Is that what Sea Quest DSV is?

Will humans ever live in Cities under the Water, inside a Giant dome?

Sea Quest DSV will be compared to Star Trek & any TV series involving star ships,it's only natural.Both shows are similar in that they take place aboard futuristic,high-tech vessels & involve highly educated crews.They are ships of exploration/peace but also will defend themselves & others against hostile attacks.They explore the unknown.Unfortunately the difficulty for SQ & any show about an undersea submarine or city like Irwin Allen's TV pilot City Beneath The Sea,is the limited premise of the oceans.Amazing as they are in real life,they simply cannot compete against space exploration in the universe.That premise can involve a star ship crew with new planets,alien life forms,spatial phenomena like black holes,quasars,etc.Life beneath the seas pales by comparison even within an sf premise. Most fans aren't going to buy into underwater civilizations of aliens,black holes,etc for such a series.Many outer space concepts do not translate well by applying them to an underwater situation. You can only run into so many sea monsters & underwater colonies of humans before it becomes trite & tired.I liked SQ,they did some fine stories,but quickly lost steam because of their confining concept,as did Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea 30 years earlier.I believe that one could do a futuristic film or TV miniseries involving a sub or undersea city.But a weekly TV show is just asking too much from this premise.

I don't agree, with you mike. I think that a TV series involving an underwater civilization and exploration of the ocean could be done. However it would have to break with rules set-up by Space Opera series: no excessive exploration, no alien/planet/lost colony of the week etc. My opinion is that if the underwater civilization show is set up as a saga, telling a story through out it's whole run it would be viable. In other words, had the crew of SQ taken their lead from Babylon 5 and not Star Trek, they might have come up with a decent show. (and before you tell me that Babylon 5 started airing after SQ keep in mind that Straczynski had been floating the B5 concept for a couple of years).

Perhaps there is some creator/writer out there dArhengel like the terrific J.Michael Straczynski who has a feasible idea for doing a weekly sf TV series set beneath the ocean. I'd love to see it as a change of pace from shows set in outer space as much as I love them.But I would still contend that any TV show with an undersea theme would be a challenge to keep fresh each week for 22-episodes a season,let alone doing a second,third,etc season.

The problem with an undersea series would be that the 'hero's' would not really be the ones calling the shots. Simply put Trek and B5 (for two examples) could work because the settings of the shows allowed the main characters to be out of contact with more senior officers/personal. It also allowed for, say, the Enterprise to run into problems without any chance of help turning up - in other words a space setting allows for the hero's to be very much on their own.

A sea-based series, however, can't do this. The reason is that with modern technology the inhabitants of any underwater base could be in real-time contact with anyone on Earth. Just as importantly if they needed help it would, at most, be a day away.

This results in the major problem that if the main characters ran into serious trouble, the first thing they would do is simply pick up the phone. Ultimately meaning that they are not really the ones making the big decisions. Space-based series can get around this due to the distances involved, and this doesn't stretch credibility. As B5 showed even if you do happen to be sitting on a space station and have the ability to be in real time contact with the guys back home. The distances involved would require the crew handle most problems without anyone really being able to help them out - and those people senior to the crew likewise can't realistically do more than give general guidelines as to what actions the crew may or may not take.

A sea-based show can't do any of this without having to resort to plot devices...and it would have to use those plot devices week after week which would strain credibility very quickly. Something that the history of underwater series has shown.

Excellent points Cyber,that's why I think that the wisest course of action for doing another weekly TV series set beneath the ocean would be to set it not on Earth but on another world.Humans explore space,so why not the seas of alien worlds?

There are two good reasons for not doing this;

Sci-Fi convention usually requires that any planet that has liquid water and a breathable atmosphere is inhabited already. If it isn't then the only reason for an underwater base would be to mine ore...somehow the adventures of Miner Hacket, boldly mining where no-man has swung a pickaxe before doesn't strike me as something that would make for an interesting series.
Credibility would also be stretched, in so far that the question as to why a base wasn't set on the surface instead of under the oceans.

