How would you re-imagine seaQuest?

seaQuest DSV was notorious for being 3 shows in 1, only separated by season. As two was considered a joke, that leaves season 1 and season 3.

I like the whole show, don't get me wrong, wish some things were better but I still like it. That being said, I don't think season 1 really had the gas to survive. They had the 2 floors of science labs, but there was never any overarching theme to the show, just go out and do random things.

Worked for Star Trek in the 60s, but TV audiences have become to a degree more discerning (heck, even reality TV has some overall arch).

What I would do is base a new series around the season 3 style but soften in a bit. Keep the undersea conflicts with persons like Deon and Bourne, but occasionally break off with one-off episodes such as Give Me Liberte or Bad Water to vary things up.

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The sub:
Same design, squid inspired hull design with bio-engineered skin cover. Keep it, that's the most immediately recognizable aspect. of the show. It's the baddest boat out there, the best combination of speed, weapons, and versatility to ever be created. Initially a warship, but some science facilities worked in after being given to the UEO. Not two full levels, but it would still be very well equipped.

However: keep the underwater science believable. Oh, in 25,50 years we are undoubtedly going to make faster, stronger, more maneuverable submarines and underwater craft, but I never bought into the whole "my m16 shoots lasers!" thing or putting lasers underwater. That just smacked of ripping off Star Trek phasers.

Keep the torpedoes, the grapnals, but no energy weapons.

Also, keep the sheer variety of resources the seaQuest had. The seaCrabs, the shuttles, the fighters, all that. I would consider keeping Darwin, as he worked, I thought, quite well. Not overly anthropomorphized, more of a underwater dog.

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Cast: alright, characters I would want back would be Bridger, Ford, Ortiz, O'Neill, Brody, Hitchcock, and Westphalen, and perhaps a recurring subfighter character.

Here, bridger would be basically the same, but the outside world more desperate. He's trying to bring order to the world and help develop science, and while Hudson worked for season 3, Bridger is more appealing to SQ fans.

Ford, Ortiz, O'Neill, and Hitchcock would be essentially the same, as long as you don't do things like what Hitchcock had to do in seaWest. She was a strong, competent engineer and SO much better than Henderson. Westphalen would be more of a physician as the show would focus less on science, but keep at least a hint of the Westphalen/bridger relationship there.

Brody: Keep the personality, but define his role better. He never seemed to have a title or a specific notch in the chain of command. At times he acted third in command, others he was subordinate to O'Neill. I'd make him in charge of a detachment of marines on board, acting as security and ground forces where needed. You could possibly work in a little friction between the navy and the marines. He'd be knowledgable of sub operations, but unless specifically left in command by a superior, would be more of an adjunct.

Krieg, Piccolo, Henderson, Crocker, they all had their faults to me, and while they would resonate to older fans, just wouldn't be appropriate. Perhaps Crocker as a retired friend of the Captain, Krieg maybe, but very carefully, the others no.

Daggers: If forced to decide, I would say skip the whole GELF plot line, for while it has potential, I just never really liked it. It worked for season 2, but in season 3 it seemed like the GELF population had skyrocketed into thousands. If they were to be brought in as a plot line, keep the overall population low. Perhaps have a recurring GELF officer, but not a main cast member.

As for Lucas: I'm divided. Using a s3 atmosphere, would it work to have a young genius onboard? His becoming an ensign is a perfect example, but then he just becomes a member of the crew, nothing overly special. I'd say don't have him, or if so, not too high focus. I liked him, but what parent would really send their boy genius off to a peacekeeping submarine? What navy would ALLOW said parent to do it?

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The sets:
The season 1 bridge, no question. The s2 bridge never really worked, I thought. Too much star trek influence. The nav dome gave a hint of realism, and could be used to provide immediate reference for the audience about the locations of various things in an instant. The seaQuest is here, enemy is there, colony over here, etc.

Also, do a few more shots of the nav stations, and keep an extra as the helm chief like in Bad Water. In s2, it seemed like they tried to ignore the front as much as possible, but it was very different from anything else yet seen.

Keep the aqua tubes, but for gods sake do not give the bridge a viewport straight to the ocean. Obvious weakness, one strike, the bridge floods, goodbye command crew.

