An Episode Guide By Jerry Seward
PREMISE: In the year 2019, when tenuous world peace is held together by multinational confederations, humankind has begun to populate the oceans with huge colonies and mining concerns. Nathan Bridger, a former military man who turned to scientific research after personal tragedy, is coaxed out of retirement by the United Earth Oceans Organization to command the seaQUEST, the deep submergence vehicle he designed. Protecting undersea colonies, the craft must remain battle-ready as it patrols and explores the oceanic frontier.
Cast of Characters
Capt. Nathan Hale Bridger - Roy Scheider
Capt. Oliver Hudson - Michael Ironside(season 3)
Dr. Kristin Westphalen - Stephanie Beacham (season 1)
Lucas Wolenczak - Jonathan Brandis
Cmdr. Jonathan Devin Ford - Don Franklin
Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Hitchcock - Stacy Haiduk (season 1)
Lt. Benjamin Krieg - John D'aquino
Security Chief Manilow Crocker - Royce D. Applegate (season 1)
Dr. Wendy Smith - Rosalind Allen (season 2)
Lt. James Brody - Edward Kerr
Tony Piccolo - Michael DeLuise
Lt. Tim O'Neill - Ted Raimi
Sensor Chief Miguel Ortiz - Marco Sanchez
Ensign Loni Henderson - Kathy Evison
Dagwood - Peter DeLuise
Chief William Shan - Dustin Nguyen (season 1)
Lt. Fredricks - Elise Neal (season 3)
Cmdr. Scott Keller - Kent McCord
Lansdowne - Robert Engels (season 1)
Ensign Darwin - Darwin (voice supplied by Frank Welker)
ABOUT THE SHOW: If NBC and the producers had just left well enough alone and not revamped it every year, seaQUEST could have been an entertaining and speculative SF series about the colonization of the alien worlds right in our own backyard - those found beneath our oceans. Instead, its laughable second season was a cross between STAR TREK and BAYWATCH. With the injection of gods from Greek mythology and ancient curses, it was no longer science fiction but fantasy. While a vast improvement over the second season though still far below the promising first season, the third season was a dark and depressing CRIMSON TIDE ripoff. Sadly, seaQUEST sits alongside SPACE: 1999, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY, and TIME TRAX as largely being considered one of the worst science fiction shows in television history.
1. "To Be or Not to Be" Marilyn Stark (Shelley Hack), the previous captain of the seaQUEST, seeks revenge after she is stripped of her command.
2. "The Devil's Window" While seaQUEST examines an underwater volcanic phenomenon known as a "black smoker," Ensign Darwin contracts a mysterious illness.
3. "Treasures of the Mind" While on an exploration mission, seaQUEST discovers the ancient and submerged Library of Alexandria, only to have a number of nations claim its artifacts for their own and a team of psychics arrive to mediate between them.
4. "Games" On a visit to a prison in the Arctic, the seaQUEST is taken over by a mass murderer, who places the crew in danger when he threatens to release a killer toxin on board the submarine.
5. "Treasures of the Tonga Trench" Near the Tonga Trench, Lt. Krieg discovers luminous orbs which he thinks will make him rich; a mysterious sea creature attaches itself to the ship.
6. "Brothers and Sisters" Bridger and Lucas try to help a group of abandoned children when an underwater typhoon threatens their living quarters.
7. "Give Me LIBERTE..." Crew members contract a fatal virus while investigating the LIBERTE, a space station lost when it crashed in the sea years before.
8. "Knight of Shadows" Bridger is contacted via a hologram by the ghosts of the RMS KING GEORGE, a luxury liner that sank in 1913.
9. "Bad Water" In the Bermuda Triangle, Ford, Krieg, Lucas, and Dr. Westphalen get caught in a hurricane while trying to rescue a sightseeing sub that's stuck in a freshwater sinkhole.
10. "The Regulator" When the ship's air conditioning fails, forcing shipmates to room together, Krieg contracts an unconventional salvage operator to replace the needed part, but he's really a deranged genius who kidnaps Darwin.
11. "Seawest" Hitchcock goes undercover to investigate a distress signal emanating from a male-dominated gold mining complex.
