Skip to main content

The Deep: Submersible Drama For the New Millenium



Really, right off the bat, The Deep has nothing in common with Seaquest other than they're both underwater adventures.



The Deep kicks off with some kind of research submarine losing power, with one lone research out in a mini-sub, also losing power and sinking to the depths.



Once into the show proper, we're introduced to a new submarine crew, in a new sub built from the same plans as the first one, setting out to complete the research that the first failed, and possibly bring back news of what happened to them. The original mission was to investigate thermal vents found under the North Pole, which is home to all kinds of undiscovered life forms.



It's really difficult to talk anymore about the plot, because there are twists and turns starting from the very first episode. There's a lot of tension, the special effects are wonderful, the characters are written well, and acted better. James Nesbitt (Jekyll, watch it now if you haven't) is phenomenal as the engineer/haunted husband of the lone researcher from the intro. Minnie Driver is the captain and designer of the submarine. The rest of the cast are a number of people whose names I don't know, and for the most part never saw before.



My only complaint about the show just stems from my personal prejudice, I don't like unhappy endings. While this doesn't rank very high on the depresso-meter, there are a couple of characters that I was really rooting for, who just didn't make it past the writer's scythe. I recommend giving it a shot, it's only 5 episodes long, just remember that no one is safe.



SIDEBAR:

The BBC standard for season length seems to be 6 episodes, with more popular shows like Doctor Who running 12 eps with a Christmas special. In contrast to the US and Japan where the standard is 12 episodes, with some going up to 24.



I've had a number of conversations with my friend about this, but it just seems that the BBC does more with less. I don't know that on a whole, BBC programming is that much better than US programming, but I think that with such a short constraint, they have to know where they're going, and get there fast. There's none of the slow buildup, or shows changing gears halfway through, because if they did that, they'd only have 3 episodes left to finish it off. So, you pretty much know in the first episode what the tone and direction of the rest of the show is going to be. None of the mis-steps like Dollhouse that took 5 episodes to really figure out where it was going, and then another 12 episodes to deliver on that promise.



The other thing in the favor of the shorter format, is that there's much risk of the show dragging on and losing it's momentum. Nothing that just keeps going and going, like the fourth season of Battlestar.



Just some random musings, WATCH SOME BBC!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What It's Like To Get Pipebombed

Well, I'm going to break with my rule of not actually mentioning anything about having a pipe thrown at you, but in celebration of the 6 month anniversary, I really wanted to write it up. So, without further ado, here's what happened on my Fourth of July 2009, and the six months since: So, it's the Fourth of July, 2009, about ten-ish or so at night. Being that we live in a condo, and our homeowner's association has prohibited fireworks being let off in our complex, we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood in order to better see the fireworks everyone else was letting off. We walked straight out the front gate, got about maybe 50 feet down the street, and a dark car with it's headlights on pulled out onto the street, about a block ahead of us a man with a white shirt was walking in the same direction as us, nothing noteworthy about either of those. However, upon passing us, something was tossed out of the passenger window and bounced off my chest, upon the g...
3 comments
Read more

The Shadowline Saga: Before It's Time

A good friend of mine got me back into comics a few years ago, and after going to conventions with him and seeing his sketchbook of Punisher drawings by various artists, I started thinking that I might like a character sketchbook as well, but who to pick? I didn't have a favorite character really, I'd been a fan of Deadpool, but as he was on the rise in popularity, there were going to be a lot of sketches of him out there. Then I remembered an old Marvel character from the 90s named Terror. Terror had the unusual ability of being able to graft various limbs onto his body, and gain their memories and abilities. A frequent application of his abilities was to take the ear and the eye of someone who was recently deceased, which would grant him the ability to see and hear the person's memories. Additionally he could use the hands of a locksmith to gain the ability to pick locks, or a helicopter pilot, and so on. His gimmick was interesting, but even better for the purpose...
1 comment
Read more

Machine Wars Optimus Prime: Bastard Stepchild of the Primes

I'm going to skip the backstory of the Machine Wars and this particular toy, and save it for the end. This Prime toy was released a little before I started collecting toys, and it's not been reissued since, so I never picked it up. I saw that someone had one on ebay only missing one missile for not too bad a price. He's surprisingly small for an Optimus Prime with trailer toy, normally they're a bit larger than this (see the GI Joe figure for a scale comparison). Also odd is that the trailer isn't capable of swiveling on the hitch, on account of how closely the trailer fits to the cab. It also doesn't really have any kind of cargo capacity, the Fansproject commander armors seem to bear a surprising similarity to this now that I've seen it. The transformation is very simple, and the finished bot bears very few similarities to the iconic Prime toys, although it does have the same joined feet as the generation 1 Prime, oddly. The articulation on this guy is...
2 comments
Read more