touching, as the actor hurriedly rattles off that Ford please help them.

Ford tries to get up and there's a shotgun in his face. Oh, that's Frank Cobb. The sheriff. He asks if there's something he can do for Ford.

Credits. Beneath the surface lies...nothing at all this episode. No extended credits.

Exterior shot of the mine and seaQuest. Buck-toothed kid is hiding behind something and watching the arrest of the awet team. Or something like that. Cobb is expositioning about how this is a small town, a family, really. They're suspicious of strangers in uniform because of an unfortunate incident with a Mormon serial killer.

Ford sidles up to Dad and tries to find out what's going on with Cobb millimeters away because Ford is retarded. Dad is not. He just sits. I guess his name is Lennie. Cobb says he sent men over to Lennie's place to reassure his wife...until Cobb decides what to do with him since he's already figured out that Lennie sent the SOS. Cobb says Lennie's wife is a lovely woman. He talks about Lennie's kid, who is eight. His name is...Gibbon?

Sherrif goes on about it being a misunderstanding and tells the awet team to go away. Bridger wants to know who phoned home. Cobb says he doesn't know, but if anyone had he would have heard of it. Then he smarts off about how the UEO doesn't give a crap until they hit something good in the mine. Now the UEO cares. Makes a man wonder.

Bridger says he doesn't understand. Cobb thinks this is a pretense for taxation and tells Bridger to shove off. Poker guy has a toothpick in his mouth. Bridger leans in on Cobb, kisses him wetly on the cheek and tells him they still have a distress signal to track down. They walk away about two feet and then the awet team has a palaver. Turns out Krieg read the speech as notice to get out of town by sundown. Bridger informs him that is the correct reading.

Ford shares about his touching moment with Lennie and Bridger agrees, but this isn't the place to discuss it. Later, at home, with some Berry White on.

Launch. Ford says they have to go back, but this is not UEO territory and they can't go back without an invitation. Then a dog starts barking. It's under the deck and has a note. The pink marker on the note pleads with the awet team. They must come back because the kid doesn't want his daddy hurt. Ford reads the note because Bridger is secretly illiterate.

Ward Room. Lucas is looking smart in a blue-green and black jersey and a dark shirt. Seriously, that's a neat combination for him. He's explaining what placer deposits are because Levine is busy polishing his crystals and exorcising O'Neil's underwear drawer. Westphalen can't do it because she's in the life sciences. Or that's what would be the case if this show paid attention to continuity. So Lucas gets exposition duties. The entire cast, minus Westphalen, is in the ward room.

Ford wants to know why they don't just send security over. Bridger wants someone to go over to ask questions. He suggests the pretense of sending an entertainer, by which he means a prostitute. Singers, comedians, they take their genitals on a spin through Broken Ridge on a weekly basis. Bridger thinks Krieg is a good candidate because he doesn't mind the thought of Krieg being killed, or made to squeal like a pig, and because they've already seen Krieg and will thus never recognize him if he comes back with a different name and cover story. Krieg claims he doesn't have an act.

But Krieg called his guy Murray who wanted to buy the squid feces. Murray says the miners are mostly single men who want female entertainers no matter how bad they are. Hitchcock immediately hops forward and says she can be bad. So that's what ended her marriage with Krieg. How bad would she have to be to scare Krieg away? Does she douche with rattlesnakes and use Limburgh cheese as deodorant?

Everyone stares. Apparently it has dawned on them that she's volunteering to entertain the rape gang. She maintains that she can sing, if not very well. Krieg says she sings in the shower. Hitchcock asks if he wants her to shower for the miners of Brokeback Ridge. Don't think so. Best send Lucas. Ben says he just doesn't want her to go in there unprotected. Cobb's a tough man. Hitchcock refuses to ask someone else to do it. Bridger makes sure she's sure.

We see the same CGI of a launch docking at Broken Ridge again. Lennie's kid has grungy clothes from before on, but an immaculate pair of acid wash jeans. He glances around and threads through the crowd, which is full of women dressed for 1936. The men are all glad to see them. Hitchcock is welcomed by Cobb personally. He offers to help Hitchcock with her bag, and later maybe her funbags.

Honky Tonk. Cobb shows off his stash of gold and says that men are going to try to get hitched. Cobb wants her for himself. He's into her eyes. Cobb says it looks like they're hiding something, but he's going to find out what. Cobb's mother had Hitchcock's eyes. She kept them in a small box. Cobb asks to be entertained. Hitchcock wanders off to find her quarters.

Lennie's kid is out in the hallway coloring. Hitchcock comes up to him and chats him up. She floats the story about the dog. The kid turns his gigantic eyes, like a tarsier's eyes, to Hitchcock and tells her that the dog's name is Banjo.

Cut to Banjo in Lucas's room, barking at Darwin. He's telling Bridger it wasn't easy to find, whatever he found. Bridger is leaning in on the screen. Westphalen has her hands on her hips and is demonstrating to the viewer why it is that Hitchcock gets all those scenes despite having no personality at all. It is...the personnel files for the base. Lennie apparently owns the mineral rights. Everyone on the mine works for him. That doesn't make sense, unless there was a mutiny. That's all delivered in the lame round of dialog where each character finishes the last's sentence. So the miners mutinied and are holding Lennie hostage to get him to sign over his rights to the mine. Cobb is the ringleader.

Lennie is explaining this to Hitchcock with his wife at the table too. Lennie's wife says the mutiny happened almost five years ago, when it was a smaller operation. Cobb just brings in his own men since. Lennie tells us that any rebellion would be taken out on his wife and kids. Cobb already killed his father. Lennie explains that they're still alive because the land was given away under the Homestead Act. You couldn't take the land unless you worked it for five years, so every bit of gold on it has to be sold under Lennie's signature. Time is almost up. But that makes no sense because until Lennie actually owns the land it's not really his minerals anyway. Once he owns it, how is the ownership problem resolved? If they said he would be forced to deed it over to Cobb, fine. But the writers didn't do that so nothing makes sense. Hitchcock pulls out her phone and tries to call, but gets zero bars. Lennie knows a good place, though.

Mines. Lennie tells her it's a deserted mine shaft. They're wearing hardhats with lights on them. Hitchcock sends Lennie away and calls Bridger. Lennie walks right into Cobb, who has been looking for him. He heard about Lennie associating with Hitchcock. Lennie says she likes kids. They had coffee. Nothing happened.

Come on, Cobb, what do you think she's doing here? Lennie says that she's looking for a husband, like most women who come here. No, they're looking for a couple of fifties on the dresser. Talking costs extra. Cobb says she's not at all like most women. Then he hits Lennie and knocks him back into a barrel or something. He presses about who Hitchcock is. Lennie isn't answering. Hitchcock is watching. Cobb slams Lennie up against a cabinet. From Lennie's POV we see a shovel slowly come into frame. Cobb says he wouldn't like to have to take this up with Lennie's wife.

The shovel gently touches Cobb's head and he collapses. Seriously. They weren't even trying to make that look like a hit. Hitchcock pulls back the shovel and looks down at Lennie.

Exterior. Darwin is swimming around and a WHSKR looks at some structure marked seven. It's a mine shaft. Krieg thanks Darwin. Ortiz asks Bridger if it's a back door. Why would Ortiz be asking this kind of question of Bridger? The exposition makes sense. Each shaft would have an exit to dump crap out without hauling it back through the main building where everyone lives. But why is Bridger answering Ortiz's questions? Why is Ortiz asking? We didn't need that dialog to justify the exposition. Bridger wants to use that shaft as the escape hatch for the rescuees.

