Undoubtedly sending robots to the bottom of the ocean just to see what the hell is there is cool no matter how you slice the pie, but Schmidt Ocean Institute livestreams the entirety of their dives (like 8 hours long or so) which brings things to another level for chumps like us who don’t have some ridiculous dream job of participating in scientific dives with magnificent undersea exploration vehicles.

It genuinely makes for the best background TV material I have ever seen. The firehouse of strange creatures they encounter that stretch your mind’s capacity to comprehend the strange and unknown is balanced perfectly by the simple physical comedy of watching ROV operators play an extreme version of the arcade claw game 3000m below the sea when they are attempting to take samples of sea life and store it in sample bins. A lot of times a scientist is actively narrating what is happening on the stream but even when they aren’t the control room is usually mic’d and at any given time features a multidisciplinary cross-section of scientists.

Check it out, put it on as a background at a party it makes great viewing in a casual party setting where people can engage and disengage whenever they want while talking about the weird creatures and laughing about the ROV claw totally failing to grab a coral and horribly snapping it in half.