The second reason is that it would be little different to DS9 or B5. In all cases you'd be dealing with a fixed station...and space is more compelling (and allows for larger and more interesting plots) than the sea. Even if the base is set on a planet, and the base is underwater, the needs to make for different episodes would result in little difference in terms of stories. However the limited interest in sea-stories and series would most likely result in low viewing figures.
Which is a polite way of saying that as far as TV producers would be concerned it just wouldn't make money.

There may well be a third reason to add to the list - cost. Making a set appear to be in space is simple. All you need are a couple of windows, some small lights and a sheet of black cloth. Making a set appear to be underwater would require that there is some water on set. This would raise the cost of the sets - the sets used on Trek never had to be designed to be water-proof.

There are ways around the story and technical problems - in fact I can think of a way to make a sea-based series sort of work.

However I'm not going to post such ideas here since they would become others property...I only look stupid ;)

Cyber you have refuted your two "good reasons for not doing"such a show by writing that you have ideas on how to make such a concept work.Others might also have creative ways as you do on how to pull off this premise,so do not rule it out.Also,if the concepts are too difficult for a weekly TV series it could possibly be done as a TV movie or miniseries.

Note that I said 'Sort of work'. The ideas I have *might* allow for a TV series...but it wouldn't be seaquest, Trek or B5 and probably wouldn't be picked up even if I knew every player in Hollywood.

There is a film from the 1950's that was set on an underwater base, although I can't for the life of me recall the title.

The only two movies I'm familiar with that focus upon an underwater base is the film Captain Nemo & the Underwater City(1969),& the TV-movie pilot of Irwin Allen's City Beneath the Sea(1971).Guess you could throw in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me which had a fantastic looking underwater base that could also rise up above the surface.Always found it odd as to how rarely any of the various sf TV shows set in outer space ever dealt with the theme of the oceans & underwater cities or subs,or even surface vessels.In all 5 Star Trek TV series we never once to my knowledge saw what a Federation underwater base,sub,or any sea craft looked like.Star Trek:Voyager did do an episode that involved a water world & the alien cities & ships beneath the water.

Star Wars has both the Selkath (From the Knights of the Old Republic computer game - which owing to the way SW works is cannon) and the Calmari as species that live on ocean worlds. Both build their cities under the water.

For Trek and most Sci-Fi there is simply no reason to look at underwater bases or facilities, and in the case of Trek probably little reason to have any.
Most Sci-Fi deals with space, which looks outwards not inwards - which in a way would be what underwater bases would be.

In universe it would, again, be hard to explain why you needed to build a base underwater in the first place. Space-craft would not be designed to work in space, atmosphere and underwater as a general rule. So they'd require a surface facility to land on...then you'd have to move to the base another way. All of which seems impractical from a logical viewpoint, and a killer to storytelling on screen - recall that Treks Transporter was 'invented' to bypass the need for the crew to fly between locations in a shuttle.

There are a lot of story telling issues, as well as production ones, that lead me to conclude that an underwater series simply wouldn't really work. If you have a base it is stuck in one place, and therefore the problems have to come to the base - making the characters reactive rather than proactive. (A problem that DS9 ran into in its first two series). DS9 and B5 were both able to work around this somewhat because they were basically trading posts, so new people had a viable reason to turn up every week.
You couldn't do this with an underwater base though, why would anyone go underwater to conduct trading when it would be cheaper, faster and more convenient to trade using surface shipping.

Outer space based TV shows often are about The discovery of unknown planets.It seems to me that exploration of such worlds will indeed cover their oceans if they have any.I cannot imagine that humans would only explore continents & ignore oceans,that would make no sense at all.In Star Trek's case over the course of some of those series an adventure took place back on Earth.Why couldn't at least one episode give us a look into the technological advances of the Federation regarding exploration under the seas? And as humankind explores space,we are also doing it with our oceans,that fact isn't just suddenly going to come to a halt.Both DS9 & B5 involved political & military & exploration issues as a regular part of their storylines,so even if you eliminate trading issues as a relevant source for underwater plots you could certainly utilize the political,military,exploration angles.Also both of those shows had numerous episodes take place away from their respective space stations via space ships.The White Star on B5,the Defiant & Runabouts on DS9.An undersea base of operations could do the same with submarines which are based there.The reality is that sf TV shows taking place in space do indeed offer immense story possibilities that a water based sf series does not.But I cannot accept that a talented & creative writer or writers absolutely cannot conceive of at least one water based sf series at all.

