Have you ever known--I mean, been absolutely certain--that you were going to die?

That's how seaQuest's Lt. Krieg felt, when a sea monster grabbed his submersible and gave it a good shaking. He survived, and made it back to the main ship, where no one believes him about the monster but everyone is interested in the shiny rocks he found while he was out.

The "monster" is clearly supposed to be a giant squid, even though it has only six arms/tentacles and they're full of Christmas lights instead of suction cups. The depiction of its behavior is surprisingly accurate--it's attracted to the lights of the delightfully squid-shaped seaQuest, so it wraps its tentacles (sure, we'll call them tentacles) around the ship and commences tactile exploration. The scene with the tip of one tentacle waving around inside the ship and all the crew screaming like little children because it might, I don't know, touch them, is pure hilarity.

Except I guess it wasn't a giant squid. After the captain gets his brilliant strategic moment (aided by the joint insight of a dolphin and a scientist) of darkening the ship and luring the squid away with the lights of a remotely operated submersible, the scientist tells us she doesn't know what it was. Must be something with a steady bioluminescent diet, though, because Krieg's shiny rocks? Monster feces! Guess they don't start to smell bad until after the bioluminescent bacteria die--which is a bit of a logical hiccup, but from an underwater Star Trek, I'll take whatever they give me.

Yes, I just watched my very first ever seaQuest episode. I hadn't actually heard of the show until a few weeks ago, but apparently it is the reason that one of my marine biology grad school friends is in marine biology grad school, so I figured I should let her expose me to it.

And. Well. It's bad. But! Underwater Star Trek! So, it is also Awesome.