I have a few questions about season 3
1. Did Piccolo lose the use of his gills somewhere? In one episode he is in a mechanical device to scout the area- why not just swim? Did I miss something?
2. Were the producers and writers expecting another season? If they didn't the series finale sucked.
3. Why did they switch to a robotic Darwin- was it because they no longer did anything to do with science?
1. Piccolo didn't lose his gills, however, the existence of them was downplayed in the third season as the show tried to move back towards the first season's reality-based storylines. More to the point, the one time he is seen in the DSL suit, "In the Company of Ice and Profit", no doubt the water would have been too cold for him, given that they were investigating an iceberg.
In an unproduced episode entitled "About Face", Piccolo's gills begin to degrade away, so, he was going to lose them at some point, anyway.
2. "seaQuest 2032" was canceled abruptly while filming the thirteenth episode of the season, "Weapons of War." Several more episodes for the season had reached script stages when the show was canceled. "Weapons of War" was never intended to be the series finale.
3. Darwin was always an animatronic puppet, designed by the same team that created the humpback whales in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."
I actually asked 2032 writer producer Lee Goldberg (on his message board) if they had an ending planned for season 3 (had the back nine been ordered) and I got a real non-answer. Just that the Choadai would have become more of a threat later in the season.
"Oh, I did my thesis on life experience." - Anonymous Harvard Guy, The Simpsons.
thanks for answering my questions.