Hitchcock hurries up to the Sutters. That's the rescuees. She says they have to go now, but Lennie isn't hearing it. He just washed his hair, the wife just put the heat on under the crock pot, and the kid is de-worming the dog. Also Cobb isn't going to let them get near the docking bay. So they just left Cobb in the mine? Wouldn't tying him up have made sense? Even if his men would rescue him, you'd be buying yourself time. As soon as he wakes up, he's going to come to de-worm the wife and child.

Hitchcock explains about the back door. Now it makes sense to them. The guest stars are dumb and need to be handheld through every step of the plot.

Docking bay on seaQuest. They're loading up the rescue awet team. Ben tries to get on and Bridger stops him, but Ben complains about being responsible for Katie agreeing to be rape bait for justice. Bridger yields.

Cobb's trailer. He's pretty even-tempered for a guy that got nailed on the noggin. Hitchcock walks up to him and asks about his head. Just a little accident in the mine. Cobb's retarded. Seriously. He had a fight with Lennie, got KOed, and didn't immediately go to take it out on Lennie? Hitchcock starts coming on to him.

Mines. Lennie glances around and leads hiw wife and kid down. People are all over. Not one of Cobb's men thinks this is suspicious?

At the launch Ford advises his men to be invisible. They're in civilian clothes.

Honky Tonk. Cobb thinks Hitchcock is trying to sneak away without singing for him. He's waited long enough. Hitchcock goes over by the band. The guy on guitar jerks his instrument suggestively. Hitchcock rubs her butt, shakes it, and linpsynchs to a recording of a real singer.

Mine. Lennie and family wait.

Other mine. Ford comes across some miners and motions for his men to wait.

Bar. Hitchcock plays Jessica Rabbit.

Mine. Miners are tied up. Ford and his awet team find the Sutters. Ben asks after Katie, who is with Cobb. Ben and Ford head off to rescue her. Except not Ford. He's going to wait in case she shows while the least competent member of his team goes to do the hardest job. Great command decision.

Ben finds Katie in the bar. She's reaches down and gropes a man's crotch before going over and getting on Cobb's lap for a bit. She spots Ben and slinks away across the bar, continuing to flirt and touch the men. She's very obviously making her way over to Ben and pushes against him. Cobb recognizes him and raises the alarm.

Mine. Ben and Katie run through and Ford barricades the mine because, why? But Cobb came the other way anyhow. He has a gun and is now between Cobb and the airlock. Ben closes the door behind them.

Cobb phones and tells Hitchcock how much he liked the song. Ford gets a punch in the kidneys. He wants to trade hostages. Ford tells them to bugger out. Katie tells them to get back to seaQuest.

Bridger's. Bridger is telling the Professor about his new dilemma. The Prof asks what he's about to do. Bridger gripes about how Cobb has the whole town cowed and Bridger wants to give Cobb a fight. That makes Bridger no better than Cobb. Then the AI gets brains. It asks Bridger if Cobb is able to stage a real fight against the ship. No. Then where is his power? The town. Why do they give him the power? Bridger looke thoughtful. Seventh time we've had this CGI of a launch heading to the mine. Bridger, Katie, Crocker, Ben, and Lennie are on board.

Bridger tells Lennie everything will be ok. Lennie wants Ford to come back safe because Ford saved his family, etc. Bridger promises no guarantees. Way to pep talk. They dock. Bridger orders no weapons, so the guns are left. They move out and we pan over to the acces spanel in the floor where Lennie's kid has been hiding. He gets out.

In the mine, Bridger an dhis party come up on Cobb's mobile home. Cobb comes out with the guy from the poker game and his possee. They're all set for the trade. Cobb recognizes Katie's uniform. He smarts off and she asks how his head is. She managed to butcher that line. The bad guys throw Ford down. He's beaten up. Cobb smarts about how Lennie is in such good shape and Ford is beaten up.

Bridger proclaims there will be no more business as usual, trade or no. Bridger says they may have no jurisdiction on the mine, but Bridger phoned the local gold cartel and they agreed not to buy that dirty gold. It's a boycott. No one gets rich with Cobb around. Cobb says they're lying.

Cut to Ford being given a gun by the kid.

Back to Cobb. Cobb proposes to take Bridger hostage. He cocks his gun. Ford shoots over Cobb's head. There's an absurdly brief struggle and Cobb bails. Lennie gets in his way and cuts him off in the mine shafts. Cobb just wants out. Lennie isn't going to let him off that easy. Cobb plans to thrash him well and now it's time for the revenge fight. They're down on the ground wrestling pretty quick. Lennie takes a blow from a rock and Cobb gets a pickaxe up. Bridger grabs it and talks about fair fights. Why? Ford has a gun.

The fight resumes with fists. Lennie speechifies about his father being dead. He's about to do Cobb in, maybe, but his kid is there crying so no. Lennie leaves Cobb for Crocker to arrest. This fight was meaningless. Cobb lost the miners as soon as the gold boycott was announced. It's just payback for Lennie, who we have never actually seen suffer more than a minor scuffle, and his family which has only been threatened. There's no catharsis here. We don't care enough about Lennie for the fight to have any gravity despite the music swelling.

Moon pool. Lucas come in with Lennie's kid. The dog is there playing catch with Darwin. The boy is very impressed by Darwin. I wonder if that top secret project from last episode is about to be revealed to a blabbermouth child. Lucas spills the beans without prompting. Lucas is in a white jersey with black pinstripes and a red shirt.

The other Sutters arrive. They're all in seaQuest clothes now. Honestly, do they strip everyone who comes on board naked and force them into jumpsuits? Let alone jumpsuits identical to those of the military contingent? That's creepy. How does the conversation go?

"We noticed that your clothes are unlike our own. We would prefer that you dressed like we did. We've stolen your clothing and aren't giving it back."
"We're still wearing our clothes!"
"Did you notice we have guns?"

Ok. It really lame. It's a standard western plot and would really need us to invest in the fate of Lennie and his family to care. It's full of fail. If you want the audience to have a revenge catharsis, we need to really, really hate the guy that's going to get his comeuppance. We don't. He's a guest star who did wrong to guest stars we don't care about. Worse, he did it off-screen. If Cobb had raped Sutter's wife and raised Sutter's kid as his own, teaching him to hate Sutter and encouraging the boy to kick Sutter in the groin every day to show his love for his "real" daddy, that might have been enough. Especially if he pumped the kid full of drugs too or something. You know, really wrecked him on top of the betrayal Lennie would have to deal with. As it is, he's just a mundane. He's not even a mild sadist. The Regulator was more sadistic.

Echoes of Temptations

We have one NPR station in the area. It comes from a university downstate. They play all-night jazz. I don't like jazz. Too screechy-squealy. So I never listen. Sometimes I listen to Fresh Air, though. On the subject of Fresh Air, Terry Gross impressed me on Book TV one weekend. She was telling the interviewer (required by the network to be charmless and stiff) about how some affiliates received complaints that she had so many non-heterosexuals on the show. They wanted to know what to do about the complaints and if there was an official response. So she send down the line to these affiliates that they should handle the complaints the same way they would handle complaints about having too many Jewish or Black people on the show. No effort to be moderate or compromise. No pious mouthings about how sincerely feelings are held or any of the other stuff we usually here.

