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Last updated 13,12-apr-2001
Steven Spielberg, Rockne S. O'Bannon (who would later create SFC's "Farscape"), Philip Segal (who would later create the 1997 FOX "Doctor Who" telemovie).
Season One
Season Two
TV-PG
Locaton: the CHATTON PARAPSYCHOLOGY CENTER, Marine Feeding Area. A shark swims in the tank, by which stands he center's founder and director, CLAY MARSHALL. His friend, LAURA FLETCHER, enters and entreats him not to proceed with his plan; can't he go to the UEO instead. No, he can't; he orders her out, and grasps his stomach in pain. He starts bouncing a rubber ball against the wall. "Here I come, boy," he chants, "here I come."
Aboard _SeaQuest_, PICCOLO hears the noise of the ball. He falls out bed and into a void, sees a staircase, is hit by a flood through a hatch. He finds himself in a _SeaQuest_ corridor beside DAGWOOD, who's staring at a hydrotube. He follows the gaze, and sees his AUNT GIANA drowned in it. Marshall appears (in snakeskin boots), doors, the ball explodes into fire. "Who are you?" he gasps. He awakes, falls out of bed, waking his roommate, LUCAS, gets up to help. "It hurts, Lucas, it hurts." Lucas calls in a medical emergency.
At the Chatton center, Marshall smiles. "Gotcha."
DOCTOR WENDY SMITH examines Piccolo, who explains that the aunt he saw has been dead for years. Dagwood enters sickbay, and volunteers that he also heard "the thump-thump." "Why did the ball explode?" he asks.
At the Chatton Center, Marshall stumbles into the medbay. Fletcher scans his arms, then takes a scalpel and slices open his left forearm -- revealing robotic machinery. She pulls out a fitting and attaches an IV feed; the blue liquid restores him. "Stop being afraid," he reassures her. "Look at what I have become."
FORD, ORTIZ, and BRODY are replacing the warheads on a stock of small missiles, and trading stories of their worst dates. Lucas arrives. Despite Ortiz's anxiety, Brody is cavalier when handling the warheads; transparent hemispheres filled with a sloshing blue liquid. The UEO no longer uses plutonium, radium or vanadium; instead, this is the inert synthetic BLUE MOON CENTIUM, which when mixed with a nitrogen cartridge becomes "the densest liquid energy known to man."
Smith's further investigations reveal the "congruent dreams" of Piccolo and Dagwood, which are very rare. She decides to take them to the Chatton Center, who had helped her develop her TP skills after the death of her own aunt -- an event she witnessed clairvoyantly.
In an aquarium/auditorium at Chatton, Fletcher demonstrates the potential of psi powers; with TK she shatters a vase. It's a draining experience, however, so she excuses herself, telling them to clear their minds. She leaves them with a hologram of an inverted pyramid.
Outside in the center's courtyard, Smith, Piccolo and Dagwood have arrived. The men are bemused by a boy levitating a box. Fletcher arrives and Smith hugs her. A group of young people walk past, blindfolded; Fletcher explains that they're experimenting with "denying the developed senses to promote maturation of the sixth sense." They walk to a pasture (the center has many habitats and mammals now), where Marshall dismounts from a horse, handing it to Dagwood (who's good with animals). He's wearing El Paso snakeskin boots -- the ones Piccolo saw in his dream (he says). "It wasn't a dream; it was a prophecy," he tells the suspicious sailor. Marshall and Smith kiss, then leave. "I like him," says Dagwood. "He gave me his horse." "You're *holding* his horse," Piccolo growls. "What he *gave* you was *bull*."
In a lab, Tony resists the diagnostics. He reluctantly accedes to the next test, "sensory deprivation genetic regression", to read his genetic past and sense his immediate future. (Dagwood, being engineered, has no past.) He climbs onto a padded platform, curls into a fetal position, and a dome is closed over him. The platform spins and strobes flash. From the next room, Marshall monitors the test; he closes his eyes and concentrates. Piccolo receives terrifying images of crocodiles and sharks; Smith senses his fright. A system failure prevents Fletcher from aborting the test; Dagwood simply yanks the dome open. Nearby, unseen, Marshall smiles.
On _SeaQuest_, Brody confides in Ortiz that (due to comments from the missile bay) he worries Lucas thinks he's a moron.
In the wardroom, Smith vidphones BRIDGER and Ford. Since Piccolo is most at ease aboard _SeaQuest_, she requests that his treatment continue there. Of course, Marshall and Fletcher have to come, but they both have UEO Class-1 security clearances. She signs off. Brody enters, reports the missiles secured. Bridger suspects something, and orders Lucas to investigate Marshall.
Lucas discovers: in 2006 Marshall cofounded the Chatton Center. He's made over 200 correct public predictions, including the 1999 earthquake that destroyed L.A. He's stated a personal goal "to accelerate man's metamorphosis to the next level of intellect." He finds a photo of Marshall dating Smith, years ago -- hey, he hasn't aged! Ford has Lucas sneaky-probe the circumstances of his UEO clearance.