Keep everything else basically the same, those were some of the best sets I've ever seen, looked absolutely realistic. Only thing that really bothered me were those side ladder tubes in the docking bay, but only as they seemed to either not be used or changed purpose (Ortiz returning from a seaCrab from them, and lucas escaping from the assault team by climbing up that same ladder, oy). Keep them, but use them.

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Scripts: use basic s3 plots, to establish the characters, leave some plot lines open, and see where it goes. No aliens without significant consideration by the writing team, "Such Great Patience" worked well, but the others not so much.

Thats about it beyond what was said earlier.



The overall intention was to bring many aspects fans enjoyed but in a workable fashion. For example: Bridger over hudson as he was more liked and also quite different from other captains out there, but he still could have handled the s3 universe. From Noyce's description in "To Be or Not To Be", the s3 universe could very well have been what was really there. It was more desperate, and explains why the seaQuest would have been used as it was, whereas in s1 it seemed like the mere presence of seaQuest in the UEO was enough to keep everyone in line. boring. Keep a workable cast (at a workable size, the seaQuest cast always seemed huge) with a workable plot in a workable universe.

They are military, act it!
They are peace-keepers, show them in action!
The outside world is in chaos, display it!

season 1 was too benign, and one can even track the slow change to military stories. Season 3 had a good universe, but had too much baggage from the first two seasons to work and was subsequently canceled.

Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated.

I agree with most of the posts on this section, but the only downside I see is that almost half the cast has died, as of late the great Roy Schieder. Updating it would work but it would almost have to be a next generation sort of thing, but not such a negative outlook as was S3

Interesting question! Back in 1995, while season 2 was still festering
in the hearts and minds of true SQ season 1 fans, and Season 3 was very
disappointing....I came up with 20 or so plots for episodes that I
now think would great for a Saturday morning animated series!
Unfortunately I cannot find my list of ideas! I was able to remember
only 8 of them. Just in case I move back out LA and re-establish
contact with friends who are in the TV industry, I will not
divluge them, however, I will tell you that one of them had to do
with a re-imagining of an episode from season 2 (The Maruader),
a re-visit of Season 1's finale (Ocean on Fire, which was renamed
"Higher Ground" for no apparent reason), and an episode based on
one of the books written back then. I couldn't find my list of ideas
in my storage unit, but hopefully I left some stuff at my parent's
place!

First off, the command structure on SeaQuest was far too lax (e.g. oh you stole a shuttle to go seek a ghost you saw in your dreams you say... I wouldn't worry at all about being fired). The original Battlestar Galactica series suffered from this, and I think the more rigid and gritty command structure of the new series works very well.

The next thing I would do is to remove anything that doesn't have a decemt bearing in real science. This means that ghosts, demons, spirits, gods, dimensional and time travel, aliens, super lasers are OUT.

I did like Darwin, but I would would probably dumb down the equiptment, so that only simple forms of communications are possible, and perhaps get better with time.

The locations and sets of the land-based sets all seemed to be a little hard to swallow. They where always in paradise, and nearly always located in the Gulf of Mexico. I would probably make the world a little more gritty (more like today, with perhaps a 'spice' of future technologies), make the locations anywhere in the world (Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, etc), and maybe throw in some bad weather once in a while!

I'll post futher ideas later. Comments so far are welcome :)

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Edit:
People seem to be misunderstanding me. I said "I did like Darwin, but I would would probably dumb down the equipment, so that only simple forms of communications are possible, and perhaps get better with time. "

I was actually referring to the equipment used to communicate with Darwin, not technology in general.

by tmwna » Fri Feb 22 2008 12:39:05
IMDb member since October 2004
Due to an apparent lack of imagination of today’s script writers, we have seen a massive upsurge in the amount of 're-imagined' TV shows, where by a series producer takes a popular TV show from the 80's/90's and redesigning it for today’s audiences.

Good examples of these are Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team, Transformers and Knight Rider.

While some of these shows have drastically benefited from their revamp, and in some cases become far more popular than its original series, others have totally failed to win the hearts of the original fans or any new ones.

Imagine you have been approached by one such studio to bring seaQuest back to life.

Your primary goal is to win the original fans back to the seaQuest camp.
Your secondary goal is to win people, who either did not like the original series or had never seen it before.

What would you make change in the show? How would you change it?