I have another topic here after which I titled the post. That being:

Two years ago I was often staying up well into the morning. I would even go out and hit up breakfast somewhere, which I try not to do when I'm going to be in bed soon after.That's how I discovered Echoes. The local affiliate plays it in the early mornings on weekends. I haven't been up very late most weekends since then, and not in the car when I was, so I haven't heard it in quite a while.

Today I learned that it broadcasts every night and they have a website where you can get hooked up with the feed from a station where it's airing. Excellent. It's stringy tonight too. I like strings.

I'll probably get tired of it later and switch to something else, but for now it's fine. It's also eating up tonight's scheduled seaQuest viewing. What episode was that supposed to be? Episode 11, seaWest. I twitched a little just reading that. Could it be a wild west show? Could it? Could it, writers?

When the crew arrives at an undersea mining facility called Broken Ridge, they find themselves in a situation right out of the Old West.

You know what's terrible? That sounds so awful I kind of want to watch it. I bet Crocker is folksy! It's like greasy food or something. I know it's wrong, but it's so tempting. I need to steel myself with something inspirational, like 1 Samuel 25:21-22.

That didn't work. I'm really stuck now. I can't even rely on the Bible to lead me from temptation. Perhaps an artist?

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Hm.

I can resist everything except temptation.

Now I'm lost. It's the last on Disc Two. It must be done.

seaQuest: The Regulator

Originally aired: November 14, 1993

The synopsis says that the air conditioning breaks down and the crew gets so nasty that Bridger is forced to use third party, potentially pirated parts. He has to call on The Regulator (It's capitalized that way.) to bring order to the galax- er, ship. The Regulator will do this by giving everyone a capitalized article. Lucas will be The Lucas. Bridger will be A Bridger. Ortiz will be An Ortiz. When that doesn't quite work, he will shoot purple lightning from his article, and then the chimp on his shoulder in the still on the DVD menu (I am not making this up.) will shoot purple lightning out of its right hand and throw the Senate and Hitchcock's van at Darwin.

Or that's the way it would happen in my head.

Universal bump. Again. I just saw this when the DVD menu loaded. This exact bump. Come on.

seaQuest, 1500 km from Madagascar. Muscular hands grip pipes overhead. They're attached to Hitchcock and Krieg(?), who are tugging the pipe. They're sweaty. Ford looks on, sweating. All are out of uniform, wearing undershirts and tank tops. Hitchcock wants to know who designed it. Bridger from offscreen tells us he did and it was going to be the sauna.

The pipe comes down in Hitchcock's hands. She's very greasy and oily. She jerks something out of the pipe. A thermal chip. It's a fifty cent item they don't have in stock. Thirty crew members bunk on that deck. They'll have to double bunk.

Maglev. People pushing out of it. Crocker stops them and lectures them about behaving in proper order. Column of twos. Redshirts up front. Crocker marches them and knocks on a door. Two guys are in with O'Neil, who comes out with a toothbrush in his mouth. Krieg pleads that his quarters are exempt because of valuable items inside. Crocker asks if these two guys can't be trusted. Krieg pleads that security is needed. Crocker summons up a large, intimidating black man and a big hispanic-looking fellow. His top security men. Krieg smarts to the camera: Great, just great. This might actually be funny.

Credits. Will they be extended credits again? Spoil me, Universal! Spoil me rotten with your credits cheese. Give it to me! Give it to me! I want it all and I want it now.

The ship. Reedy Indian music is playing in Krieg's quarters. One guy is meditating and moaning his mantra while the other is doing those push-ups where he shoves himself off the ground, claps hand, and does another. Krieg gets up and yells that they're being loud and waking him up. He's the superior officer. The burly black fellow says he lost count because of that. By the way, Krieg's UEO underwear are a t-shirt and boxers.

Ward room. Bridger is watching a UEO infomercial about the chip they need. He's about to fling some food off his spoon at the screen. He puts it down when Krieg comes in. Ben in and asks who Bridger bunks with. Lucas.

"That's nice, a little father-son thing going on?" Bridger says it beats Krieg's bunk buddies. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the analogy that Lucas and Bridger are also now bunk buddies. They only ever show one bed in Bridger's room. How does that work? If they hang a hammock, who gets it? This is not explained. Also, how do they handle changing? Does Bridger have a private head they could use? For the rest of the crew, it's fine to assume they're not in mixed-gender pairs and are of an age, etc. None of this is addressed, and these omissions would make Child Welfare suspicious. What is Lucas learning on that boat? What kind of discipline?

On the phone a badly stereotypical Indian man answers. He's giving Bridger and Krieg the runaround about part numbers, dashes, and that heonly confirms orders. Does not ship. He also does not transfer messages. The supervisor is a southern-drawling white man...Charles Butch. Ok... The racist cop, er, supervisor smarts off about how it's not a vital component. They hang up. If it makes that scene any worse, I think the guy playing the Indian is a white American.

Bridger says he could get a nuke in an hour. They have drive-through service for those. Krieg floats going off the books and seeing The Regulator. Bridger says the man is a thief. A thief. A thief. There's no proof. Boats disappear and he sells off their spare parts. He finds them...before they sink.

Bridger goes back across the hallway to his quarters and Lucas is in a black jersey with red sleeves, rocking out to a hair band on air guitar. I think Jonathan Brandis had some experience doing that. Bridger leaves without comment. He tells Krieg he doesn't want to know anything about the details. He walks off and Lucas sticks his head out, smiling and asking what happened. Krieg gives him the ok sign and says it worked like a charm.

So we're picking back up the Lucas as Krieg's sidekick in criminal hijinks plotline? You know it's not a bad one for Lucas. It's clever, cheeky, but definitely something a kid like him in his situation would do. It works too since Krieg is a one-dimensional snarker and schemer. Lucas is just opportunistic, but that's enough.

Regulator's dungeon. He says someone cheated him. The Regulator has a huge, deep voice. He complains about being brought the rear end of software. An ape in boxers and a sweatshirt covers its head. There's moaning and flash-smacking off screen. Also grunting. The parrot in the cage even looks away. I don't know what The Regulator is doing, but it's got to be pretty hard core for a parrot to freak out. The Regulator says his victim is standing in the way of progress. The camera pans over The Regulator's The Stuff. There's a globe. An old compass, what looks like a pair of battery packs for a professional-grade camera.

Victim claims that the software is all classified and he risked his neck. I think he risked more than that by opting to come to The Regulator's The Punishment Dungeon with the bad news. More slapping flesh. Victim wishes for hands to be taken off him. We pan over more junk. A celestial globe, one of those with the earth inside and constellations on a transparent sphere around. The parrot's croaks are blurring in with whatever is happening to the victim. We pan over and see a pair of tower computer cases with a TV hooked up on top of them. It's showing some sort of DOS-based spreadsheet software. The pan comes over another celestial globe in extreme close up. That's how we know The Regulator is The Evil.

The Regulator tells us that the software is The Worthless to The Him. Do people typesetting Bibles have trouble with the capitalization, because it's killing me. You just know if they forget to refer to Yahweh's navel lint as The Lint, someone's going to get burned at The Stake. The Lint shall not be mocked. What kind of blasphemous, perverted psychopath would mock The Lint. Certainly not this Midnight Wanderer, who has nothing but The Respect for The Lint whether The Lint of The Father, The Lint of the Son, or The Lint of the Holy Spirit, for they all have The Navel unless they Don't. I leave the matter to theologians.

