This image: Roy Scheider as Captain Nathan Bridger, commander of the submarine seaQuest DSV
In 1993 a new sci-fi show set sail onto the small screen, promising to explore the Earth’s oceans in an exciting and plausible way. With big budget production values and movie star talent, seaQuest DSV was an adventure series about a futuristic submarine and its daring crew, starring Roy Scheider and produced by Steven Spielberg, reunited for the first time since their blockbuster Jaws days. seaQuest aimed to combine thoughtful stories with speculative futurism but the quest for ratings led to the show abandoning this principle, quickly dumbing down and embracing the pulp sci-fi tropes it initially strived to avoid. In three short years it sunk from being a celebrated TV event to become a derided show with a talking dolphin.