Free Willy is an animated television series, inspired by the 1993 film of the same name. This television show was produced by Warner Bros. Television, Regency Enterprises, and the Canadian company Nelvana for Warner Bros. Studios.
The show continues the adventures of the killer whale Willy and Jesse, the boy who freed him from captivity as shown in the film. In retrospect, the series also anticipates multiple plot elements of the film sequel, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, released the following summer. The overarching conflict is reminiscent of Moby-Dick: a powerful oil baron, known to the main characters only as a cyborg called "The Machine" until the final episodes, loses his arm and part of his face to Willy while committing an environmental atrocity and wants revenge upon "that rotten whale... and his boy". The show aired on ABC.
Plot
Jesse has been adopted by his foster parents, the Greenwoods, and they have moved from Seattle to the Pacific coast. He is given a job at the Misty Island Oceanic Reserve, a local wildlife rescue and research institute where Randolph, his Native American mentor from the movie, now works. In the first episode, Jesse discovers he has the ability to talk to animals and understand their speech; Randolph, a Haida, explains that he is a Truth Talker. This revelation allows for Willy and the other sea creatures featured in the show to have full personalities and more prominent roles in key plot events. Jesse and Randolph work with Mr. Naugle, the head biologist, and Marlene, a research assistant, who are studying Einstein, a dolphin, and Lucille, a seal, teaching them behavioral communication with normal humans.
The main villain of the series, similar in personality to Captain Ahab, is a cyborg called "The Machine" who holds Willy responsible for his loss of an arm and part of his face. It was initially implied that Willy had bitten them off, but a flashback revealed that his submarine was destroyed upon encountering Willy, hurling him into another ship's screw propeller. His appearance recalls Locutus of Borg and the Phantom of the Opera. When not using his new submarine to create environmental havoc, he dons a mask and glove (perhaps a nod to the contributions of Michael Jackson to the films) for disguise and continues to run an oil company under his former identity, Rockland Stone.
The Machine relies on synthetic henchmen called Amphonids, made from radioactive clay and toxic waste. They mainly function as comic relief; they are somewhat reluctant to carry out instructions to pollute and destroy the environment, preferring to slouch around and entertain themselves, and often making costly and catastrophic errors for The Machine. He does, however, also pay people to carry out his instructions, threatening dire consequences if they reveal his misdemeanours.
Throughout the series, Jesse is constantly fighting plots and schemes hatched by The Machine to destroy Willy, such as releasing deadly parasitism and creating genetic engineering giant squid predatory to orca, and to despoil the ecosystem, such as wanton spilling of garbage, toxic waste and oil into the sea. Meanwhile, he attempts to influence the ostensibly reasonable business magnate Mr. Stone to adopt environmentally friendly industrial practices through his publicist, P. R. Frickey.
Toward the end of the first season, Jesse starts suspecting that Rockland Stone is The Machine who faces him trying to wipe out the salmon streams in Misty Island's inland rivers ("Milestones"). In the final episode ("Ghost Ship") Jesse and Willy come across a half sunken ship that has something to do with The Machine's past and the Stone Cooperation. Frustrated in figuring out if Rockland Stone is the villain that he and Willy have been fighting against, Jesse unmasks The Machine before the public (which in his Stone identity is running for senator) and escapes a close encounter from him while trying to find evidence. The next day of the senator election, Jesse and Willy go and gather video tape evidence of the ship (which is full of war material) and The Machine tries to get rid of the ship with the use of explosives. In the end, "Stone" loses the election thanks to Jesse's video tape showing what the ship was carrying which was shown to the public through media coverage and Jesse and Willy celebrate his defeat afterwards.