Political issues - Would reside in the hands of senior personal and politicians. Our base commander would be required to pass on political problems to the government, who would have an ambassador stationed in the relevant country to conduct any negotiations.

Military issues - Would either be handled by the military - if the base is a civilian one - or again, would to a large extent default back to the government unless you happened to be at war. No military force would man an underwater base in wartime, it would be a huge immobile target.

Exploration issues - A civilian base isn't going to have long-range submersibles...in fact a military base wouldn't either. If you had a sub that was capable of sailing long distances you might as well operate it from a conventional port - which would have the ability to dry-dock the sub for repairs...something that you couldn't do on an underwater base. Likewise, if you want to explore the oceans a mobile base - ie a surface ship - coupled with shorter ranged submersible is far cheaper and more efficient.


Sci-fi ocean issues - In trek terms underwater bases are not needed. Clearly the Trek universe has the technology to produce shuttle-craft that are capable of flying to where you want to look, and then diving at that location. Again, mobility is the key here.
In other universes it could be argued that if you are capable of building spaceships that can move to other star systems, and space-stations to support them. Then you should be quite capable of constructing automated facilities and machines to explore the oceans or mine materials from them - or remotely operated machines. Even today most underwater exploration is carried out by remotely controlled subs. Which are cheap and won't kill anyone if they get destroyed.

I brought the trade issue up to explain why both DS9 and B5 managed to produce successful sci-fi series from a fixed base. But both ended up having to give the crews ways to leave the stations in question to allow for more stories to be told. B5 was slightly less in need of this than DS9, since the former was working to a large number of plots from the start of the series. However, these plots that allowed B5 to spend very little time away from the station still relied on the station being so far away from Earth and more senior figures (Military and civilian) that it was to a greater or lesser extent on its own, and often a law onto itself by requirement. Clearly this isn't going to apply to any base in Earth's oceans...and as I said there are more efficient ways to explore alien oceans and better locations to build bases that would make an underwater base next to pointless.

Political issues-These could still provide dramatic situations for a weekly TV sf show even if a base is receiving orders from their government.The West Wing series showed just how intense situations could be even if orders were being sent down a chain of command,& how errors & other factors could affect the outcome of a situation.Military issues could also follow the same scenario.An immobile land base would also be as vulnerable as a immobile sea base.Exploration issues-Why can't a sea base have long range craft? Having such vessels based at sea would allow them to do explorations without having to journey all the way back to a land port.Also a premise could be created that an undersea city is a nation unto itself thereby placing all political & military decisions into its hands.Robots & drones are used in underwater explorations but they are only a machine,a tool.Humans can better explore,evaluate,& research by being on the scene.As some humans are driven to explore space,there are those who live to explore the depths of the oceans.Some sf scenarios for undersea colonies are overpopulation,plague,war,pollution that take place on the surface.In Trek terms why station a starship permanently at one planet for extensive exploration of either the land or the oceans?Isn't that why they had scientific outposts & developed colonies on different worlds?Create a sea base,plunk it in the alien ocean & then let its staff explore as the starships continue to explore space.Seaquest DSV showed us that there are intriguing sf stories to be told beneath the oceans,Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in its first season did the same.I believe that someday someone will create a feasible & interesting TV show about humans living & exploring the ocean,ours & alien seas.

I remember watching Seaquest & had always wished that we could have seen more of those underwater colonies. There was the mining town from "Sea West" populated by Australia's answer to cowboys, but beyond that it seems that all we ever saw was research stations that always seemed to be mysteriously deserted when our characters show up to find out why.

The Pilot showed that many of these colonies are set up for mining & oil drilling. They also talk about "aquaculture" which is presumable undersea agriculture. The pilot also featured an under water power station, indicating that there's a bunch of these little places all over if they have a power station rather than just each place providing their own power.

The Pilot suggested that the peace between the various confederations which had staked out claims on mining & drilling rights was shaky at best since everyone wants a bigger slice of the pie. If Seaquest was constantly visiting different under sea ports it could have been fertile ground for cloak & dagger type stories.