Review

SeaQuest DSV Season 2 | SeaQuest DSV Season 1 | Star Trek: New Voyages | Dead Last Series

SeaQuest DSV - Season 2

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I reviewed the first season a while back and I thoroughly enjoyed watching that first year's output. The second season though just doesn't measure up to the same standard. A lot of the characters have been removed. And while replacing the older chief of security with a younger, better trained character makes sense, for a lot of the changes there's no real reason. A new doctor is introduced, who also happens to be telepathic. And a genetically engineered superman is brought on board. As the janitor.

And I know this is a rather odd thing to get caught up on, but gone is the idea that everyone on the bridge has their own station. The original bridge had separate stations for weapons, communications, sensors, navigation and propulsion. But now people seem to swap stations at random, and any station can fire the torpedoes. This is probably more of an annoyance for me because the new bridge set just doesn't work. Which is odd, because it's actually only a minor variation from the original bridge set. The new bridge just feels too cramped and closed in. The secondary stations are a lot higher than the main deck, and the captain's chair, XO and tactical are all pulled in too close.

Then there are the special effects, which are nowhere near as good as the first season. I know that CGI effects won't age well, but these are truly dire. The first season seemed to keep with the good CGI ethos of "If it will look crap, don't show it." It's a method that allowed more recent shows like the New Captain Scarlet to really shine. But is its second season, DSV really plumbs the depths of bad CGI. Their effects only ever really worked in a water environment to distort and dull the image. But too many of the shots now have to be above the waves, including a re-used and rather odd looking shot of the ship docked at port. This from a ship we are told never has to surface. It's truly designed to stay submerged permanently.

When taken together, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the whole show is being done on the cheap. Fewer cast members and a smaller bridge set make filming cheaper and easier, because complex shots don't need to be set up. Lower CGI budget results in a lot more re-used shots of the ship, so much so that every episode ends with the same one of the ship sailing away. Lower budget for the scripts results in a show that was very character driven with good stories turning into a "monster-of-the-week" show.

And all this from a show with Steven Spielberg as an executive producer.

As I mentioned in my first review, I will not be buying season three. It belongs in that Room 101 reserved for all cult TV shows that have gone feral in their old age, and is kept company by Airwolf season 5, The A-Team season 2, Team Knight Rider (yes, technically a spin off), Buck Rogers season 2, Airwolf season 5* and the dreaded, so bad we (almost) dare not speak its name: Galactica 1980.

I haven't finished watching all the episodes yet. I still have a three discs to go through. But I'm not holding my breath it will get any better. And seeing the output from the show, I'm not surprised that Roy Schneider didn't sign up for a third year.

All in all, rather disappointing.

*I know I already mentioned it. It's twice as bad as anything else.

SeaQuest DSV - Season 1

The 21st century. Mankind has colonised the last unexplored region on Earth, the ocean. As captain of the SeaQuest and its crew, we are it's guardians. For beneath the surface lies the future.

Never have thirty-three words brought me back so completely to my childhood. This was one of my favourite TV shows when I was growing up, and to be honest, I was a little worried that it might have aged badly. I was almost in two minds about buying it. Luckily it delivers very nicely, falling into a sort of "classic" sci-fi quality for me. Which means although I can see the flaws and see through the special effects, I love the show enough to put them aside and just enjoy it.

For a show set on a submarine, there is a surprising variety of stories. There are one or two really dire episodes. As a fan, I must admit this. And one of the "least good" episodes features the twin guest stars of William Shatner and Airwolf. Yes, you read that right. Airwolf makes a cameo. However there's also some cracking episodes, including one of my favourite ghost stories 'Knight of Shadows.' Also has one of the most climatic season endings we'd ever seen at the time.

Like all good sci-fi, there's enough real science in the show to keep it believable. Who can forget Bob Ballard from the Woodshole Oceanographic Institute and his over-credits explanation of the science in tonight's episode. And the science fiction elements are actually pretty advanced for their era. For example, one character laments the chemically altered, hydroponically grown, genetically engineered orange he gets for breakfast because every fruit is perfectly round, perfectly healthy, perfectly orange. Just once he'd like it bruised or over-ripe or something to break the monotony.

The boxset is somewhat lacking in features. There's no guide to the episodes anywhere, so unless you can remember the episode name, it's difficult to find what you're looking for. There are some nice features like the animated menu and most of the discs have several deleted scenes on them.

Season 2 is available sometime in April I think. I am avoiding season 3 as it really jumped the shark. The show was re-branded for it's third and final season and it destroyed the show. All the basic elements from the first two years were systematically dismantled and thrown overboard. The ship of exploration becomes a ship of war, the commander is replaced and most of the characters that made the show fun to watch were shoved out the airlock. In fact, come to think of it, has there ever been a successful rebranding of a sci-fi show? I'm not talking about re-inventing (ie BSG) here, but continuing the same show with different actors. Has it ever worked?