On a Chatton sub /en route/ to _SeaQuest_, Smith notices how attentive Marshall is towards Dagwood (whom he admires as a next phase of evolution). "He's altered himself, hasn't he?" the CMO asks. He overhears, and grandly pronounces that "I have *become*: progeny of myself." She's concerned, and he invites her into her mind; what she finds shocks her, and she falls against the bulkhead. Piccolo notifies _SeaQuest_ of the injury, while unheard, Fletcher whisper-protests to Marshall; he TK-throws her, knocking *her* out to. He touches fingers to Smith's temple, initiating psi-contact.
Arriving on _SeaQuest_, a DOCTOR wants to run a neuroscan on Smith, but Marshall takes him aside and TP-blackmails him into skipping it. He then TP-suggests the doctor to clear the room and prep a particular medication, PRIDOMETHICANE. Bridger et al leave. Smith awakes, inquires, and resists the med.
Marshall and Fletcher argue. The crew is suspicious; Brody is blocking efforts to read him. Marshall pulls off the tip of one finger, and plugs it into a computer port. Fletcher is upset at what she did to Smith, and insists she won't be addicted anymore. She calls him an addict, a junkie; he's after his fix of centium.
Bridger checks on Lucas and Ford. Marshall's Class-1 clearance is due to work in "responsive telepathy" -- he can implant thoughts. Four years ago he implanted the command in scientists to go beyond their limits, enabling Project Blue Moon -- the creation of centium. Suddenly, Bridger senses someone scanning him; they have to block this new knowledge. He now suspects that he planted the dream in Piccolo, and added the aunt to get Smith. Ford thinks: is he after our missiles? Bridger: no.
Fletcher injects more centium into Marshall.
Bridger and Ford go to sickbay, discussing that Marshall is really 50 years old, and wake Smith. She warns them that Lucas is in danger.
Marshall TK-throws Lucas against the wall and insists on a tour.
Bridger and Ford find Lucas gone from his quarters. They can't rely on Security; they'll have to stop Marshall alone.
Elsewhere, Marshall tries to corrupt Dagwood. He asks his most ardent desire: to be not different. Dagwood looks in a mirror, and sees hair and clear skin.
Bridger and Ford rush to Fletcher, and ask: why centium? "What's he intend to do with it?" "Survive," she answers. "It's the blood in his veins."
Marshall drags Lucas and Dagwood to the missile compartment, and TP-fakes his way past the guard, locking them in with the UEO Secretary-General's codes. He deploys his data-finger, demands the override codes from Lucas; he begins to TP-pull them out, one by one. Outside, Ford orders the UEO be notified of this breach in nuclear security, and to clear the nearby seas.
Fletcher tells them he can manipulate an entire stadium. Smith senses the three in the missile chamber. He gets all five digits, and has Dagwood remove a warhead; his pains start again. "I'm the blue blood, victimized by red tape," he snarls, grabbing the warhead and tossing the nitrogen cartridge to the floor, where it leaks red. He opens his arm, and Smith TP-pleads for him to stop. Outside, Ford is still working on the door code, so Marshall TP-persuades Dagwood to smash the inner panel. He stumbles, drops the dome; blue fluid flows inexorably towards red, unnoticed. He finally relents, and gives Dagwood the door release code -- then they see the fluids. Everyone but Dagwood rushes away, and the blast doors shut again. Inside, Marshall throws himself on the rivulets. BOOM! Singed but alive, Dagwood steps through the hole in the hatch.
TV-PG
Location: UEO Dept of Corrections, VERDOME, Atlantic Ocean: An inmate is awakened by the noises of his upper bunkmate, EDDIE GAINES. The man has gills on his lower back, and they're oozing yellow pus.
Due to this (the possibility that there's a flaw in the UEO's experimental gill implants), FORD and BRODY are escorting PICCOLO to a plane. He expresses anxiety. "You're trapped in a submarine for months at a time," Ford jokes. "Sure," agrees Piccolo, "in a ship that can't sink 'cause it's already sunk ... what happens if we fly over inclement weather and that cup thing pops out? Place it over my kidney and breathe normal?" They see a manacled prisoner, escorted by A GUARD, approaching them; Piccolo identifies him as Gaines. They trade insult-cordialities. What happened between them, Ford asks? "He threaten your life?" "Worse than that, sir," Piccolo replies bitterly. "He saved it."
Aboard the small executive jet, 63,000 feet up, they're in the midst of a seven-hour flight. The guard unlocks Eddie and walks away. Piccolo asks how Gaines faked it? Shampoo to irritate the gills. Up front, the guard clubs the pilot, and orders the copilot to fly them into the no-fly-zone of the rival SOUTH AMERICAN CONFEDERATION, to evade UEO tracker planes. He's confident they'll be safe; the area is nothing but swamps.
On the ground, the plane is seen in robovision.
Piccolo refuses to pick sides, and Gaines is equally insistent that he won't return to Verdome. The pilot tries to stab him with a pen, and in the scuffle gets killed himself. They start to go down, and Piccolo radios a mayday.
MINISTER COLOGNE of the South American Confederation.
