The Good Death:
The SeaQuest, in pursuit of a submarine full of smugglers, fires on said submarine only to discover it is actually inhabited by scores of children trying to flee the cruel dictator General Guzmano in the Amazonia Confederation. Leading the children is none other than Westphalen‘s daughter, Cynthia and her friend Malik.
The kids are taken aboard the SeaQuest but General Guzmano contacts Bridger asking for their return. When Bridger refuses, Guzmano begins firing depth charges to keep the crew from boarding the submarine. Luckily, the charges end up creating a huge mud cloud that provides a chance for the SeaQuest to hide and for the final rescue ship containing Ford, Shan, Westphalen, Cynthia, and Malik among others to get away, making an emergency surfacing, hoping to hide in the slums of the Amazonian Confederation, despite the fact that Cynthia was badly hurt during the escape and is in dire need of a hospital.
Meanwhile, Guzmano worries that when news of the escaped children gets out, their country will face embargoes and become vilified to the world when they testify to the horrors of his reign. While Guzmano’s second in command tries to reason with him into letting the children and SeaQuest go, the despot berates Miguel and remains unswayed, ordering him to find them.
Ford and Shan attempt to rob a pharmacy of the antibiotics needed to heal Cynthia, but are caught with Shan showing off his martial arts skills in order to save them. Back in the slums, a plan is concocted to use The Sisters of the Good Death as a cover to sneak the injured Cynthia and company out of the slums and back to the area where they landed so that they can be rescued.
The SeaQuest sends Ortiz and Malik to make their way into the slums to find their missing crew members with Ortiz making himself look and smell drunk because... reasons (?) and then after seeing that his crew mates have made it past Guzmano and crew, he runs back to get the boat ready while Malik remains to... tell the escapees to run toward the water while he stays and acts as a distraction. Unfortunately, after the crew gets on the boat, Malik arrives too late as it motors away. Malik dives into the water but Guzmano and crew are too close and order him to stop and come out, but Darwin appears and drags him quickly under water, away from the soldiers and back to the safety of the boat. As the crew sails away they see Miguel being betrayed by Guzmano once again leaving the put upon general to take revenge by shooting his leader and covering it up as a suicide.
Back safe aboard the SeaQuest, Bridger informs Miguel that the children will stay with them and be taken to the United States where they will live their lives, perhaps someday returning to their birth land, but for now, they shall feast on ice cream!
Send Out the WSKRS:
Luis Guzman played Guzmano. He was a star of the 80’s and 90’s, mostly playing villains due to his physical appearance. He was in, arguably, one of the best episodes of Community called “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux.” He was also in Boogie Nights, Oz, The Count of Monte Cristo, Carlito’s Way, Keanu (Key and Peele) and Shameless more recently. Coming soon he’s playing a priest in a movie called Hold On about an aspiring and unlikely singer. He had a TV series of which 10 episodes were shot, with only 5 being aired before cancelation.
Miguel was played by Carlos Carrasco. He was in Speed and Crocodile Dundee 2 alongside Luis Guzman.
Obatu was played by Christopher M. Brown. He was also in the Quantum Leap episode “A Song For The Soul” as Raghead Teen #3.
Cynthia was played by Marianne Hagan. She starred in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. She’s had a few handfuls of other main roles and supporting roles. Her latest role was in We Only Know So Much as the Touchy Feely Woman.
Main Soldier (IMDb’s credit) was played by Lou Cass. Besides a small number of appearances, he was in something called Gay XXX Superstars of the 1980’s.
Higher Power:
The entire world takes a day off in order to allow Lucas’s father, Dr. Lawrence Wolenczak, to activate his worldwide free energy system harnessing the power of the ocean but small problems creep up right away that he writes off as expected issues they can maintain.
Meanwhile the crew of the SeaQuest is dealing with changes as their current tour onboard has ended with Hitchcock and Ford fielding offers for other commissions, Bridger and Westphalen having some final dates together, and Crocker dealing with the news that his wife is leaving him due to his love of the sea as opposed to his marriage.
When all communications go dead, the crew activates the emergency communications band and discovers that something has gone wrong with Dr W’s project as a giant lava river has opened up all along the new ocean power turbines causing the water temperature to rise to an alarming amount that if left unchecked will cause the polar ice caps to melt and cause flooding worldwide.
Bridger orders all hands to abandon ship while Crocker goes to Dr W’s facility and rescues him along with his assistants. Bridger comes up with the plan to fire the SeaQuest’s nuclear weapons at the lava flow to close it up/prevent the continued flow/fix the problem because nuclear? He orders crocker, Dr W and his assistants to the launch craft to escape while he Ford and Shan activate the weapons and autopilot. As they leave for the launch the auto pilot malfunctions but Bridger sends everyone off while he turned to fix it.
The launch craft makes it safely to shore as a giant explosion rocks the ocean, saving the world. As the crew mourns the loss of the SeaQuest and their captain, Bridger suddenly appears riding the stinger, rejoining his crew.
As the crew continues to figure out what they will do next, most notably Krieg looking at a fast food manager job and Ford trying to nicely reject offers for a position in the Air Force, Lucas bids goodbye to his father and then rejoins Bridger to discuss the minor problem of building a new boat.
Send Out the WSKRS:
This episode was originally known as "An Ocean on Fire", but was ultimately changed to "Higher Power" prior to airing.
Lawrence Walenczak (Lucas’ Dad) was played by Kristoffer Tabori and we’ve seen him in the Sliders episode “Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome” as Doctor Whelan and in the Quantum Leap episode “One Strobe Over The Line” as Byron (an exec working with the head of the models). Today, he mostly just does voice projects, having done work for video games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Spider-Man.
Jordan was played by Patricia Harty who we saw in Quantum Leap episode “Sea Bride” as the mother of Catherine Farrington.
Jill Engels played Helen Crocker and her only other credit is as Trudy from Twin Peaks.
Captain Calvin Shelley was played by Charles Cyphers, a true “that guy”. In Sliders he played the Coach in the episode “Eggheads,” and in Lois and Clark he was Thaddeus Roarke in “Honeymoon In Metropolis.” He also played Sheriff Brackett in Halloween (1978) and is set to return for next years Halloween Kills.
The song that plays over the volleyball scene is Mahalia Jackson’s Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen.
Whats Next?
Next up, we'll be discussing the season 2 premiere "Dagger" (Parts 1 & 2).
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