SeaQuest DSV

Overview

Season 1

The series follows the adventures of the high-tech submarine seaQuest DSV 4600, a deep-submergence vehicle operated by the United Earth Oceans Organization (UEO), a global coalition of up-world countries and undersea confederations, similar to the United Nations.

The storyline begins in 2018, when mankind has exhausted almost all natural resources, except for on the ocean floor, where human colonies have been established. The UEO was created after a recent showdown of nations and confederations at the Livingston Trench in the North Atlantic Ocean. The showdown was depicted in the pilot episode, "To Be Or Not to Be", and remained a recurring element for the duration of the series.

The seaQuest was designed by retired naval captain Nathan Bridger for NORPAC, a military organization mentioned in the pilot, which loans the vessel to the UEO. Bridger is asked to take command of the vessel, and after initial reluctance—he had promised his now-dead wife not to rejoin the Navy after their son was killed in naval combat—agrees.

The mission of seaQuest, Bridger, and the crew is to protect seafloor colonies from hostile nonaligned nations, to mediate disputes, and to perform undersea research, much of which was still in the preliminary stages when the show began production in 1993. The first season's storylines primarily dealt with plausible oceanographic research, environmental issues, political machinations of the world and the interpersonal relationships of the crew.

Season 2

In the first-season finale, Bridger sacrifices the seaQuest to prevent an ecological disaster and for a short time it was not known if the show would be renewed for another season. The series had struggled in the ratings against Murder, She Wrote on CBS and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman on ABC. But NBC had guaranteed Steven Spielberg two seasons in a deal like the one he had secured for his 1985 series Amazing Stories.

Before the second season, NBC and Universal made changes to the show's format, cast, and production location. They moved the show's production from Los Angeles to Orlando. NBC fired Royce D. Applegate (Chief Petty Officer Manilow Crocker) and John D'Aquino (Krieg) because the network wanted a younger cast for the second season. D'Aquino returned for a guest appearance in the third season. Stacy Haiduk (Hitchcock) told producers that she did not wish to move to Orlando for the second season, having just returned to Los Angeles after spending four years in Florida during the production of The Adventures of Superboy. Stephanie Beacham (Westphalen) was also hesitant to move to Florida. Beacham also blamed continued disputes between the network and the show's producers as a major reason why she did not return.

Joining the series for season two were Edward Kerr as Lieutenant James Brody, seaQuest's weapons officer; Kathy Evison as Lieutenant Lonnie Henderson, ship's helmsman; Rosalind Allen as Dr. Wendy Smith, the boat's new chief medical officer; Michael DeLuise as Seaman Anthony Piccolo, an ex-convict who has genetically engineered gills; and Peter DeLuise as Dagwood, a prototype genetically engineered life form (G.E.L.F. or "dagger"—a racial slur) who serves as seaQuest's custodian. As the seaQuest was rebuilt in the storyline, it allowed the sets to be redesigned for the new Florida location. A shortened version of the Emmy-winning main title theme was created. The series returned to the airwaves on September 18, 1994, with the two-hour television movie season premiere, "Daggers".

NBC and the show's producers decided they wanted more traditionally science-fiction oriented episodes, a direction that was explored toward the end of the first season in the episode "Such Great Patience", in which seaQuest discovers a million-year-old alien ship entombed in the ocean floor. The second season explored as genetic engineering, aliens, parapsychology, time travel and various "monsters of the week", including killer plants, a giant fire-breathing worm, a prehistoric crocodile and an ancient demon.

Season 3

Blaming continued disputes with producers and abandonment of the show's original premise, Roy Scheider requested to be released from his contract with NBC. However, the network only partially agreed and demanded that Bridger would make several appearances throughout the third season. Edward Kerr had been very frustrated with the episode entitled "Alone" (Reportedly, Kerr hated the script so much that he left the set. Brody is absent from that episode) and also wished to exit the series in the third season, which is why his character was critically injured in the season finale, "Splashdown".

NBC would only agree to release him from his contract if he continued to play Brody for a few episodes in the third season so his character could be killed off for more dramatic impact in the episode "SpinDrift". Because of rescheduling, the episode "Brainlock", with Brody still alive, aired after the character's death. Rosalind Allen was released; her character Dr. Smith proved to be unpopular with the audience and because producers felt that her character's telepathic abilities would not fit with the more serious tone planned for the new season.

Marco Sanchez (Chief Petty Officer Miguel Ortiz), who had requested to remain with the series, was also released after NBC decided it wanted the principal cast number dropped from ten to nine, leaving Jonathan Brandis (Lucas Wolenczak), Don Franklin (Commander Jonathan Ford), and Ted Raimi (Lieutenant Tim O'Neill) as the only three cast members who remained with the show since the first episode. The marine trivia presentations at the end of the show, formerly hosted by oceanographer Dr. Bob Ballard in season one and the main cast excluding Scheider in season two, were dropped entirely. The show itself was renamed seaQuest 2032, with the storyline pushed ahead ten years after the end of season two.