I will make my own suggestions in a seperate post.

Show Bible:
I would do it primarily as a deep sea exploration show for 35 mins (no commercials), then 7 mins left for the educational bit. In that regard very similar to season 1.
The overall premise should be that in the near future, population growth has forced humanity to colonize the oceans and search for resources deep underwater to continue to survive, as faster than light space travel makes space colonization unfeasible. The UEO was formed as a treaty between all the superpowers (US, Europe, Africa, Russia, India, China) to build the seaQuest DSV and crew it with a diverse crew representative of the treaty. Treaty allows the seaQuest to go anywhere, regardless of territorial disputes, as the UEO is a treaty for deep sea exploration, not an alliance, but they must be prepared to deal with terrorists attempting to disrupt underwater activities for political gain. Each underwater tour would last 60-70 days, so divide each TV season into roughly 2 underwater tours, and 2 story arcs on land to show impact of being away from families.

No new age stuff, no global wars, no aliens. I'm OK with newly discovered underwater species, but no aliens. And no fantasy or mythology stuff either.

seaQuest DSV:
Keep the same look, but update the interior to feel more like a cramped submarine, and add in latest technology. But no overly futuristic technologies like underwater lasers or shields or force fields. Either needs to be near an underwater colony, an underwater radio tower or near the surface to communicate with the surface world. No weapons; no SLBMs. If terrorists are encountered they should not engage but work with international navies by providing intelligence only. Should carry smaller subs with super cavitating capabilities for supersonic speeds within short distances underwater. Sub-fighters are military, again from different countries, but have their own command. Add underwater mechanical arms like Space Shuttles to scoop and drill for samples. Keep the WHSKR probes and virtual reality probe.

Crew:
The Captain and XO should change regularly, so no 1 particular nation can be viewed as being in charge. The crew should NOT be military. They can rotate the same cast members about the different senior officer/management positions. Should be a mix of ethnicities, gender and orientation. Crew should be advised not to engage in relations with each other to avoid jealousies so relationships between crew members would have to be kept secret. Keep Darwin the dolphin and provide him with a wife to show the difficulties of raising dolphins in captivity. The tight quarters of the submarine should allow for some interpersonal conflict to arise, especially with misunderstandings between different cultures. Some should have loved ones/spouses/children at shore for them to talk to every 2 weeks to show typical ship deployment stresses. Convert Lucas into a nerdy and insecure Ugly Betty type of child genius whom some members of the crew help her grow her confidence whereas others try to bully her. The military crew should be international in make-up and only required for the few episodes that have encounters with terrorists. Military commander reports in to the civilian Captain and XO, and not happy with the official org chart, since the commander should be an O-6.

For me personally, I always thought and felt that the true canonical seaQuest story began with "To Be Or Not To Be" and ended with "Higher Power". I consider Seasons 2 and 3 themselves as some bad hokey reboot and alternate reality (read "Darkest Timeline") of the show (NBC's alternate reality of it, that is). lol

In the years following the show's cancellation, I dabbled in DSV fanfic writing some stories and scripts that re-imagined Season 2, picking up where Season 1's finale left off and imagining that the following seasons never happened.

It's been many years but from what I can gather from stories pasted all over Word docs, 😜 My re-imagining went something like this:

i) A new seaQuest is built. Has all the capabilities and functionalities of the first sub but with upgraded tech and new capabilities (which I won't post here for now due to its length). The ship's bridge, deck, crew and captain's quarters, hallways and labs etc. all look virtually much the same as Season 1 in this story line (and look nothing like the sets in Season 2) but again with upgraded tech (e.g. a much powerful system network, upgraded SEAPOC). The WSKRS also has been upgraded, and there is now a storage unit of a few HR Probes and in particular, at least a few Stingers (after the UEO commissions the production of more Stingers).

The major change I brought to the seaQuest would have been there is now a Speeders sub-fighter squadron on board (something that the Season 3 writers tried to do) but unlike Season 3, the sub's squadron has more a peacekeeping role and is involved in rescue operations (though they are capable of engaging in combat if the situation arises). I would have introduced a sub-fighter, probably the captain of the squad, as a main new character.

ii) All the main characters from the first season return and are signed on to the next tour aboard the new sub.