Victim: "It's exactly what we agreed on!"
"Exactly? What do you know about exactly?"
"You still owe me the money."

Dude, seriously. Let it go. You're in The Punishment Dungeon, which is lit by russet lights that make the place look like it's bleeding. It also seems to be a cave, and has stuff that might be roots or vines or a ratty old shirt hanging down amid all its nautical memorabilia. The Regulator's The Punishment Dungeon can only be one place: Crocker's stomach. This is the most character development he'll get all series.

"You've got all you're going to get."
"There are people above me!"

The Regulator lets out this grand, moustachio-twirling "YES! And I'm one of them." I swear I am not making this dialog up. Not even a little. More slapping of flesh and the victim wincing and gasping. I think this guy had a real future in adult entertainment. Maybe both of them.

"YOU CHEATED ME!" The Regulator The Roars. We finally pan to a black gloved hand holding someone by the throat as The Regulator The Repeats that he has been cheated. The victim, a generic guy in dark clothes, is holding The Regulator's The Fist with one hand. That may seem unfair, but I heard The Regulator The Lost The Other The Hand to the expert swordsmanship of Christopher Lee.

The victim protests as the Regulator (yeah, I gave it up) roars again about being cheated and pitches the guy into a tiny swimming pool. Is it one of those with the wave generator in one end so you can swim in place? Maybe that's how the Regulator got to be strong enough to pitch a grown man into it, one-handed. Big splash. The Regulator tells him to dive back to his boat and calls him a bottom feeder. Apparently this is a tiny moon pool. One of those generators that makes your hair stand on end, the kind with the big metal sphere on top, is sitting right next to it. I'm pretty sure that isn't safe.

The Regulator grumbles to himself as his boots clank up metal steps. He complains about dealing with the twenty-first century equivalent of the Flat Earth Society, which I'm pretty sure is the same people. Maybe it's just me, but the Regulator seems like the kind of guy who votes for the same party as they do. Is he a Log Cabin supervillain? He picks his ape up and sets him in a chair. The phone is ringing. The Regulator instructs his ape to sit there and act tough.

On his screen, we see Lucas and Krieg giving each other a pre-call pep talk. Their POV shows us the ape smiling. Lucas is holding a technological something in his hand. It's probably meant to be some kind of PDA. Ben introduces himself and starts to say where he's from. The Reg interrupts with the declaration that Ben is buying, selling, or gone. Ben is buying. Mostly that thermal chip but also some loafers, and maybe a slightly-used condom for the kid. I made up two of those. Lucas is looking on during all of this. The angle is a bit funny and makes it look like Lucas is actually watching something just past the back of Ben's head. Krieg gives up the ship's position when asked, and thus breaches the most important piece of security any modern-day sub has. The rule back in the Cold War, which may still hold, was that at best three people on a sub knew where it was, and maybe one or two more at the Pentagon. Lucas fiddles with his PDA.

The Reg lists his price. Five hundred credits, a tank of nitro, and a two hudnred pounds of bananas. Krieg starts to protest and the chimp reaches for the remote, the same thing every sane person did as soon as they saw the chimp on camera. He caves instantly. Way to negotiate, Ben. Did Hitchcock even let you keep your underwear in the divorce? Lucas is cracking up silently over Ben's amazing show of backbone. Ben only protests that he doesn't often get that many bananas. Potassium is not valued on seaQuest, ever since Lucas threw a huge brick of it in the moon pool and for a week afterwards the mess hall served this funny-tasting, rubbery meat. About the same time Darwin was lost for a while. When he came back he didn't even recognize Bridger for a while. The Reg will take whatever Krieg gets, since the food is just being demanded to show Krieg who the boss is. The boss is the guy with the Punishment Dungeon, or as he likes to call it, the Pleasure Prison.

The Reg says, "blood". Krieg says he knows and repeats the word.

Close up of a screen showing seaQuest's docking pod things. It looks like it two or four shuttle bays around its sides, each one roughly spherical with several mooring points. So you go inside the ship's shuttle bay, dock in, and then get out. Krieg is there and wants to know if they're ready with the nitro. A redshirt tells him that as soon as Slave- er, Regulator One is docked they'll pass it over. Hitchcock and Crocker are also present.

Krieg vaults over a railing because the actor did stuff like this as a kid or something, pulls out an envelope, and leafs through what must be the money inside. Crocker and Hitchcock give him a dirty look. Crocker says Ben is wound up a little tight. Easy for him to say. The Reg can't take him to the Pleasure Prison without turning him inside-out first. Ben pleads that they don't want to short the Reg. He has a reputation. Crocker says he puts his pants on just like the rest of us, and Crocker should know because the Pleasure Prison is his stomach. Ben smarts that Crocker hasn't seen his pants. Of course not. Back in Crocker's day, seeing another man's pants could get you kicked out of the Navy.

The inner doors of the airlock open and the camera closes in on metal steps. Music swells and I don't think we're supposed to have it figured out yet, but it's the ape standing there. The Reg steps out, his black leather boots in the lead and a brown leather duster hanging down over them because they couldn't quite give him a cape with a straight face. Music of majestic doom plays as we pan up over his blue pants, black belt, black gloves, and beige and blue pinstripe, double-breasted button-down. Turns out the Reg is a slim fellow that could use a shave. Long brown hair, really round, dark, gogglesque glasses, and a cowboy hat. The ape is on his shoulder now. He lets it down. Ok, he just picked it up to carry it down the stairs? Why?

Krieg comes up to him and welcomes him aboard, but the Reg just keeps walking, forcing Ben back. He stammers and hands over the money. The money has green outlines but a dark blue picture in the middle, like somebody took real US dollars and poured blue ink over the picture of the president...which might be what happened, but they look a bit small for it. The Reg takes the money out of his hand. Guys with Pleasure Prisons in the bellies of old salts can afford to be a bit grabby. Ben wets himself. He points at 138 pounds of bananas, every one they have on board. The ape is already in front of them. The Reg looks at the crew.

Ben introduces Crocker and Hitchcock. Hitchcock, being little more than a support structure for a pair of breasts, sticks out her hand and says it's nice to meet him. He takes her hand and squeezes it a little, saying it's his pleasure. The Reg smiles. He has a soft voice and might have been faking a British accent.

He hands over the chip, then pulls back. He wants to see the boat. Crocker gets in the way and complains about security and nobody to conduct tours. The Reg asks if he looks like a tourist and Crocker, who might know about his history of trashing hotel rooms from that time he went off on a bender in Crocker's esophagus, says that would be an insult to tourism. The Reg asks if there's any room on the ship for just a little bit of human kindness. Ben, still standing in a puddle of his own urine, shuffles and smiles nervously. Crocker maintains that it's Chief Crocker. You know, Reg, the guy is your landlord. Crocker says the Reg isn't dressed to board the goos hips Lollipop.

The ape runs off into the ship and Crocker, being an idiot, chases after the simian that can't possibly be a serious security risk. The Reg, Hitchcock, and Ben follow. It vanishes around a corner and Crocker is stumped. Does he know the Reg is squatting in his stomach? Crocker asks if the Reg has thought of using a leash. Maybe later, once Ben is cleaned up. Crocker turns on the phone and is about to call it in and Ben stops him. Crocker spots the ape and the Reg calls after it. Its name is Verne. They chase it down some stairs, with the Reg now in the lead.

