Supercarrier

This series was never filmed on a carrier. It was filmed on the USS Vandegrift FFG 48 which is a Parry class frigate. I know this because I was stationed on the Vandergrift at the time of the filming. The entire basis of the show was BS from the beginning and the "stars" and crew made our lives miserable from the moment they stepped onto the pier. The navy pulled its support for the show due to our ships captain writing a scathing letter to the secretary of the navy outlining the way in which these people conducted themselves while guests aboard our home. The way they portrayed the men and women in uniform had nothing to do with it losing support, although it should have.

The show was obviously trying to fill the gaps between commercials for people needing a Top Gun fix. I saw two minutes of one episode to confirm this. In the episode the carrier had to sail through a narrow canal, and the fear was that the enemy could be anywhere in the jungle below. Worse was that the jungle was so close that the carrier's guns couldn't depress far enough to engage them, should they appear. So the crew was just standing around in dread. I guess "hoping while dreading" can be considered a military tactic, right up there with praying and crossing fingers. I can't see how that kind of writing could engage any viewers over the age of nine. The show seemed to belong on Saturday mornings. Maybe if there was a red LED going back and forth between the bridle catchers, and the carrier's AI would converse with the crew. These are sarcastic suggestions alluding to Knight Rider.

I will never understand why Hollywood half bakes a show. If one wants to make a show about naval aviation, get people who know something about the topic, write dialog that people in the military would actually say, get the conops close to correct, and don't have any "big red levers that will destroy the reactor" or any other "the ship is in great danger again this week" formula.

the show was great even better than that wannabe movie top gun. it only had one flaw it told the truth and the navy just like always can't handle the truth. the only reason the navy pulled support for the show was that it showed people a side of navy life that the navy didn't want them to see the truth

I was still relatively new in the Navy when this show aired, enlisting in November 1986. I remember sitting in the barracks at NATTC Lakehurst, NJ back in May 1988, going through a Navy school, and listening to the comments from my fellow sailors while the show was on TV. Not having been to the fleet yet, I didn't have a common frame of reference, but when I spent time on my first ship, it was easy to see what they meant. Throughout my ten years, it was hard to watch any movie or TV show that depicted Navy life without overanalyzing it and picking out the mistakes and contrived scenarios. I had even forgotten this aired until I followed a link for Richard Jaeckel from a movie.

I was an extra in a scene in the berthing compartment of the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67. It was a drug bust scene, it took forever to finish because the actor couldn't get the simple lines right. He kept messing them up, it took no less than 6-10 shots per scene to get it right, and then the director wanted to shoot it from 5 different angles. They filmed a ton of flight deck footage while we were out. If I remember right we left Norfolk and did "Doughnuts" for like 4 days just for this show to shoot. The crew was psyched to do the shoot, when they first got there. But after we saw the episodes no one was happy with the result. Another reviewer stated the fact, it was a good idea, but the Navy did not like how the characters portrayed the service.