The external submarine shots were produced using the LightWave 3D software for the Video Toaster hardware and software; with a driver created by Aaron Avery at ASDG (later renamed Elastic Reality and acquired by Avid) called the ASDG Abekas driver that was created to counter the difficulties of heavy amounts of dark blues and greens that the NTSC television standard had trouble handling in large quantities.
Specific Trivia
Dyeing for Your Art: Peter DeLuise shaved his head to play the bald Dagwood. A contemporary interview asked whether it had been difficult for him (it was The '90s, this sort of thing was still rare, especially for men). DeLuise bluntly replied that it was the first acting job he'd landed in years, and he "would've shaved my nuts if they'd asked".
Executive Meddling: Network executives were responsible for each extensive retool the show went through, turning a series that was supposed to focus on exploration into one that was much more action- (and science fiction) oriented in Season 2 and a straight-out military drama in Season 3.
Production Posse: Kent McCord played the recurring role of Scott Keller. Later, he became a recurring character on Farscape, another sci-fi series by Rockne O'Bannon.
Real-Life Relative: Tony Piccolo's father was played by Dom De Luise, both Peter & Michael DeLuise's father. One scene had Dom acting alongside all three of his sons (Michael playing Tony, Peter playing Dagwood, and youngest brother David playing the manager of the establishment they were all in).
The first season went off generally smoothly, with the end segments where Robert Ballard, the show's technical advisor, explained the concepts behind the episode's plot. The 1993 earthquake did cause some production difficulties, but that's not really the show's fault. The show still had to hold its breath waiting to see if it got a second season, requiring a season finale that could have been read as destroying the ship if it hadn't.
In the second season NBC forced some cast changes to appeal to a younger audience, and the cast handled the end segments rather than Ballard. Production was relocated to Florida, costing the show Stacy Haiduk, who had spent most of the last five years there shooting The Adventures of Superboy and did not want to go back so soon; Stephanie Beacham also reportedly was cool to moving to the Sunshine State, but has said the tensions between the producers and the network were her main reason for not returning.
Hostility on the Set began to grow, not so much between the castmembers as between them and the producers (who already had their own issues with the network) as many began to dislike the directions their characters were taking—Ed Kerr was so upset with the storyline of "Alone" that he walked off the set and thus isn't in the episode despite being credited. Roy Scheider, more professionally, stayed on the set but, increasingly dismayed by the more fanciful, less realistic plot lines that had been the show's attempted selling point during its first season, culminating in a season finale where the seaQuest and its crew were abducted by aliens,note again, driven by the uncertainty the show would be renewed, since it wouldn't have to be resolved asked out of the show for the next season.
Michael Ironside took his placenote But only after making the producers agree that he wouldn't have to do certain storylines, like the sort that Scheider had increasingly blanched at in the next season,note Scheider agreed to appear in a few episodes which the producers attempted to shake up by having the ship returned to Earth ten years in the future and renaming it seaQuest 2032, to better change the show's plots from the kind of sci-fi that had dominated the first two seasons to a Darker and Edgier background of international intrigue and conflict; the end-credit educational segments were dispensed with entirely.
This also brought with it more cast changes; however, no one, old or new, got any happier with the show's direction. NBC sensed that this was not going well and, after repeatedly pre-empting the show for sports broadcasts in the first half of the season, finally lowered the boom and announced the show had been canceled at mid-season. The series finale aired six months later, after the end of the regular TV season.
Unfinished Episode: Details for several episodes that went unproduced; scripts can be read here:
Season 1
"A Place Called Armageddon": The Seaquest crew learns that World War III has broken out and the surface is a nuclear wasteland. They find a few survivors and then diving deep to avoid radiation. It turns out to be a hoax planned by UEO brass to see how the crew of the flagship will react, and the survivors are plants. When the crew learns of this, they Troll the plants by pretending to fall so hard for the hoax that they've set the self-destruct rather than attempting to survive on waning supplies in a nuclear apocalypse, and further troll the UEO by cutting communications for a few hours to let them think they'd really gone through with it.
"Friends in High Places": Seaquest participates in a war game during which they are fired on by a live torpedo. The perpetrator's motives are exposing decades-old Cuban war crimes.
Season 3
"About-Face Treatment": Captain Hudson is captured by Macronesia and brainwashed into believing he's The Mole, a longtime spy working for Macronesia to infiltrate the UEO. In a variation, he's made to believe that Oliver Hudson is a real UEO officer that he looks like via plastic surgery, instead of being a supposed long-term infiltrator.
"Depths of Deceit": A Gambit Pileup involving President Bourne of Macronesia trying to take over Deon International and their new space-based anti-submarine weapon, while Captain Hudson's father conspired with President Bourne's Dragon to overthrow him and gain control of Macronesia.
"The Vault": Several supporting characters are recruited for a dangerous mission while on shore-leave.
Additionally, Jonathan Brandis wrote and was set to direct an episode entitled "The Horizon Crew", but the script has never found its way into the internet.
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