They run into a redshirt. Crocker asks if he's seen anything unusual. Redshirt looks at Reg. Reg looks at redshirt and asks if that's a trick question. Heh. Crocker lets it go and continues the Reg's tour. The monkey flips down from the ceiling and goes off in the other direction.

Moon Pool. Lucas's chest is wearing a Marlins jersey, white with greenish pinstripes. He's holding a large white card with a silhouette of an ape on it. Could that be a set-up? By the way, in the closeup here you can see Lucas is holding the card with his thumb and two fingers. His middle finger is out far enough that I wonder if Brandis was having a bad day and wanted to poke some fun at the camera guy. He says "ape". Darwin says "ape." Lucas's other shirt, now that the card is out of the way, is a dark royal blue sort of color. It's a shade or so darker than seaQuest blue. He gets another card. We still haven't seen his face. It's a sailboat. Darwin says "boat". We're on Darwin now. The next one is "man". I'm not sure what was on that card. I'm not sure I want to know.

Lucas says very good and flops the cards down on the edge of the pool. One has "man" written on the back in case the teenaged genius forgot what a boat or an ape or a man was. It wasn't visible before, but now you can see that the cards are laminated. Smart. Granted, that was probably props thinking about retakes, but anything you would use around Darwin and the pool should probably be laminated if you want it to last. Especially people.

The camera pulls out and the next card is dolphin. Darwin ignores Lucas and calls the dolphin "Darwin". Lucas tries to correct him. Westphalen is taking notes. Lucas says he can't believe they have to reprogram an entire language database. Oh, was the vocorder fried in last episode? Is this real continuity, or did they just happen on a generic bug. Lucas's hair is less gravity-defying this episode, by the wya. Westphalen tells him to be patient. Lucas thinks Darwin is teasing him, which is probably true. I'm amazed if Lucas didn't get teased by the crew every day. You'd think the resident child geek would get a lot of grief on a ship that probably has a lot of recent football stars on board. I have seen adults behave like that.

Lucas talks into the vocorder about how they have to re-establish the language base. Darwin isn't buying it. Oh, we get to see the "man" card. It's a muscular guy with a flat-top haircut. Westphalen fliped it up, and she's pointing at the guy's ass. She tries to associate the man card with Lucas to demonstrate the distinction between a general and a particular. Darwin agrees that Lucas is a man and Darwin is a dolphin. Now everyone' shappy as the Reg walks in. Westphalen spots him and hurries over. Lucas spots the Reg and proclaims him "very cool" in the pose that makes it into the credits.

The Reg is very interested in the talking dolphin. Should he steal it? Should he kidnap the boy genius that make it possible? Both could hang out in his Pleasure Prison until he found a buyer, but it might be hard to find someone who wants Lucas for his brain. Certainly some of the writers aren't interested. Westphalen says the experiment is classified. Lucas gets up and introduces himself. He sticks up his hand, fingers splayed. The Reg interlaces his fingers and proclaims, "So it is, partner. Westphalen watches the gesture with all the trepidation the audience is feeling. Lucas is spellbound.

The Reg tells him that he shouldn't hold creatures against their will. Crocker says to look who's talking. Lucas protests that Darwin is free. He goes out to feed. The Reg says Lucas is on the edge of the future and should not the let the uniforms stand in his way. I think the Reg's glove had some happy drugs on it, because Lucas looks dazed. Once the Reg is gone, Lucas declares him absolutely superb. Westphalen blows this off, which gives Lucas a smirking reaction shot.

Hallway. Bridger walks out of the maglev and the ape sneaks in. Bridger says him and says "Excuse me, when did I agree to do a show with a damned ape? I only work with rubber aquatic lifeforms, not real apes. And by work with, I mean I shoot SCUBA tanks off in their mouths and watch them explode." Bridger phones Crocker and informs him of the monkey. Crocker says he's on his way.

The ape gets out. Back in the moon pool, Lucas shook off the happy drugs and resumed his work with Darwin. The ape comes in and climbs up on a stool. Darwin says "ape". Lucas looks at his card.

"No, this is a cow."
"Ape! Ape!"

Cut to ape showing his teeth. Lucas starts to say something and then spots the ape that climbed up on the stool two feet away from him unnoticed until now. It shrieks. Lucas gasps and falls off his stood. He lands on cold, steel deck plates extremely softly, catching himself with no visible signs of impact or shock. Considering he had to fall about two or three feet, I call padding. Westphalen calls security and tells Lucas not to move, because the ape could be rabid or have HIV or just be strong enough to use him as a pez dispenser. Wide shot of the pool crew rushing over.

Crocker and the Reg arrive. The Reg gets the ape on his shoulder and tells everyone to back off. He pulls out some kind of grenade or something. In the background, Bridger walks into the shot. He comes in. The Reg puts his grenade down and takes off his glasses. He smiles and says hi. Bridger says, "Hello Leslie." Looks are exchanged. Bridger gets the reason for his presence. Reg hands over the chip. Bridger recognized the ape and complains about it keeping bad company. he asks what else Leslie has. A phone comes out. Hitchcock looks abashed and collects it. Crocker orders the Reg and his monkey to follow him out.

Lucas seems sad to see Reg go. At the dock, Reg gives a winning smile as he leaves. What did he steal from Crocker. Turns out it's Crocker's gun. Crocker orders the redshirt to stop him, but the Reg is already separated and on his way. Can't they just close the outer door to keep him in? He tells his guys to get into their speeder subs to give chase.

CGI of the Reg's ship going away. Verne hands Reg the gun and he muses about what it does. I think it's a gun, dude. He reads on its side that it's a stun gun. Then their sonar goes off and he knows the chase is on. Crocker is trying to phone him and asks if he can hear. Leslie says not anymore and turns his phone off. They fire a warning shot and the speeder subs are right on him.

Bridger gets on the phone to Crocker and asks what's wrong with him. He'll burn more fuel than the cost of replacing the gun. Theft is the price of doing business. Bridger orders him home. On Regulator One, it's all smiles.

Hallway, the bunk buddies are departing. Krieg walks out and smarms it was great having his new bunk buddies and they can stop by any time. Ford and Crocker walk up to him. Turns out Bridger wants to talk to Ben.

Bridger's room. He walks out of his private bathroom in a robe, with a towel around his neck. Lucas is on the floor, rolling something up. So Lucas had to sleep on the floor. Bridger says Lucas has his room back. Lucas asks how Bridger knew Leslie. Bridger observes that Leslie impressed Lucas, who agrees that he was pretty outrageous in dialog that could never work today.

"That's not always a good thing, Lucas."
"Well maybe I should put on a jumpsuit and snap to every time you breathe."

This is one of the very few times the series actually touches on this, so far as I remember. Lucas does not want to be here. This is some kind of punishment to him, albeit with perks. Bridger turns around and demands to know what Lucas just said. He looks like he's thinking about whether or not Nathan Bridger is gonna have to choke a punk.

"I think I said yes, sir." Bridger lets it go. He tells Lucas to get the Professor hologram up. Ford, Westphalen, and Krieg pile in. He asks for a bio of the Reg. Turns out he got his PhD at seventeen. Leslie was a leading aquanaut of the Nineties. Turns out Leslie was involved in some experiment to get mammals to breathe water. He got drummed out of science for trying to attach some kind of water-breathing lung to a mammal to advance his theory of spherical evolution. What? But apparently even after getting kicked out of science he had the cachet to design and build the first undersea colony. It failed. No colonists. Then his houseboat burned down. He sent a suicide note to the New York Times. Lucas pauses the playback because... I don't know.