12. "Photon Bullet" Lucas is challenged by a group of computer hackers to break the World Bank's computer codes and transfer funds into the accounts of humanitarian causes.
13. "Better Than Martians" Bridger and the crew race to save astronauts whose space capsule has crashed in the Atlantic Ocean after returning from a trip to Mars.
14. "Nothing but the Truth" As the sub is being readied for an experiment with only a skeleton crew aboard, a group of commandos tries to take control of the ship to use its technologies for an evil cause.
15. "Greed for a Pirate's Dream" The crew must persuade treasure hunters to abandon their search when their lives are endangered by a volcanic eruption.
16. "Whale Song" Bridger decides to resign as captain when he is ordered to destroy a vessel carrying a former colleague who has been sinking whaling ships.
17. "The Stinger" A prototype of a high-speed, single-seat sub, designed by Hitchcock and Lucas, is stolen.
18. "Hide and Seek" A charismatic madman (William Shatner) being followed by enemies takes Dr. Westphalen and Lansdowne captive to gain access to the ship's technology in hopes of helping his autistic son. Meanwhile, crew members all have the same dream involving Darwin.
19. "The Last Lap at Luxury" A plot to overthrow the UEO is uncovered when the room where confederation leaders are convening for a power summit breaks away from an underwater resort.
20. "Abalon" A brilliant biologist creates a secret community of water-breathing humans in his quest for a clean environment.
21. "Such Great Patience" A massive underwater earthquake uncovers an alien spaceship that's more than a million years old.
22. "The Good Death" Bridger must save a submarine carrying refugee children and Dr. Westphalen's daughter, Cynthia, who are fleeing the Brazilian slums after he is tricked into torpedoing it by an oppressive leader.
23. "Higher Power" A power plant designed by Lucas' father malfunctions and begins to heat the ocean at an alarming rate; the current tour of duty ends.
24. "Daggers" Bridger and the crew encounter genetically engineered life forms (GELFs), who escape from their island prison and threaten to destroy the world's oxygen supply.
25. "The Fear That Follows" Extraterrestrials who were invited by Bridger to return to Earth use the bodies of crew members to escape after they are taken into custody by a pompous general bent on discovering their advanced technological secrets.
26. "Sympathy for the Deep" The crew searches for a renegade psychologist responsible for causing the people of an undersea colony to become deranged and commit acts of violence.
27. "Vapors" Rumors of a shipboard romance surface when Bridger and Wendy are found in an embrace; Tony Piccolo and his estranged father unite to help Tony's mother overcome her use of an addictive drug that mysteriously reverses the aging process.
28. "Playtime" The crew journeys through an underwater black hole and is propelled 225 years into the future where they discover a society where the last survivors of a plague are controlled by a giant computer.
29. "The Sincerest Form of Flattery" An experimental, computer-controlled submarine that is programmed with Bridger's military strategies escapes from its moorings and launches its nuclear weapons. The target: New Cape Quest, a city of five million, including several families of the seaQUEST crew.
30. "By Any Other Name" A distress signal leads the crew to an underwater horticultural colony where a strain of genetically engineered plants has eliminated human life.
31. "When We Dead Awaken" The crew searches for an assassin when Brody's cryogenically frozen mother suddenly reappears and becomes the killer's target.
32. "Special Delivery" Dagwood is accused of murdering the genetic engineer who created him and leads the crew on a chase that could provide another explanation for the man's death.
33. "Dead End" Henderson, Lucas, Brody, and O'Neill become trapped in a network of tunnels beneath the ocean floor with the survivor of a lost research vessel, a limited oxygen supply, and giant wormlike creatures.
34. "Meltdown" A hungry 200-foot prehistoric crocodile is re-animated from an ice block when undersea farming and mining cause the South Atlantic's temperature to rise.
35. "Lostland" Ford discovers evidence, in the form of an ancient warrior's helmet and sword, that the lost continent of Atlantis actually existed. But the helmet carries a deadly curse that threatens to destroy Bridger and imperil the crew.
36. "And Everything Nice" On the mainland, Lucas falls for a beautiful woman and asks to be relieved of his duties. But then she's kidnapped by terrorists bent on commandeering seaQUEST.