In the season premiere, the seaQuest reappears on Earth, its crew mostly intact, ten years after their abduction at the end of season two. Captain Bridger retires to raise his new grandson and Michael Ironside joins the cast as the more militaristic Captain Oliver Hudson. Originally, Ironside refused to take over from Scheider as star of the series. "I saw so many problems that I couldn't see where I'd be able to do the work I wanted to do." claimed Ironside. Also considered for the lead of the series was actor Jonathan Banks, who had previously appeared in the first-season episode "Whale Songs" as radical environmentalist Maximilian Scully.

Cast

Main

Roy Scheider as Captain Nathan Bridger (47 episodes)

Jonathan Brandis as Lucas Wolenczak (57 episodes)

Stephanie Beacham as Dr. Kristin Westphalen (22 episodes)

Stacy Haiduk as Lieutenant Commander Katherine Hitchcock (23 episodes)

Don Franklin as Commander Jonathan Ford (56 episodes)

John D'Aquino as Lieutenant Benjamin Krieg (22 episodes)

Royce D. Applegate as CPO Manilow Crocker (22 episodes)

Ted Raimi as Lieutenant Tim O'Neill (54 episodes)

Marco Sanchez as CPO Miguel Ortiz (40 episodes)

Frank Welker as voice of Darwin

Dr. Bob Ballard as himself, marine trivia during credits

Rosalind Allen as Dr. Wendy Smith (19 episodes)

Edward Kerr as Lieutenant James Brody (26 episodes)

Michael DeLuise as Seaman Anthony Piccolo (33 episodes)

Kathy Evison as Lieutenant Lonnie Henderson (32 episodes)

Peter DeLuise as Dagwood (31 episodes)

Michael Ironside as Captain Oliver Hudson (13 episodes)

Elise Neal as Lieutenant J.J. Fredericks (10 episodes)

Episodes

During the first and second seasons, NBC aired the show on Sundays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time; however, the series was frequently preempted in the second season in favor of NBC Sports coverage. During the third season, NBC moved the show to Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET; seaQuest continued to face frequent preemptions in favor of sports coverage and other television specials. Several of the show's producers, including Carleton Eastlake, believe these preemptions led to the show's cancellation.

After cancellation, the series aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States, Horror Channel in the UK, Space: The Imagination Station in Canada and Network Ten in Australia.

Production

In October 1992, it was announced NBC had given a 22-episode order to Sea Quest which was co-created by Rockne S. O'Bannon and Steven Spielberg. The budget for the first season was estimated to be around $30 million with Universal Television's televisions ambitions for the series being to serve as part of a larger multimedia franchise Spielberg had been friends with Roy Scheider since he starred in Jaws and was instrumental in getting him as the lead in the series with Scheider saying of the experience "It's the best part offered me this year. If it gets to be half as good as it reads — it will be wonderful. It's time for a show like this on TV."

During development, the original title for the series was Deep Space, though this was changed after the announcement of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Roy Scheider's character was based on John C. Lilly and Bob Ballard, who was also the technical advisor for the series in the first season. Lilly was a pioneer researcher into the nature of consciousness using as his principal tools the isolation tank, dolphin communication and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination. He was a prominent member of the Californian counterculture of scientists, mystics and thinkers that arose in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Albert Hofmann, Gregory Bateson, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Werner Erhard, and Richard Feynman were all frequent visitors to his home. The character's name, Nathan Hale Bridger, was in homage to Nathan Hale.

When producers began developing new characters for the second season, they named Lieutenant Brody after Police Chief Martin Brody, Roy Scheider's character in the first two Jaws films. Ralph Willcox and Karen Fraction, who both became recurring guest stars in the third season, had previously appeared as different characters in the second. Despite the numerous cast changes, Jonathan Brandis appeared in every episode of the series, Don Franklin in all but one episode ("And Everything Nice"), and Ted Raimi in all but two episodes ("Nothing But The Truth" and "The Siamese Dream").

Several of the cast's family members were brought in to play characters, as well. Brenda King, Roy Scheider's wife, portrayed Carol Bridger; Todd Allen, Rosalind Allen's husband, portrayed Clay Marshall in "The Siamese Dream"; Michael and Peter DeLuise's father, veteran actor Dom DeLuise, portrayed Nick Piccolo in "Vapors". Several cast members also dabbled on the creative side of the show, as both Ted Raimi and Jonathan Brandis penned episodes during the second season. (Brandis wrote the aforementioned "The Siamese Dream" and Raimi, "Lostland".) Conversely, Robert Engels, one of the show's executive producers (and writer of two episodes, "Greed For a Pirate's Dream" and "Hide and Seek") during the first season, portrayed the recurring character Malcolm Lansdowne.

