SeaQuest DSV: Season One

The buzz is that devoted fans of this sci-fi series became so frustrated waiting for this long-time-coming DVD release that they made this the most-bootlegged series ever, with homemade discs burned from videotaped episodes selling like hotcakes on eBay. Additional buzz has it that this set was rushed out in an attempt to cut off the piracy, and—indeed—this presentation of the first season of SeaQuest DSV feels like a rush job, with the extras limited to only a few deleted scenes. Still, it's hard to see why the show inspired such love in the first place: a clear effort to cash in on the popularity of Star Trek: The Next Generation, these 23 episodes from 1993-94 chronicle the overly-earnest and intensely self-important tale of the titular mid-21st-century submarine and her crew of military officers and scientist-explorers cruising Earth's last frontier: the ocean. Potentially interesting concepts never take off—the shaky global political situation that informs many of the stories isn't really a believable backdrop, and the way-cool talking dolphin utterly fails to grow into an intriguing character. Star Roy Scheider's boredom with serving as the underwater equivalent of Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard is plenty evident here, and it rubs off on viewers (Scheider would leave the show after one more season, and the series itself would end after the third year). Optional. (M. Johanson)