The Drums of seaQuest 2032
I usually don't bother nitpicking SeaQuest but I couldn't help including the comments below. In the October 7-13 TV GUIDE, Susan Stewart rates the cliffhangers for the last season and for the most part does a good job. However, her review of the seaQuest 2032 season premiere left me rolling my eyes back into my head. Concerning the loose ends of the plot, Stewart writes, "Though we don't get any answers until the end, the plot is tight as a drum. This is the Navy, after all." Tight as a drum? Was I watching the same show? (I'll let Scott McClenny take it from here.)
Scott McClenny of Newport, WA wrote, "At the end of the episode, Bridger tells everyone how Tobias and the other Hyperion rebels had put the crew into stasis, returned them to Earth and wiped their memories of what had occured. He further admits that it was he who wiped the seaQuest's computer memory. So far so good. But how did Bridger remember wiping the seaquest computer if the Hyperions had wiped his memory and how did he get to the seaQuest to do this in the first place? Remember that the launch had been destroyed by the storm troopers early on during the battle on the Hyperion spaceship and Bridger was still onboard when he set off the explosion. Also in his speech, Bridger relates how the Hyperions brought each of the crew to the place that their dying thoughts revealed was where they were most at ease. So, Ford is most at ease taking a shower in his clothes?
(Note from Phil: Let me toss in another thought or two. I rated this episode a major bail-out. Why put seaQuest in a cornfield? Answer: Because it looked cool. Also, Bridge says that when everything exploded underwater everyone fell into a coma because of the cold. Underwater you don't fall into a coma if there's a hull breach. You fall into dead. Admittedly, my info may be a bit skewed. I didn't really watch the episode that closely!)
Also, Joe Campbell of IL had this to say, "The moment in which the seaQuest [is discovered in a corn field] bore a fleeting resemblence to "Steamboat in a Cornfield" by John Heartford. If you've never heard of this, it's a narrative poem about a true story in which a steamboat "sets sail" and eventually gets stuck on a hill in the middle of a flooded cornfield."