Ladies Love Sea Quest Fans

[originally written for overtimecomedy.com on 10/06/06]


I'm just going to come right out and say it. As a kid, I was a crazy die-hard Star Trek fan. It was one of the few things my father and I had in common, so we embraced the shit out of it. This of course led to one of the great dilemmas of my early adolecence, how to be a sci-fi nerd and meet girls.

The answer: Sea Quest.

Here was a sci-fi show for everyone. It's set in the no-so-distant future, and it was set on Earth. It was like watching Hill Street Blues, but on a futuristic submarine that explored the depths of the ocean. Roy Scheider as captain, brilliant. If he can fight great white sharks, he could match Patrick Stewart in gravitas. The ace in the hole, though, the thing that was going to get young girls interested was former Chuck Norris sidekick Jonathan Brandis.

It worked. My middle school even had a Sea Quest club, and my sister was in it. She's a girl, right?

Brandis's Lucas was more annoyingly precocious than Wesley Crusher, but I sat through his obnoxious blond locks because I knew he was my only chance to find love. I watched him bond with talking dolphin Darwin as my hope for romance grew. I committed every adorable thing he did to memory, knowing it would help me get girls.

So I never had a girlfriend in middle school.