E.g. Lt Commander Hitchcock is back (after turning down the offer to captain the oil tanker), so is Dr. Westphalen, Lt Krieg is also back (after managing to weasel his way back on to seaQuest through some technical loophole in the UEO Fleet's rules on being assigned to a particular ship). So is Chief Crocker who delays retirement for another year, following his divorce. Crocker is allowed back on duty after Captain Bridger reaches out to help him by giving him a personal recommendation, following Crocker's rescue feat/operation of Dr. Wolenczak and his staff in the season one finale.

Also, two of the series' recurring characters from the first season, Chief William Shan (Dustin Nguyen) and Dr. Joshua Levin (Timothy Omundson) are upgraded to major character status and are now part of the main cast crew in the new season. Story arcs will be presented for them as well and their backgrounds will be explored in subsequent episodes.

iii) My own script bible would have had the main story arcs and much of the story lines on six of the main cast/characters: Captain Bridger, Lucas, Dr. Westphalen, Commander Ford, Commander Hitchcock and Lt. Krieg. Much of the character development would have been around these characters. Also, the experiences on board seaQuest would be based from their own experiences and perspectives. Lt O'Neill, Lt Ortiz, Darwin are still there though and stories will be focused on them.

The father-mother-son motive will be developed further for Bridger, Lucas and Westphalen and my story would have of course have the mandatory and predictable series' ending where Nathan and Kristin finally get married. 😄

Unlike the original season 3 though, in my story, Bridger's son Robert is confirmed dead (to give the story a bittersweet development). Also unlike where the story went in the following seasons, I kept the original writers' premise that Commander Ford does come from an impoverished and troubled background and his past serves an important factor in the way his character develops, in the way he relates to others and how he has come to be where he is today.

There is some sort of love triangle conflict between Jonathan, Katherine and Ben. But in this storyline, it would have been again, a predictable Katherine and Ben ending. lol


iv) I would have kept the show's premise strictly science fact-based and maintained the sense of wonder about exploring the oceans that the first season established in its vision and mood for the show. There were many things that could be explored: global warming, El Nino, hydroponic tech, the LOST laws, oil spills, potential outbreaks and cures that the oceans may contain etc. One story of mine had this premise of how the seaQuest's science crew figures out an important bio-property in certain reefs that could potentially provide a cure for certain deadly diseases including cancer.

Other story has the seaQuest intervening and mitigating a conflict between a community of sea farmers and an MNC which is threatening to take over their land.

At the same time, the politics and conflicts of the show would still be there and there needed to be some permanent threat of conflict/tension that seaQuest had to face. My story would have climaxed with a future season finale, whereby other confederations or in particular, individual nations like Russia or China or Saudi Arabia/Iran have secretly built their own specialized sub(s) to rival seaQuest, flaunting UEO law and thereby bringing tensions within the UEO to a whole new level of international crisis.

So plenty of avenues the story can go.

will just bullet point. I'M sure some of this will seem contradictory but In my humble opinion:

ALIENS/SEA MONSTERS: Yes! i'm in favour of BOTH of them but use them very seldom like only 1 ep per season for aliens & a few for monsters. no more than that.
TIME TRAVEL: I'm okay with this but only do it like once in the shows entire history otherwise it gets stupid.
LASERS: yeah i'm fine with lasers given it is already a real technology.
GLOBAL WARS: I'm very pro this. like ST:DS9 u could have some great story arcs with this.
GELFS: I'm okay with them but don't make dumb, stupid characters like dagwood. he was soo stupid his character. DOH!
TRIVIA BITS: A defo YES YES. loved the little trivia bits at the end. "see you on the next adventure of seaquest".
MIDDLE-AGED CAPTAIN: keep the captain that type of age. resist the silly temptation for a young pretty boy. also no age-inappropriate relationships like a 50 year old man with a 24 year old woman. the older I get I find them sooo cringey.
CLEARLY DEFINED MAP: I think season 3 did this a little better. but I would like to see a clear structure of earth in the pilot episode- i.e the countries and sea confederations.


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*DONTS*
*GODS, SPIRITS & DEMONS = NO!!!! I don't mind aliens but anything spirit like or ghost-like a big NO NO from me. that's where I draw the line. no demons, hauntings or greek mythology also.
EMPATHS: Defo no. copying star trek too much.