Script, Sympathy for the Deep, August 16, 1994 (203)

Good morning from the seaQuest MPS Blog with today's entry featuring the first blue revision of the second season's Sympathy for the Deep.  This was one of those second season episodes that were just about acceptable, but nothing close to special.  It was about an underwater colony where the people suddenly go crazy.  Come to find out, scientist Shelton had invented a devise to remove all the negative feelings from people, and now that evil is somehow a sentient being releasing waves of evilness.  Unlike many second season episodes, much of this one actually takes place underwater, but it is just not deep in characterization or writing.

Here is the blue revision of Sympathy for the Deep.  Although this was the third episode shown in the second season, it has the first production number.  One of the ways you can tell these early season two episodes are how little Henderson was in the show.  This is because she was one of the last characters added in the second season.  An interview with Kathy Evison confirms this, where she noted "They wrote me in almost as an afterthought to introduce another woman into the show. Since the first few scripts were written before my character even existed, that's the main reason why I just had an 'Aye, aye, Sir! ' here and there in early episodes."

Sympathy for the Deep does feature a complicated machine making half a cup of coffee.  Coffee was really expensive in the seaQuest universe, not only do you only get half a cup, but no free refills either.

Below the jump, a couple more pages from the script, featuring a change of scenery, a deleted piece of technology, and comparison to images from the actual episode.




The Bridger coffee scene in the original script was a little different than realized on screen.  Bridger was meant to be in a tavern, sitting in a booth, with New Cape Quest and the seaQuest II behind him.  Perhaps the production did not have the time or money to go back to St. Petersburg to shoot more New Cape Quest scenes, and instead they shot on the Universal Studios Florida lot.

This was the standard New Cape Quest shot with the seaQuest in the foreground

Whereas, they actually shot the Bridger coffee scene facing the Amityville section of Universal Studios Florida.  Perhaps an inside joke on the part of the production, as Amityville's major attraction was Jaws: The Ride.  Much of this area is now being redeveloped as a Harry Potter land.

Along with a change in scenery, the script also included a technological element that was deleted in the final episode.  Bridger gets a call from O'Neill, who is going to put through Bridger's old girlfriend Laura, and right before she comes through, Bridger say into the thin air "Booth - privacy, please."  He is then surrounded by an energy field and a rainbow of light.

Instead, in the final episode Bridger is brought a videophone

Answers the call

Speaks to a waving O'Neill

And then chats with Laura.  No privacy booth, no visual lighting effects with rainbow of lights

It is interesting that back in the early 1990s, the assumption was that video phones of the early 2020s would be these big bulky things, instead we already have tiny modern smartphones.  One place seaQuest was wrong on technology.

Next time on the seaQuest MPS Blog: A Director's Kit Set Sketch from Playtime.