You know how random, silly things get stuck in your head from your childhood? So I was a young teen when SeaQuest DSV first aired. And I remember the teaser promo that came on in the month(s) prior to the premiere. It was very simple. There was a father and son (possibly a mother too) on the beach. The son looks out at the ocean. The father sees him looking out and says something like, "What is it, son? What do you see out there?" Then there is a slow motion close-up of the kid's eyes with some ethereal music/sounds underneath. At the end there was probably some text on the screen that said "SeaQuest: coming this fall on NBC." This was a very simple promo, but it got me so excited about the show as a teenager for some reason. I was always disappointed that they didn't use and expand on that clip from the teaser as part of the story when the show aired, like a flashback for Bridger or something. Am I alone? Does anybody else remember this promo? I tried to find it on youtube because there are often obscure commercials and promos there, but no luck. I'm sure it sounds ridiculous, but when you're a kid things sometimes seem more epic than they really are so that might be playing into it. Anyway, somehow I never forgot that promo.
There are a couple of SeaQuest promos that I remember: [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BynKgggeZs8[/yt] [yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwpwR5VdqQw[/yt] And I watched the show religiously, but I don't remember that promo, sorry.
SeaQuest really should have been better than it was. It had everything going for it, great cast, solid premise, legions of squeeing teen girls, and yet somehow they screwed it up.
Is this the show where a bunch of horrible human beings hold a dolphin captive for three years, until he can successfully undermine the crew, causing their eventual downfall so he can finally escape ... I might be remembering this wrong.
A reboot would work really well. But they would need to mix the science and keeping the peace with the threat of war. If done well, and with 13 episode seasons, it could be a nice 5 year show. First year introduces the world, season year the threats increases has some attacks, season 3 a war break outs, same in season 4, then season 5 the seaquest is destroyed in order to have peace, and we see the aftermath of the war.
That's pretty much what I was going for, but have a little more science and background laid into the story besides... Seaquest was on another planet and because of that the world fell apart.
seaQuest is a prefect example of what I'm gonna call "sub premise limitation": if your submarine based show is not about the sub being in a war or 20,000 Leagues on another planet, it will not only get cancelled, it will probably suck as well. I wouldn't mind a reboot, but they have to come up with a plan ahead of time and make sure the action/science ratio is sorted out so the show is actually entertaining and not dull/stupid like a lot of S1 and S2 were.
I've watched the show again recently on Netflix. I liked most of season 1 and season 3. Two very different directions for the show. Two complete different shows, really. Most of season 2 was just so bad it was hard to sit through. I doubt they'd ever do a reboot, but if a show is produced similar to this I'd be happy with a balance of season 1 and 3. I could do without the wacky species of the week and the telepathy episodes though. They didn't work in this setting. The bad writing didn't help.
Season 1 continues to be my favorite. Season 2 tried to force too much science fiction into a show that was supposed to be more realistic science. And season 3 was just a very different show.
2nd season was unbelievably bad, like Lost In Space times the worst of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, only 'embellished' with vfx courtesy Hanna-Barbera (technically that last part is true for all 3 seasons.) Anybody remember the S2 ep where the sub is used for time travel, I think into some alternate future with just a couple human kids alive? I was waiting for Bridger to say 'When this thing hits 88 knots, you're going see some serious shit.' Then again, Scheider wasn't shitting us when he said that season was going to be childish. I think there were maybe 4 or 5 s 1 eps that showed real potential, and I though the very early one where they find the 'loading dock' for the library at Alexandria was actually a winner on all of its plot threads, and Bridger really came off very Kirk-like (in a GOOD way) when he threatens to destroy all those treasures if these assholes don't get their ducks in a row yesterday. I've probably seen that one ep 15 times (14 on VHS!) ... but man, such wasted potential. I almost got to go on the sets early first season for an article, and I still wish that hadn't fallen through. Somebody in Amblin' PR kept jerking the editor and publisher around on the date I was supposed to go, and finally, about 48hours before I was going to fly down, another joker at Amblin had the nerve to ask the editor and publisher about their bona fides. The reply was something akin to,"you know that MAKING OF JURASSIC PARK book your boss likes so much that he actually put it ON CAMERA in the movie? Yeah, we're the ones who wrote it, bye asshole.' Even after it fell apart, I had a really good correspondence and phone conversation with the original production designer, who was impressed I noticed the lack of lips on shelves (to keep everything from falling on the floor when the ship swerved) ... apparently they had all that designed in a more credible way, but those finishing details got left off (I think he had already left by then to do Earth 2 for Amblin.) I remember an ad or commercial like you describe from when I was a kid, but that would have been 20 years before seaQuest aired. It was a very rich evocative thing, a family looking out to sea or to the horizon as night fell, but obviously not the promo you saw.
I liked SeaQuest when it was originally on, but not so much these days. I really would welcome a total reboot of it, though. Perhaps the SeaQuest could just be a multipurpose submarine assigned to undersea colonies in the year 2100. That way, there could be a variety of stories, including those featuring conflicts between the colonies that the SeaQuest might have to intervene in as well as stories regarding the discovery of a civilization that once dwelled below the sea long before Humans did. I think when it comes to the sci-fi angle, that's as far as it should go (no telepaths, mutant soldiers, undersea gods, or ghosts, please).
Hey, I liked the ghost show! I liked SeaQuest. I loved Roy Scheider. But I loved Stephanie Beacham too, so I was when they dumped her. Season 1 is my favorite. Remember Bob Ballard doing those little bits for the closing credits? Season 2, I think I liked two episodes. Season 3 was a big head-snap, but hey, Michael Ironside, cool.