Bridger summarizes. He's a genius who failed at his every effort and then faked a suicide to escape the ridicule of his peers. Lucas can sympathize. Turns out Bridger met him at a grocery store six years ago. Lucas wants to know what spherical evolution is, and I guarantee this will make no sense. Leslie wants to find the center of the universe. Lucas is into it. Apparently the genius can't spot BS a mile off. Bridger's tone pretty much says it's a crock. Lucas looks slightly chastened but more embarrassed. Bridger didn't actually answer his question.

Exterior shot of seaQuest. Regulator One comes up under it. Apparently they don't use sonar. He and his ape are eating the bananas. Reg spots Darwin coming out of the ship and shoots a net at him, which Darwin swims right into. Reg One slips away.

Pleasure Prison. Reg is ranting about how Darwin is more exceptional than him, and he's a genius. He thinks Darwin is a member of a superior species. It seems he thinks Darwin know show to actually speak English. Leslie thinks Darwin understands, even if he can't speak. He goes on about searching for the truth. Reg things the truth might be beyond his grasp, and he could accept that.

Lab. Westphalen is playing with a sponge with electrodes in it. Crocker, Lucas, and Ortiz walk in. Lucas is wearing a gray shirt with a gray and blue jersey over it. They tell Bridger Darwin is missing and has been gone for twelve hours. Westphalen asks about sharks. They didn't find any. Bridger orders them to keep calling for him. Lucas sways and has his hands clasped. He's upset.

Lucas asks if that's it, if they're just going to keep on working. Westphalen tries to distract him with a sponge, but he's all about Darwin. She wants to use sponges to filter the water.

"Yes, but since Darwin's gone maybe I can use this to wash my car. If I ever get a car." He glares at Bridger as though Bridger decides these things. "If I ever get off this whale!" Bridger that's enoughs him and tells him to come along. He gets on the phone and has Krieg come to the ward room with his supply binder.

Ward room. Bridger wants the Reg's phone number. Lucas asks if the Reg could help find Darwin. No, he probably took Darwin because we're trying to teach Lucas that nonconformity is not cool. I notice that while the Reg might have made some bad calls, there's no sympathy at all for what drove him to it even though Bridger did a similar deal when he ran away from the world. Hypocrisy much?

Lucas says Leslie would not take Darwin. Bridger thanks him for an observation based on two minutes' experience. Lucas brings up Reg's animal rights speech and cites the example of Verne. Bridger says it's the least he owes Verne and calls up a clip. Because Verne's the "mammal" so vaguely referred to in the bio earlier.

Leslie is on the phone and wants his dolphin back. He preaches about conducting experiments on animals and hangs up. Lucas is very bothered now. Ah, the vocorder overheated. Bridger wants Lucas to find the data in single bytes if he has to. They're going to scan for Darwin's frequency in the phone call.

Bridge. Lucas is at a station. They hear dolphin noises in the recording. Lucas wants to know why the Reg would take Darwin. Bridger says of course he does and explains that it's spherical evolution and tells him to come along. You know, they're never going to explain what that means. It just fell on the writers' room table one day.

We see some CGI that informs us a sea launch is exiting the docking bay. Crocker is handing out ear plugs and Bridger is laughing. Lucas wants to know what's so damned funny.

"Are there times when you feel separated from this crew, more like an observer than a participant?"

Maybe when he's breathing.

"Yes." Everyone's adults and he's sixteen. Bridger explains that the normal part of Lucas hangs out with Krieg and Ortiz, getting whacky off their nose candy. The more imaginative part of him hangs out with Westphalen. I was under the impression that working with her was more or less his normal job description. We certainly never see Lucas participating in drill exercises or on a firing range or whatever else the boys do.

Bridger thinks Lucas has a neural drip he can't turn off and some people see that as a behavior problem, probably why his father unloaded him on the seaQuest. Bridger suggests that being on board may contribute to the separation. So he wants Lucas to leave? No. Bridger flatters him about his perspective making him a smart observer. Lucas explains that he was dumped so Dad would not have to deal with him. Bridger floats the notion that without the discipline involved in having to work with people that have to work together, Lucas may develop into a genius too weird for his own good. Why is it that so much of scifi seems bent on normalizing unusual people? I get that this sort of thing might secretly appeal to the outsiders in the fanbase, but there must be enough room in the genre for some romanticizing of eccentricity. Or maybe it really is a bourgeoisie genre dominated by frightened, deeply conventional men.

Crocker interrupts to establish that they are near to the Pleasure Prison. Inside Leslie is talking about dolphins on Greek coins. Bridger knocks and Leslie tells him to go away. They all have earplugs in, by the way.

Bridger: "Verne, we've got bananas!"
Leslie: "Verne, you turn on me for bananas!"

I guess that grenade is sonic, since they aren't worried about it now that they have ear plugs. Lucas accepts that Darwin has been stolen but is puzzled by a screen showing a rotating circle. He asks if this is spherical evolution. Lucas is a genius that doesn't know what a sphere is.

Leslie goes on about how perfection is spherical. The Earth is a sphere. It rotates around the spherical sun in a sphere. Now Lucas says this is incorrect. The orbit describes an ellipse. Leslie goes on about how it started as a sphere and it must come back to harmony in a sphere. You must go back to where you began to go on. Cyclic was not a word in the writers' dictionaries. Leslie goes on about how Lucas is a pioneer, but bought into the mainstream.

"How do you justify stealing my dolphin?"

Spherical evolution. The dolphins came out of the sea and went back in, so they're ahead of us. Leslie insists that Darwin speaks dolphin, not English. Bridger demands Darwin be let go. Leslie pulls Crocker's gun on them and insists Bridger make Darwin talk. Leslie gets rushed and fires the gun, which is a sonic weapon and shatters some glass, hits the ape. Verne is fine, though. Lucas finds the gills on him.

Leslie protests that he heard Darwin talk. Darwin should talk. But what Leslie knows doesn't seem to matter. He lets Darwin go and this scene stopped making sense a long time ago. I get that Leslie is supposed to feel guilty over trying to repeat the mistaken experiment he did on Verne through other means, but the dialog barely touches that.

Lucas asks Bridger to tell Leslie about Darwin. The actual speech mechanism is classified...and Lucas has security clearance? Or is it just assumed that keeping secrets from him is futile? That could be an interesting point. Lucas reminds us of the moral of the story by asking if Bridger thinks he could end up like Leslie too. So Leslie will come back and talk to Darwin through the vocorder.

Moon pool. Lucas is explaining how the translation program works. Leslie gives it a try. He introduces himself as Leslie. Leslie wants to know if Darwin knows why the dolphins went back into the water. Leslie asks if Darwin can find him the center of the universe. Darwin knows where it is. Oh man, glurge incoming. Where is it? Inside you. Smiles all around as if this was very profound.