Home media

In 2005, Universal announced that the first season of seaQuest DSV would be released on Region 1 DVD along with a week-long marathon of the show on the Sci Fi Channel. The DVD release included never before seen deleted scenes on selected episodes. The second season was released in 2008 in region 1. As opposed to the first season, the second season was released on eight single-sided discs and does not contain any extra features such as deleted scenes. The third season was not released on DVD in region 1 but was released in Region 4 in 2011.

On December 12, 2015, the Australian DVD label ViaVision, through its distributor Madman Distribution, released season 1 on Blu-ray in full 1080p High definition. Although presented in 1080p, the program is presented Pillarboxed to maintain the original 4:3 aspect ratio. Season 2 was released on Blu-ray on March 2, 2016. On April 15, 2020, selected episodes were made available on the early preview of the streaming service Peacock, available to Xfinity subscribers with qualifying devices.

On May 6, 2019, Mediumrare Entertainment released the complete series on DVD in Region 2 however two episodes are missing, 'Dagger Redux' and 'The Siamese Dream' instead two episodes from the previous disc are overlapped in their place. Despite this, the correct episode titles are listed in the DVD menu.

Mill Creek Entertainment announced the complete series of SeaQuest DSV on Blu-ray was released on July 19, 2022.

Merchandise

A short series of novels based on the characters and concepts depicted on seaQuest DSV were available during the first season of the show. They were:

seaQuest DSV: The Novel (a novelization of the pilot episode) by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood. Published October 1993. ISBN 978-0-441-00037-1

seaQuest DSV: Fire Below by Matthew J. Costello. Published January 1994. ISBN 0-441-00039-8

seaQuest DSV: The Ancient by David Bischoff. Published March 1994. ISBN 0-441-00042-8

Nemesis Comics published one issue of a seaQuest DSV comic book in March 1994. It contained a 23-page original story titled Deep Faith, blueprints for the Renegade submarine and for the seaQuest bridge, and two one-page "Logbook" character bios for Captain Bridger and Dr. Westphalen. The cover for the planned second issue was included on the final page of Issue #1, but it was ultimately never published.

A video game was released for the Super NES, Game Boy, and Genesis consoles in 1994.

A series of action figures designed by Playmates Toys were released in 1993. Captain Bridger, Commander Ford, Lucas Wolenczak, Lt. Commander Hitchcock, Lieutenant O'Neill, Chief Crocker, Darwin, Dr. Rubin Zellar, and The Regulator were released as part of wave one. Additional characters such as Dr. Westphalen, Chief Ortiz, and Lieutenant Krieg and a Darwin with sound effects were planned as part of wave two, but they were never released. Additionally, prototypes of the seaQuest, the Delta 4 Pirate sub, the Stinger, a seaLaunch, and a Deep Sea Mini Pickup, all with electronic lights and sounds, are known to exist but were not released.

A series of trading cards produced by SkyBox were released in 1993, depicting characters, scenes, and episodes from the first season. It consisted of 100 standard trading cards, plus four foil chase cards and two promotional cards.

Soundtrack album

John Debney composed the original theme music and scored the pilot and season one shows, with Don Davis working on season two. When the series was revamped as SeaQuest 2032 in the final season, Russ Landau composed a new theme and scored all the episodes. In 1995, Varèse Sarabande released an album of Debney's music from the show, featuring the series main and end title themes and selections from "To Be or Not to Be" (tracks 2–8), "Knight of Shadows" (tracks 9 and 10) and "Such Great Patience" (tracks 11–13). In 2020, the label released a 2-CD expansion, with music from "To Be or Not to Be" on disc 1. Disc 2 contained music from the season one episodes “Brothers And Sisters” (tracks 1–7), “Knight Of Shadows” (8–11), “The Regulator” (12–14), “The Good Death” (15–23), “Such Great Patience” (24–31) and “The Devil's Window” (track 32).

Main Title (1:03)

Preparing for Battle (2:51)

Bridger's Dream (:52)

Uncharted Waters (2:06)

First Engagement (3:18)

Darwin Speaks (:58)

Dangerous Adversary (1:34)

To Adventures Bold (1:31)

Waltz With the Dead (2:48)

The Forgiving/Resurrection (4:53)

The Discovery (2:15)

Lucas Meets the Alien (2:30)

Solemn Oath (2:26)

End Credits (:37)

CD 1: "To Be or Not to Be"

SeaQuest Opening Credits (3:29)

SeaQuest Arrives (4:01)