37. "Dream Weaver" Bridger, Keller, and blind astrophysicist Tobias LeConte (Mark Hamill) join forces to battle a hostile, shape-shifting alien, who emerges from a fallen comet that seaQUEST is attempting to recover.
38. "Alone" Dr. Smith flees authorities to search for a psychic whose paranormal abilities threaten the security of the world.
39. "Watergate" The ship and crew become trapped inside a pyramid buried beneath the Earth's crust.
40. "Something in the Air" A murder takes place at a secured outpost where a team of researchers releases an airborne substance that becomes a threat to humanity.
41. "Dagger Redux" O'Neill is taken hostage when a GELF prisoner is freed by a renegade scientist who wants to gain control of the UEO by using a high-tech submarine.
42. "The Siamese Dream" Dr. Smith's former love, cyborg Clay Marshall, tries to gain control of seaQUEST's nuclear weapons by projecting a common nightmare into the minds of Piccolo and Dagwood.
43. "Blindsided" Ford, Ortiz, Henderson, and Brody battle invisible life forms while trying to rescue Piccolo from behind enemy lines in a South American jungle.
44. "Splashdown" The seaQUEST is captured by an alien spacecraft and transported light years away to Hyberion, a planet where everything is submerged in water. Once there, the crew finds itself drawn into a bitter civil war that could have devastating consequences for the future of the Earth.
45. "Brave New World" The seaQUEST and its crew mysteriously reappear on Earth in the year 2032. Capt. Oliver Hudson takes the helm from Bridger and pursues tyrannical dictator Alexander Bourne, whose renegade confederation, Macronesia, seeks to take control of the world's oceans.
46. "In the Company of Ice and Profit" Capt. Hudson is ordered to blow up a gigantic iceberg that chipped off the Antarctic cap before it reaches the Arabian Sea and causes desert temperatures to dangerously lower, triggering a colossal flood. But perched aboard the island of floating ice is a band of refugees, led by Krieg, dropped there by a ruthless industrialist.
47. "Smoke on the Water" Capt. Hudson and his former lover act as bait to discover who is responsible for the disappearance of underwater haulers that transport precious metals.
48. "Destination Terminal" The maiden run of the Omni Pacific, an underwater train linking San Francisco with Beijing, China - and capable of speeds in excess of 2000 miles-per-hour - is sabotaged by a nefarious industrialist, with Lucas, Ford, and Henderson aboard.
49. "Brainlock" When the UEO Charter expires, Secretary General McGath faces opposition from all sides. In his plot to get the charter thrown out (effectively dismantling the UEO), Bourne uses Fredricks' own psych chip to turn her against the UEO.
50. "Chain of Command" Hudson is taken captive by his former commanding officer, Admiral Aaron Vanalden, now a militant rogue intent on igniting a nuclear war between the UEO and its chief rival, Macronesia.
51. "Spindrift" Macronesia's President Bourne wants Henderson to be arrested - and put to death - after she inadvertently strays into Macronesian waters to rescue two children accused of smuggling pharmaceuticals.
52. "Equilibrium" Bridger appears unexpectedly with a ragtag fleet to oppose Hudson's plan for neutralizing a deadly ocean-borne plague.
53. "Resurrection" After faking his own death, radical environmentalist Maximillian Scully returns ten years later; the ship is hijacked as Capt. Hudson escorts Scully to an undersea ecological utopia.
54. "Good Soldiers" Bridger seeks seaQUEST's help to go deep into Macronesian waters and retrieve some top-secret data crystals that reveal unspeakable atrocities committed against humanity 20 years earlier - crimes in which Bridger and Ford may have been involved.
55. "Second Chance" The crew travels through an underwater black hole that throws them back to October 1962 and places them in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, where they have to try to prevent a nuclear holocaust.
56. "Reunion" On a trade mission to a colony that employs convicts as workers, Henderson meets an old flame who appeals that he's innocent. But when the convicts escape, it's up to Henderson, Ford, and the seaQUEST to track them down and get them back by whatever means necessary.
57. "Weapons of War" The crew must determine why the Chaodai, a technically-advanced society, broke 15 years of isolationism with an apparently unprovoked and deadly attack on a UEO outpost. Meanwhile, O'Neill risks his life to aid a mysterious woman, whom he met on-line.