This could have been a great episode. The writers seem to have known they were on to something with exploring Lucas's role and the role of genius in society. But the first half of the episode is a light comedy with an absurdly overblown Vader in cowboy drag and an ape doing what simians always do. It mugs, eats a banana, runs around. This is dead air, a comedy that doesn't fit at all with the second half where we have a semiserious exploration of failure in eccentric geniuses. It could have been about Lucas as intellectual, while not being perfect, and the limits of his conventionality and eccentricity. Instead it's got a warped moral about how exceptional people should try to be as much like the ordinary people as possible since apparently their gifts can drive them insane. It doesn't help that Leslie is incoherent for most of the story and actually seems dumber than average, not smarter. He didn't even ask on the boat how Darwin talked before stealing him. You think that would be the first thing to cross his mind since a dolphin's mouth obviously cannot enunciate the sounds in use. I get what they're trying to do, but they lost it in a slapstick first half and an incoherent second...unless they really meant to tell us that Lucas needs to learn that indulging his intellect is a suspect activity. Don't most people learn that in school? I picked it up off the internet somewhere.

This is especially weird since you would think the kid genius in a scifi show is the most likely audience avatar. Let's be honest about scifi fandom. There are lots of people out there who think they're really, really way better than everyone else because of their (fadingly) eccentric taste for imaginary realities. They're the music makers, the dreamers of dreams...except for the fact that most of their supposedly counter-cultural media tastes are really conventional stuff dressed up in funny suits. So much of scifi is moralizing crap and often antithetical to the principles of real science and open inquiry. The Foundation books are about a group of intellectuals who are better than everyone else and mastermind the fate of the galaxy...and are right to do so despite never having been elected or whatever. This is a bit like Ayn Rand, who was a deeply sick woman. They're led by a superhuman precognitive, etc. This surely fits somewhere in the self-image of a lot of frustrated adolescent boys who for whatever reason don't fit in so well with mainstream society.

Don't get me wrong. I like some scifi. But I'm not going to call the genre some kind of revolutionary imaginative artform. It's not. Sometimes it's progressive, sometimes regressive. It can even be both at once. Heinlein could be socially progressive and happily anti-authoritarian, but he could also be a booster for naked authoritarianism and militarism. CS Lewis wrote Christian apologetic as scifi.

Anyway, my point here is that if scifi fandom is what it often presents itself as: a set of proud iconoclasts that think they're better than everyone else, then why am I not surprised that the moral of the story tonight was to be normal instead. I think there's an element of envy here. The nerd wants to be, and should want to be, popular. It's only because normalcy is denied him that he then has to settle for telling himself stories about being the dreamer of dreams. At least that's a subtext I'm seeing in this episode. Maybe it's because I've read about some genuine minority empowerment movements in addition to consuming things meant for middle class kids. I can see a valid distinction between real self-affirming and acceptance of oneself as an individual different from others, but in ok ways, and seeing oneself fundamentally in terms of not being like others but having nothing else on which to orient. The first speaks to a person who is securely and confidently eccentric. He or she is not incomplete or broken for being different. The latter is saying that one must be proud of one's brokenness because there is nothing else and one would be normal if one could.

By the way, I have this same problem with that Futurama episode where the monkey is miserable with the intellect-boosting hat that makes him a genius, apparently because his parents embarrass him, and how happy he is when it's damaged and he has an only average intellect. The Professor offers to fix the hat, but he prefers to remain average. I know it was probably a deliberately warped fable, but I just plain don't like the notion that there's such a thing as being too smart. There's such a thing as being smart enough that other people are upset and threatened by it, but it does not follow from that that these fears are legitimate.

Or it could just be that the writers weren't really scifi people at all but instead Average Joe types who really believe the warped moral because they've never seen the other side of it and are lazy. I can go either way on this one.

Fresh off seaQuest, a blogroll

I put one up. I don't read everything on it daily, but I tend to visit most at least a few times a week. Most of it is political.

seaQuest: Bad Water

Originally Aired: November 7, 1993

I had to watch another one. I want my hour back and it seemed like the best way to get it was to spend another hour on another dubious episode of seaQuest. Also, my book is boring.

This is a Captain's Dilemma episode. The synopsis says Bridger goes to rescue a French sightseeing sub caught in a hurricane, but his rescue crew gets caught now and he has to decide who to save. He'll save both. This is a fake dilemma. This isn't the type of show where the captain has to make a choice like this and it has real consequences...especially not for a bunch of extras. This also isn't the type of show where the captain has to decide between saving one or the other person in the main cast. Imagine if that were really the choice. We might have good drama. Will Bridger save the extras Hitchcock lured into her van with promises of candy, or save Lucas who was lured into Krieg's van with promises of nose candy? Maybe it's because I'm sick inside, but that joke episode idea sounds better than the last three episodes I've really watched.

I wrote several lines of incredibly bad taste after this where I explored the topic a little bit, but I got rid of them in the name of common decency. Let's just say I could write fan fiction and leave it at that.

The real episode, then.

Do we need the Universal bump for every episode? It's on before the menu too.

Exterior of CGI French sightseeing sub at the bottom of the sea. It's a cool looking sub. A woman speaking what sounds like real French and wearing a jacket with a fleur-de-lis on it is comforting children. The pilot is passed out.

O'Neil explains to Bridger that the signal is going to be scrambled, a hurricane is on its way, and they've got at least two days of hell ahead. Bridger tells us that they're in the Bermuda Triangle.

Sea launch. None of the displays or gauges in the sub are working. Ford hits one. No good. Lucas and Westphalen are speaking French into the radio. Lucas is in a red and white jersey and a maroon shirt. Stephanie Beecham either speaks French or is really good. Jonathan Brandis obviously does not. He even has that puzzled sounding it out look on his face, although Lucas is saying enough, and it's different words from Westphalen's dialog, that we're meant to believe he speaks it. They see a big wave coming. It throws Westphalen and Lucas across the sub. They land on a couch. Seriously.

Cockpit. Ford is throwing away the batteries, the robot arms, the survival pod... Was that wise? Now they're rising towards the surface instead of falling. They were falling because... a wave hit them? Ford tells Westphalen and Lucas that they're doing an emergency surfacing and planning to abandon ship. Would the survival pod have been handy for that?

Credits. Extended credits with a cloudscape, rain on water.

seaQuest. They're getting parts of Ford's transmission. Lots of static. They lose the connection. On Bridger's navigation table you can see Florida. Crocker, who knows jack about weather, tells them a hurricane is coming. Bridger asks Crocker to phone the Coast Guard to rescue Ford, et al.

Bridger goes on the PA and summarizes the plot. O'Neil has Ford again. They have flares and are on a raft. Bridger tells Ford about how the Coast guard will save 'em. They'll phone every fifteen minutes.

Raft from hell. The castaways are wet. I think this might have been filmed on a real body of water. Lucas fiddles with electronics and Ford gives out orders about taking inventory of their supplies. None are visible. Westphalen tells us they will have no fish to eat.

Bridge. Levine is an expert in geology and oceanography now. They're talking about sink holes, etc. The implication is that the French sub caught a column of fresh water and fell into a sink hole. Fresh water isn't as buoyant as sea water, so you really could sink. Some of the sinkholes are big enough to swallow seaQuest.

French sub. Generic reminder that the air is running out.

Raft. Everyone has stripped to undershirts. Ford and Lucas are sleeveless. Krieg is not. Westphalen figures out a hurricane is on the way. They might be in the eye.

Bridge. O'Neil babbles in French, which I think Ted Raimi might speak, and then switches over so Bridger can remind him about the sub.

Raft. They're talking about making a bigger antenna when the lightning startles Lucas, who had the radio on the edge of the raft where any teenaged genius could knock it off. He knocks it into the drink. Way to go, genius. Lucas dives after it, comes up holding the microphone. It drags him back under. Ford saves him.

