Do You Remember: Surface

Back in September of 2005, a new science fiction drama – called Surface – debut on NBC.

The basic premise behind the show was focused on several key players. During a routine submersible dive in the North Pacific Ocean, California oceanographer Laura Daughtery (actress Lake Bell, who has gone on to appear in the box office movies In A World, Home Again and No Escape) is attacked by an unknown life-form that appears out of a field of craters on the ocean’s floor. In North Carolina, 14-year old Miles Barnett (actor Carter Jenkins, who now stars in the Freeform drama Famous in Love) finds himself face-to-face with the strange sea creature after falling off his wakeboard during a nighttime outing with his friends. And, Richard Connelly (actor Jay R. Ferguson from The Real O’Neals), a Louisiana man on a fishing trip, loses his brother in a suspicious diving accident when a creature drags him to the depths of the Gulf of Mexico.

All around the world, strange things are occurring in the world’s oceans. Shooting stars fall from the night sky into the Caribbean Sea; a horrific howl tears apart a South African lighthouse. In South Carolina, an unknown carcass washes up on a public beach, prompting the government to evacuate and cordon off the area, claiming it as a beached whale killed by red tide poisoning.  Meanwhile, Daughtery’s research is seized by government officials led by a mysterious Croatian scientist, Dr. Aleksander Cirko (Rade Serbedzija, who has seen appeared in 24 and Downton Abbey) after attempting to confront them, she is fired.

The series aired ten episodes before going on hiatus in November due to the network’s coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics. The final five episodes of the debut season aired in early 2016, but the show was cancelled in May by NBC after only on season.

Other main cast members included actor Ian Anthony Dale, who has gone on to star in this summer’s Salvation, Hawaii Five-0 and Murder in the First as well as actress Leighton Meester, who went on to fame in Gossip Girl.

Twin brothers Jonas and Josh Pate were the creators of the show; and the writing staff included Chip Johannessen, who has written for Dexter and Homeland and Dan Dworkin, who has written for Revenge and Scream: The Series.

Just some of the guest stars in Surface who have gone on to bigger TV series include:

Austin Nichols, who was one of the cast members of the long-running series One Tree Hill and more recently has appeared in The Walking Dead;

Brent Sexton, who has appeared in shows like The Killing, Justified and Bosch;

Melissa Ponzio, who was Scott McCall’s mom in all six seasons of the MTV thriller series Teen Wolf;

Johanna Braddy, who has gone on to star in the first season of the Lifetime series UnReal and ABC action-drama Quantico; and

Neil Brown, Jr., who is one of the stars of the new drama SEAL Team and appeared in the box office film Straight Outta Compton.

Do you remember the one season of the NBC sci-fi series Surface?