Star Trek: New Voyages

World Enough and Time

You may have heard me go on about fan based shows recently. You may not know why though.

I've been interested in these ever since my attention was drawn to them about three years ago, and now that there is no Star Trek show in production (for the first time since 1987), these have really taken off. Some are really outstanding. Others are not so impressive. But the drive and commitment these people show is outstanding.

New Voyages is one of the better quality shows. This of course means that you get an episode on about the same timescale as a pay rise. But the wait is always worth it. This show started with the line from the original Trek series "....These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her five year mission; to explore new worlds and new civilisations...."
Realising that the show had only given us three of those years before being cancelled, New Voyages attempts to give us those missing two years. So far, we've had four episodes. OK, not a great track record, but when you watch the episodes, you will understand why.

New Voyages reconstructed the sets used by the original TV show using copies of the original blueprints. The bridge in particular is spectacular, but the nostalgia seeing the transporter room was a joy. The space shots are accomplished using CGI partly to allow better shots, but also from a time and cost standpoint. Another show; Star Trek: Exeter didn't wimp out here, and in fact are doing their special effects exactly the same way as the original series.

World Enough and Time guest stars George Takei, Grace Lee Whitney and Majel Barrett. Previous guest stars have included Walter Koenig. The opening shots are jaw dropping, particularly if you keep reminding yourself "These people are, at best, well skilled amateurs."

The story is the usual Star Trek fare, and I won't spoilt it for you, but the effects are amazing. The costumes, sets, props and effects all look like the crew built a time machine, went back to 1963 and raided the Star Trek sets.

All in all, this series is well worth viewing and if only they'd release episodes more frequently than they revamp their website, I'd be a happy bunny.

Further Viewing

If this has piqued your interest, I suggest you go looking for yourselves. There's a whole world of fan based effort out there. Some of it is really good, others not so. But it covers everything. Star Wars fans should check out "The Dark Redemption" a feature length fan based movie that boasts special effects and sets more impressive than the original films. OK, so some may say "How hard is that?" to which I answer "Go to the back of the class." It's impressive because they've done everything themselves, usually built from scratch, with almost no budget and they have to teach themselves how to achieve effects as they work. That's impressive.

Breakdown of current Star Trek fan fiction shows:

Dead Last Series

I was surprised when I first found out that the original series of Battlestar Galactica only had one season. It's packaged as "The Complete Series" on DVD. The TV series was then re-editted into at least two TV movies, that I recall. One was about the attack and the aftermath "Battlestar Galactica: The Movie" and the other was "Mission Galactica" which was about the return of the Pegasus. Both of these were edited entirely from the TV show. No new footage was shot, at least; as far as I recall.

The series returned for a re-vamped season as 'Galactica 1980', which was referred to by most fans as "bloody awful". It was about Galactica finally finding Earth, but Earth in the 1980s. It kept some of the original cast, such as Lorne Green, but also brought on Barry van Dyke. I think he played Apollo's adopted son, you know; the one with the annoying robot dog. Boxie, wasn't it?

Fearing the Cylons would destroy Earth, the fleet leads them away, leaving a small team behind with the task of speeding up Earth's development until they are at the same level as the colonials. It's about as bad as it sounds, I'm afraid.

Principally suffering from a lack of a big male lead, and having a cheese factor bigger than the comedy Doctor Who episodes for Children in Need, it faired poorly in the ratings. It suffered not least from huge, gaping and unresolved plotholes, use of time travel (repeatedly), cloaking technology using a basic fade effect that looked so shabby that the original Star Trek transporter looked positively high tech in comparison, and a lack of a decent villain as the Cylons were absent for much of it.

Specific annoyances included:

• For some reason, all your clothes go white when you travel back in time, yet return to their original colour when you return. This is never explained.
• Time travel involves accelerating around a planet, Superman style.
• It's never made clear exactly why bringing Earth up to colonial technology levels would help, seeing as how the 12 original colonies couldn't defend themselves.
• And yes, if you've made it this far, you've probably come to the same conclusion I had. The biggest plothole of them all. If they've figured out time travel, why can't they go back in time and warn the colonies before the attack?

There was only one decent episode of note in this series, called "Whatever happened to Starbuck?"

In fact, sci-fi on television seems replete with examples of shows that re-vamped themselves, only to lose their core audience and "jump the shark"

Battlestar Galactica season 2, officially titled "Galactica 1980"
SeaQuest DSV season 3, officially titled "SeaQuest 2032"
Buck Rogers season 2, un-officially titled "The Search for More Money"
Airwolf season 4, un-officially titled "What The F- ?!?"

There are probably loads of others.