SeaQuest DSV, "Such Great Patience"

'''"Such Great Patience." seaQuest DSV.''' NBC-TV 08 May. 1994. Bruan Spicer, dir. David Kemper, script.

A clone-daughter of M. Crichton's Sphere (novel) (cited under Fiction) and the ABYSS set of films (plus CLOSE ENCOUNTERS . . .)—but more important for comparisons and contrasts with ALIEN(S) (films listed in this Category). The seaQuest discovers a huge alien ship underwater, in a stratum a little under a million years old. Note that the away-team (to use a Trekkian locution) is composed of four men in total-environment suits and that the alien frepresentative for first contact—a kind of hologram made of sand—initially looks relatively female and is visually associated with an ovoid-shaped arch on the alien ship. The alien representative, though, is called "he" by the seaQuesters and, upon second and third looks, looks androgynous. The alien(s) communicate a message of peace through the dolphin, Darwin. The "true," organic alien is found dead in the cockpit of the alien ship in a reprise on a theme by H. R. Giger, but in a mostly modern biomechanical setting, not Giger's postmodern mise en scéne for ALIEN (film).