SUB MISSION

SEAQUEST DSV CREATOR ROCKNE S O’BANNON REVISITS THE ’90S SPIELBERG TV SERIES THAT ATTEMPTED TO DO STAR TREK UNDERWATER

- OLIVER PFEIFFER

LOOKING BACK, 1993 WAS AN auspicious time for the launch of a new sci-fi underwater adventure show on the small screen. Star Trek: The Next Generation was a year away from ending its seven-year stretch, and with Superman dominating the airways with Lois & Clark, what better place to venture than the ocean? Spearheaded by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, SeaQuest DSV was the deep’s answer to the Enterprise.

“After Amazing Stories, Amblin was looking to do their version of ‘Star Trek underwater’ – where instead of outer space it would be set in the oceans of the Earth,” SeaQuest and Farscape creator Rockne S O’Bannon tells SFX. “Star Trek announced it took place in ‘Space: the final frontier’. But with SeaQuest we were looking to explore the final frontier here on Earth – making it, we hoped, very identifiable.”

A SEAWORTHY ENTERPRISE

As opposed to the post-apocalyptic future that Amblin had originally envisioned, O’Bannon proposed a more optimistic scenario and one that didn’t take place generations into the future. “They were talking about perhaps setting it in a future where we’d polluted our planet enough that humanity had retreated into the oceans,” continues O’Bannon.

“I suggested something that didn’t take place 500 years into the future like Star Trek but only 25 years, where we’d gone into the ocean not because we’d polluted our continents so badly, but because we’d developed the technology to allow us to explore and colonise. Steven loved the positive message of that and thought it was much more accessible to our viewers.”