Bridge. They talk about how they heard Ford's radio go down.

Raft. Westphalen suggests a snack. Lucas starts eating, but Krieg steals it out of his hands and looks at the foil. He wants to know if radar will bounce off the foil. It will, so they start spoiling all of their food. I can buy that since they're not going to survive a hurricane anyway.

Moon pool. Bridger talks to Darwin. He explains about avoiding fresh water. Darwin goes to find Lucas.

Raft. It's storming now and they're holding a foil flag out above them. The wind takes it. Everyone is fully dressed again and getting drenched. They're all meant to look despairing, but really the expressions are more like they're about to tell the FX guys to lay off on the wind and garden hoses.

French sub. We've had this scene before.

Bridge. O'Neil and Ortiz signal and then start talking on the intercom. They're griping about having to do all the work longhand. O'Neil does not believe in the Triangle. Ortiz does. Hitchcock wants to reel in the communications buoy that connects them to Ford because it's a giant lightning rod. Bridger says no.

Raft. Lucas says they've forgotten about rescuing anybody. Krieg gives a pep talk and Lucas blows him off. Krieg says it's sincere. He's a glass half full guy. Half full of what, Lucas asks. Krieg glurges about their being in the eye of a hurricane. They spot lights. The seaQuest comm buoy, and here's Darwin! A lightning strike helps them remember it's a giant lightning rod they're next to, and then the lightning hits. Bad FX run down the seaQuest and blast a few guys on the bridge. Everything blows out and shoots sparks because in the future nothing is ever grounded.

Bridge. O'Neil's glasses are in crooked and there's smoke all over the bridge. They're down to manual control on the helm. Bridger is telling everyone to hang in there. Everything is cooked. Bridger wants to know times for repair. They might need dry dock. Bridger asks after the WHSKRs, the satellites seaQuest travels with. Turns out they're grounded. But not the ship. Bridger wants one brought in to use its hardware. Crocker starts singing and then everyone is singing. Really a group of professionals are singing. No dance numbers.

Raft. Lucas is crying and thinks Darwin is dead. Ford needs his help and wants to know if he can make a camera run continuously. Westphalen is talking about knots. What are they doing? Turns out she's the only one that can tie knots.

Bridge. Hitchcock saws into a WHSKR, which is about the size of a person, with a chainsaw. Crocker gives instructions on how to tap into it because...why? He's the security chief. Isn't this Hitchcock's job? They can run one station off it. Bridger wants them all to run in a series. Bridger gets news that Darwin is back. Two guns in wetsuits are holding him. Darwin says he found Lucas. He also found the sub, by the way.

Raft. Westphalen wants to know how Lucas is doing and confesses being scared. She gives a speech about it being ok to be afraid. Lucas isn't buying. The other people with testicles aren't afraid. She tells him they are. Then she takes and hugs and kisses Lucas. He smiles and seems comforted. Ok.

French sub. This is the same scene with different dialog each time.

Bridge. Crocker has taught the crew every sea shanty he knows. Bridger is pissed that the boat is cooked. He's blaming himself. Crocker tells Bridger he can't blame himself for Lucas. Turns out Lucas volunteered for rescue duty. First thing he's ever volunteered for in the series. If this wasn't a completely predictable stock dialog it would be nice.

Hitchcock powers up communications. It works. Montage of stations coming on and going off.

O'Neil tells us the hurricane is a Category 3. Ortiz's time is up, but he found something. It's a sink hole. It's a field of them. Bridger insists he can't risk sending out the last WHSKR, so he'll risk the whole ship checking each sink hole, which could take days but the kids suffocate in two hours so that's ok.

Raft. They're bailing water. Krieg apologizes to Westphalen. Apparently he ate some lobsters that were supposed to be an experiment. She's pissed, but wants to know if they were good. Lucas has managed to rig the the camera to signal Morse Code.

French sub. Last emergency air going on.

Bridge. The search planes went for land and also they're at a new sink hole. They discover a locomotive at the bottom. Now Crocker thinks the locomotive just fell off a cargo ship. Ok. But last episode it would have been a possessed train. Bridger intuits out a new heading by watching a regular level.

Darwin gets up to the bridge and all his blisters from before are gone already. Darwin tells Bridger where the sub is. Turns out it's right on the heading Bridger chose. This is not explained.

Raft from hell. They're still bailing and the batteries are out. A huge wave comes up on the raft. Somone (Ford?) jams a life jacket over Lucas's head. Ford's gone overboard, swept out. Krieg dives out and fishes him back in.

French sub. Ok, lack of air is not going to end up with a lot of kids crying and whining. They would be sleepy and passing out. The sub jerks and there's a thud. Everyone creams.

Bridge. They used a grappling thing. Everyone on the French sub is still alive and there's applause in the bridge. Levine harshes it by asking for a sounding. Turns out the cavern below could collapse and take seaQuest down...which it now starts doing. They're blowing ballast. The debris is falling all around the French sub. Bridger wants to flood the ballast. He wants to collapse the ceiling and dissipate the fresh water. They're planning to bounce out of the well. I have my doubts about this working, but maybe. CGI seaQuest starts sinking. They blow ballast...and the ship starts its way up, hoisting the French sub. More applause.

O'Neil demands quiet. No one pays attention. He stands up and nerd-shrieks it. This works. He's picking up a faint signal...which stopped some time ago. Or didn't. Now the batteries on the camera on the raft are dead. Convenient timing. Lights surround the raft from below. seaQuest is right under them. Laughs. When soaking wet, Jonathan Brandis looks to be about six.

And that was....what? It's not bad. It's just a really generic rescue episode. There are no real character moments. The French sub provides filler on top of filler on top of filler. It's not awful like the last one. It's just average and generic. This could have been a plot on any show. There's a bit of a plot hole in that if there are hurricane force winds on the surface (and the raft was obviously in the storm at this point) shouldn't it have been blown all over the place? Also the use of Darwin to find both groups of victims of the week is convenient to the point of silliness. He want out for Lucas but while he was out he spotted the sub too? It's really asking a lot to have us believe that the hurricane blew the raft in exactly the same direction as the sub too, since there's no talk of them having to go out of their way to rescue both. That's one precise hurricane.

Still, it doesn't leave me feeling dumber like the last one did.

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

Last Week's Lost

Watched it on ABC.com last night and the flash-forwards bothered me the whole time. How long have they been off the island when Kate is at her trial? Her kid is at least two and she's obviously not yet pregnant. The subtext between her and Jack is that the kid's Sawyer's. Even if she got pregnant this episode, which is probably the intention, I have trouble believing an open and shut case would get caught up in two years of pre-trial shenanigans.

They can't reasonably delay her getting off the island too long, since I think Juliet said the mandatory die-off for pregnant women is at about six months. Even allowing that six months you still have eighteen months of mystery time.

But continuity: judging by how Kate and Jack are behaving in the flash-forwards, Kate's trial happens before they get married. Is this where the show is going? The first season was mostly about who these people were before they got to the island. The second was mostly about the island. The third was largely about the Others and deepening the island mystery. Now we're abandoning that to dwell on what happens a few years later? I'm interested in what seems to be going on with Ben, Sayid, and what seems to be their personal war against the Dharma Initiative's successors, but it smells suspiciously of the writers washing their hands with the island and all of its unresolved questions.