Remember great TV series such as Sea Hunt, Aquanauts and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea? You would think an interest in underwater fiction would be at the top of the list a lot sooner than 1993.
As such, Seaquest had a lot going for the show and its not surprising its fresh look at underwater fiction really jumped the mark for hype in its first season offerings. What slowed it down was a lot of background story and tedious placement setting up the show (much of this could have been cut out of the stories) with a lot less action than you might have expected usually mandated from other Sci-Fi series of the time (Star Trek TNG was wrapping up and Earth 2 was to debut on air a year later). And I think, for the most part, producers recognized this and went into to high gear to bump things up a notch.
But the show went too sci-fi hokey, even cheesy, departing from the beautiful world that season 1 had so intricately put into place. With new actors, a talking dolphin (Darwin), and annoying hardware, these new episodes reflected changes in acting vision, and clearly some actors are "remade" from what was previously intended in my opinion. In fact, by mid-season 2, episodes are so different, that one wonders if it is a spin off of the original Seaquest series. By now, with the show so poorly initiated and driving Roy Scheider to the brink of quitting (So how do you continue a show when the lead quits? Network execs make him do a few appearances in the next season so no one notices, right? Sort of, but lame, very lame) and thusly, season 3 could only offer a badly needed dose of action in the eyes of actors, audience and execs. But this is where I think things truly go awry, killing an otherwise good idea.
Instead bringing up the level of drama that challenges our fears and mystery of the sea to make it more exciting and invigorating, we only get a barrage of the supernatural ghost stories, fishermans' fantasies, space aliens and outright ridiculousness almost too much to bear. I could forgive a little fantasy here or there and even imagine it, but some of it is just shoot 'em up cartoonish crap that for the life of me seems as if it is full of scenes where costuming is focused on how good actors look in their suits rather than any hint of an entertaining story. Not fun.
Sadly, it's there. It's a show that coulda, woulda, shoulda but didn't.
As such, Seaquest had a lot going for the show and its not surprising its fresh look at underwater fiction really jumped the mark for hype in its first season offerings. What slowed it down was a lot of background story and tedious placement setting up the show (much of this could have been cut out of the stories) with a lot less action than you might have expected usually mandated from other Sci-Fi series of the time (Star Trek TNG was wrapping up and Earth 2 was to debut on air a year later). And I think, for the most part, producers recognized this and went into to high gear to bump things up a notch.
But the show went too sci-fi hokey, even cheesy, departing from the beautiful world that season 1 had so intricately put into place. With new actors, a talking dolphin (Darwin), and annoying hardware, these new episodes reflected changes in acting vision, and clearly some actors are "remade" from what was previously intended in my opinion. In fact, by mid-season 2, episodes are so different, that one wonders if it is a spin off of the original Seaquest series. By now, with the show so poorly initiated and driving Roy Scheider to the brink of quitting (So how do you continue a show when the lead quits? Network execs make him do a few appearances in the next season so no one notices, right? Sort of, but lame, very lame) and thusly, season 3 could only offer a badly needed dose of action in the eyes of actors, audience and execs. But this is where I think things truly go awry, killing an otherwise good idea.
Instead bringing up the level of drama that challenges our fears and mystery of the sea to make it more exciting and invigorating, we only get a barrage of the supernatural ghost stories, fishermans' fantasies, space aliens and outright ridiculousness almost too much to bear. I could forgive a little fantasy here or there and even imagine it, but some of it is just shoot 'em up cartoonish crap that for the life of me seems as if it is full of scenes where costuming is focused on how good actors look in their suits rather than any hint of an entertaining story. Not fun.
Sadly, it's there. It's a show that coulda, woulda, shoulda but didn't.