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By Drew Dietsch
| Printed 10 seconds in the past
Throughout Harmful Animals (my assessment), Jai Courtney’s Tucker stands on the deck of his boat and factors to the evening sky. He talks about how mankind has all the time appeared to the celebrities to explain the place God lives. “God’s not up there,” Tucker says, and his hand drops downward to level on the abyssal depths. “God’s down there.”
Tucker goes on to speak about how life on this planet began within the deep. It received me eager about my ever-growing disdain of real-world beliefs about area colonization once we proceed to do every little thing we are able to to homicide the most important a part of our personal planet: the ocean. This has additionally led me to feeling much less and fewer captivated with spacefaring fantasies like Star Trek, particularly the present iteration of the franchise which I’m completed with.
It’d be good to see creativeness in popular culture used to encourage a greater relationship with our ocean and its future. Possibly that Nautilus present is doing that? I’ll by no means know as a result of it’s on a streaming service I don’t subscribe to. Fortunately, I do have a Peacock subscription and it’s led me to rediscover the collection SeaQuest DSVa present I by no means paid tons of consideration to as a child however now feels ripe for reinvention.
The Essential A part of SeaQuest DSV
You’re sensible sufficient to discover a present synopsis by yourself, however I’ll say that the primary idea of SeaQuest DSV is what I wish to give attention to with reference to arguing for its return. It’s very a lot an intentional inner-space riff on Star Trek: sooner or later, a united civilization works collectively to guard and discover an unknown frontier. On this case, it’s the United Earth Oceans Group. The very thought of doing the Star Trek components however on the precise planet we dwell on is what I’ll be increasing on later.
The precise bulk of SeaQuest DSV that I’ve seen is a principally charming, antiquated piece of tv storytelling that I don’t truly really feel strongly about. It’s nothing wonderful however hardly ever horrible, with characters that hover between serviceable and nearly fascinating. Frankly, it’s a present aiming for a youthful viewers than my present self, and I used to be just a bit too younger to get into it when it initially aired. So, I additionally don’t maintain any explicit nostalgia for this as an mental property.
However I’ve all the time beloved the ocean greater than the celebrities. That’s the place I would like our tradition’s curiosity pointed and SeaQuest DSV is precisely the appropriate match for it.
Discover The Depths of Our Planet and Our Humanity
The thought of a united authorities physique on Earth that has to work collectively for your entire planet is an idea I wish to see extra of in standard media. Come to consider it, Pacific Rim is a extra aggressive riff on that idea, nevertheless it’s that sort of border-breaking mindset that fuels the utopian imaginative and prescient of Star Trek.
Nonetheless, SeaQuest DSV offers the potential metaphor of unity much more juice by having the idea not be targeted on outward growth by area, however moderately inward exploration by the ocean’s depths. Star Trek preferred to posit that humanity had figured all its societal issues out, so now the one factor left to do was discover the universe. SeaQuest DSV as an idea has extra nuance by saying, “We’ve nonetheless received borders and nations on the floor, however we’re attempting to make the ocean a spot the place humanity can begin to evolve as a singular civilization.” It’s an thought that may be strengthened to higher use the ocean depths as a thematic playground for a spot the place we are able to confront the darkest of societal points and are available out higher.
Plus, we must be encouraging exploration of our planet’s depths in fiction as a result of we must be encouraging exploration of our planet’s depths in actuality. We nonetheless know so little about all of the unbelievable life and ecosystems that exist within the deepest components of Earth. This sort of science is much extra essential and integral to our planet and our species than no matter flaccid, pie-in-the-sky rocket grift the techbro elitists are cooking up subsequent.
A Recent Thought As an alternative of a Drained One
Star Trek as a franchise continues to chug alongside however nobody can argue it’s at its prime as a popular culture attraction. However, SeaQuest DSV is so area of interest that you could possibly in all probability rip its core premise off wholesale, slap some totally different names on it, and current it as a really contemporary thought. I’m definitely not towards that strategy. It’s attainable the title SeaQuest may learn as too foolish to a contemporary viewers, particularly since Star Trek parody Galaxy Quest helped connect the phrase “quest” to one more riff on Roddenberry’s opus.
I simply wish to see a well-liked piece of media seize our tradition’s creativeness and curiosity in our oceans. Area is each performed out in films and tv for me at this stage, and it’s additionally not wanting like an precise future for our species any time quickly. As an alternative, we must always pay much more consideration to the waters that birthed us as a substitute of suffocating them with much more air pollution. Possibly if a technology might get its Star Trek in regards to the ocean, it could encourage a bigger variety of individuals to care about this planet as a substitute of dreaming about screwing up one other one.
So, screw any SeaQuest canon or characters or fealty to the supply materials. Simply make a brand new SeaQuest (or rip it off) and provides me a purpose to see hope for the way forward for humanity. As a result of I don’t see that hope in area anymore.
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