MovieChat Forums > SeaQuest DSV (1993) Discussion > I wish I could like this show

I wish I could like this show

posted 17 years ago by imptacular
7 replies | jump to latest

I just finished watching the 2.5 seasons of Seaquest on Netflix. When I was a kid and the show came out, I thought it was great, but after so many years it just doesn't hold up at all. I grew up with Star Trek: TNG too, and a few years ago I watched a bunch of those DVD boxed sets. While TNG had its moments of cheese and its own share of bad episodes, it never, NEVER got as bad as even the mediocre episodes of Seaquest.

I suppose the first season was pretty decent, but there are even some big cracks there. The episode "Nothing but the Truth" is just a rip-off of "Starship Mine" from TNG, which was itself a rip-off of "Die Hard"-esque movies. Basically the latter half of season one, i.e. the episodes that followed the initial run, were awful. Aliens, Charleton Heston, and the worst season finale in the history of season finales that sets up all these great human plotlines then promptly forgets all of them by the end of the episode.

Then along comes season two, where apparently the entire crew of the Seaquest has become perfectly okay with acting like morons all the time. There were about five episodes that I watched where I didn't immediately start looking for something else to do.

Season three, while still suffering from some of the awful writing that made up the majority of season two, was a vast improvement. It wasn't a show about science and exploration anymore, but at least it had a purpose again. There were also no aliens or evil, gibbering plants, and essentially the show stopped trying to be Star Trek. Michael Ironside was actually an improvement over Chief Brody too - he can more convincingly spit out bad writing (which is how Patrick Stewart had so much success on TNG). My biggest hangup with season three is some very uneven acting talent, largely carried over from season two, and the episode where Ford dances. I really hope he got a bonus for that because it's probably why he doesn't get a lot of work these days.

Sorry, kinda long and rant-ish, but the over-arching theme to this is that I liked a few episodes of this show, but I just can't bring myself to say I actually liked the show. Like I said, TNG had its moments, but it never sunk as low as Seaquest (pun intended).

Life is hard; wear a helmet.

[–] questie_elf 17 years ago

I really hope he got a bonus for that because it's probably why he doesn't get a lot of work these days.

LOL!!

[–] highwaystar50 17 years ago

You're entited to your opinion but rest assured, it isn't necessarily the same as that of others. One of your problems with the show is that you watched it as a kid. I know from my experiences with reviewing shows that I had watched as a child is that they don't have the same affect on me now as they did when I was younger. I was in my early 40's when the show debuted and am now rewatching in my late 50's and still find that the show is interesting for some of its views of the future. One thing I like is that there doesn't seem to be many people on the earth of the future. Having lived in the Los Angeles area for my entire life, I find that concept quite refreshing.

At any rate, if you read some of the other reviews you'd see that the feeling is that the first year of the show didn't resonate with the general public as well as Universal might have liked so they fiddled with the story lines for the second season which helped the exiting of Roy Scheider from the series in year three. I guess what I'm saying is that, IMHO, it wasn't really the shows fault but that of the studio bean counters that doomed Seaquest. Many shows that impressed me as a kid are hard for me to watch now forty or fifty years later. Just my opinion.
KS

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] AStrangeOldMan 17 years ago

Yes, NBC liked the show as "perfect" when it debuted, and so proceeded to add far too many chefs, thus destroying a pretty good idea. One of the actors in the series said it like this: You present an idea and then the execs coo and slap each other on the back for their cleverness and tell you, "It's perfect! Here are the changes" - (usually a love interest, product-placement and a chimpanzee), and then when the show bombs after three seasons (or just one airing) of disastrous meddling, they blame the writers and actors.

"No fate but what we make." -Terminator II

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] AStrangeOldMan 17 years ago

Maybe NBC thought they'd reproduce the success of the first hour of the 1st season pilot - which had a phenomenal viewership. They then tried to figure out why the ratings kept going down ('chef' problems, anyone?), and contiued to greedily try to suck whatever life they could out of it.

"No fate but what we make." -Terminator II

[–] 17 years ago

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