|
|
People all over the world experience bizarre encounters involving strange new creatures in the oceans. Among those people are Laura Daughtery, a marine bioligist and single mother working in California, Richard Connelly, a Louisiana family man fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, and Miles Bennett, a North Carolina teen who finds one of the creatures' eggs.
Buy this episode at 
|
| 
|
|
Director:
Jonas Pate, Josh Pate
Writer:
Jonas Pate, Josh Pate
|
Broadcast: 2005-09-19
Production No.: 101
Episode Overall No.: 1
Episode Type: Regular Episode
|
| |
|
Latest Comments ![[ Add Comment ]](/images/add_comment-neu01.png) |
|
No comments yet
|
| |
|
Episode Notes -  |
During the final preview test screenings of the pilot episode held at Universal Studios, the audiences got very emotional during the scenes featuring locations set in Lousianna as Hurricane Katrina had just hit the area days before.
Shows that NBC put on Monday nights at 8:00pm have historically plummeted in the ratings because of powerhouse competitors like Monday Night Football and 7th Heaven but Surface managed to become a surprise hit with ratings steadily climbing each week.
Surface was the most over-saturated new series premiere of the fall 2005 season, due to mass re-airing of the pilot during the first week on the Sci Fi Channel.
Miles and his family were originally going to be from San Diego.
Lake Bell's character was originally going to be called Daughtery Carstarphen. Also, Jay R. Ferguson's character was originally going to be called Richard Beck, then it changed to Richard Owen, and then was finally settled as Richard Connelly.
When searching for information on "sea monsters", Miles uses an internet search engine called "JointAxis". This is not an actual search engine and was just made up for the show.
In the first re-airing of Surface on the Sci-Fi Channel, the promos for the show that aired during commercial breaks still stated, "Series Premiere: Monday at 8/7 Central on NBC", even though the series premiere had already aired.
The series has no theme song or intro. The word "Surface" simply appears on the screen after the first scene, in the fashion of a movie or mini-series.
Locations in this episode:
Wilmington, North Carolina;
U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (Weddell Sea, Antarctica);
Sausalito, California;
The Louisiana Coast (Near the Gulf of Mexico);
Oceanographic Institute (Monterey, California);
M.V. Kellie Chouest (Northern Pacific Ocean);
Port Arthur, U.S. Navy Base (Bangor, Maine);
Gulf of Mexico (50 Miles S. of New Orleans);
Sullivan's Island, South Carolina;
National Security Agency (Fort Meade, Maryland);
Caribbean Sea (off the Coast of Belize).
The show was originally titled Fathom before NBC changed it to Surface. Reportedly the name change came after 20th Century Fox showed interest in making a film based on a comic book called "Fathom."
Reruns of the first few episodes of Surface were shown on NBC's cable partner Sci-Fi Channel starting with the pilot on September 20. This is the first time that an NBC show has had reruns run on the Sci-Fi Channel while the show was still first-run on NBC.
The premise is simular to that of the 1998 film The Faculty from director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) and writer Kevin Williamson (Scream, "Dawson's Creek").
The character of Dr. Aleksander Cirko was originally going to be called Dr. Clay Ling back when the producers wanted the character to be of Asian, East Indians or Pakistanis origin.
Quotes:
Laura: I worked my ass off to get here and I deserve to be part of this!
Cirko: Endangered species don't deserve to be on the brink of extension. But they are. You are a marine biologist. You of all people must know, that life is not fair.
Laura: (while in submarine) Something's coming up.
Miles: There's something in the water.
Laura: I was the one that saw it. Alone, at 5,000 feet! I was the one that saw it in a disabled submersible. A new vertebrate!
Trivia:
The scene between the young kid and his grandfather was shot in a studio and was one of the few "outdoor" scenes not actually shot on location.
Most of the series will be filmed in and around Wrightsville Beach and Wilmington, NC, even for scenes that are not supposed to take place in North Carolina.
Goofs:
The egg that Miles rescues from the sea is floating on the surface. When he puts it in his home fish tank it sinks to the bottom of the tank. More dramatic that way but otherwise unexplained.
Allusions:
The computer program Miles uses to wake himself up features The Incredible Hulk, a popular comic book character from Marvel Comics created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The Hulk's story is about a man named Bruce Banner who, due to radiation, would turn into a large green monster whenever he got angry. The comic book was turned into a popular show in the 1970s starring Bill Bixby (as Banner) and Lou Ferrigno (as the Hulk) and later adapted into a film by Ang Lee in 2003.
Miles reads a book that contains a passage about a "six-headed sea serpent". This is probably Charybdis, in Greek mythology the child of the sea god Poseidon and earth mother Gaia. Charybdis guarded a narrow sea passage, and reached down from its lair when ships passed to devour six crewmen, one for each mouth. The penalty for failing to make a swift passage was repeated loss of crew members in multiples of six. |
|
For more information and/or to discuss this show, please refer to the show's forum or this episode's comments. Click here to go back to the Surface Menu. |
|
|
![[ Login ]](/themes/EPW_20/images/button_login.png)
![[ Register ]](/themes/EPW_20/images/button_register.png)
Surface (2005) - 1x01 - Episode 1