Piccolo and Gaines are the only survivors of the crash. [The wreck is obviously a DC-3, with engine cowlings on the wings, the wrong number and shape of windows, and no interior fittings.] Piccolo punches Gaines. Gaines complains about the bum rap that sent him to Verdome; he discovered an admiral's son in a crime, and the powers-that-be reneged on their promise to keep him out of it. He's jealous that Piccolo had such good luck.
They find a strangely-deserted village, with some leftover cooking in a pot. An invisible robot grabs Gaines. Piccolo is grabbed by soldiers.
Aboard _SeaQuest_, BRIDGER, Ford, Brody, the UEO SECRETARY-GENERAL and Lucas watch a recording of Piccolo's "confession" of espionage. The secgen figures it's to gain time, or to fix some experiment gone awry: "these are the people who gave us ten feet of snow in August." Satellite photos of the military research complex where he's being held show the walls and roof have been painted with lead. EM flares around it could indicate anything (Lucas explains), from cold fusion to quantum mechanics to gravity. When asked by Bridger, Brody assures him he could extract Piccolo in a few hours. The secgen agrees reluctantly.
His captors find Piccolo's gills; he explains he volunteered for the experiment. They decided to study him.
Ford, Brody, ORTIZ, and HENDERSON sneak into the Confederation. They find Piccolo's gun and the vacant village. The sound of cans leads them to a frightened OLD MAN, who tells them everyone fled the phantasm. Their friends? The phantasm got one, soldiers the other. (They're watched in robovision.) The team follows tracks, but the old man refuses to lead them to the base. They split, hear him scream, see him lifted by an invisible force. Absorbing multiple PULSE CHARGES, the thing becomes briefly visible: a black man-shaped robot.
The team radios back to _SeaQuest_, and Lucas considers the technology.
Piccolo gets a meal.
The team lasers a hole in the compound's fence. Ortiz disables the freight elevator. They fire a grapple-ladder onto the roof. They enter, disable some guards, and find Piccolo gone. (Guards find the fence hole.) Henderson shows the late arrivals the hole in the cell wall. Then they're all captured.
Cologne contacts _SeaQuest_ and angrily tells the secgen that Piccolo is a prisoner, not a hostage, and hence they had no right to attempt an extraction. In reply, the secgen tells him they now have significant reason to believe he's not adhering to all UEO peace accords.
Cologne inquires of A GENERAL the status of THE SCARAB, their wayward invisible experiment. The general replies that it's become very difficult to get volunteers to search for it.
Elsewhere in the base, Piccolo sneaks into a lab. He enters a closet, sees three intimidating black man-shapes, and promptly surrenders; then realizes they're not active. He contacts Lucas on _SeaQuest_ from a lab terminal and (apparently) pipes some records to him. Lucas is impressed: light-bending technology, and the Scarab can increase its own "powers of AI by pulling EM waves out of the atmosphere." The prototype is loose, but these three have been disabled. (Behind Lucas, DAGWOOD peers quizzically at a magazine centerfold.)
Piccolo breaks off contact when he hears voices. The soliders have found Gaines: he's been hiding underwater for two days. Cologne orders him examined for the gill technology. The CHIEF SCIENTIST suggests too many people know about the Scarab now; maybe the UEO can help recapture it? Cologne dismisses the idea, and orders that the rescue team be allowed to escape -- so they can be shot attempting it.
The four team members are in a cell, and Ortiz figures Cologne *wants* them to escape. Down the hall, they notice the elevator open; but Ortiz still has its fuse. [The base doesn't have spares?] An invisible shape knocks out the guards, and pulls open the door. The teams steps out, and the shape (in Piccolo's voice) tells them to relax. He's tele-operating the prototype Scarab, which Lucas has gotten under control.
Gaines is face-down on an operating table, about to be vivisected. A scientist raises a scalpel -- and it's lifted out of his hand. Then his pants fall down. Guards enter and start firing lasers, then get grabbed by Ford et al. Cologne and his general watch it all from an observation gallery, and prepare to leave; but Piccolo leaps the Scarab and grabs them both.
Later, the post-mortem: Cologne and his general are arrested by UEO MPs. Piccolo deactivates the Scarab and a soldier places its control chip in an evidence bag. The secgen tells them it'll be evaluated by the UEO; the other three will be destroyed; and the whole thing will be wrapped in so much red tape it'll be years before the tech escapes. Gaines is rolled out, and has a chat with Piccolo; he leaves, and the secgen tells Piccolo he can't ameliorate the punishment for hijacking the plane. Piccolo then explains the situation that sent him to Verdome to begin with; with the assurance that he believes Gaines, the secgen promises to look into it.
Later, back on _SeaQuest_, Gaines calls Piccolo (but gets Lucas). The UEO is getting him a civilian lawyer to retry the case. He asks about the Scarab technology, and Lucas confides that he'd copied the data while the UEO was sequestering it. The copy still has some bugs, though.
Location: the sub's female shower room. Said bug manifests itself, and the invisibility harness shorts out, revealing Piccolo ogling. Oops.
Season Three