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Marco Sanchez, left, stars with Jimmy Wlcek in Sons of Thunder, which is a spinoff of Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris, center.

Marco Sanchez´s Silent 'Thunder'

As Marco Sanchez sees it, the most effective way to make a statement often is to make no statement at all.  That´s basically what Sanchez, a first-generation American, did when he played Sensor Chief Miguel Ortiz on seaQuest (1993-1996). And that´s what he does now as private eye Carlos Sandoval on Sons of Thunder (9 p.m. Saturdays, CBS), the Walker, Texas Ranger spinoff. In short, he plays Hispanic characters minus any stereotype. "I didn´t get into acting to be a role model," Sanchez says. "I got into acting to act. But I do actually feel some obligation in terms of the characters I play. My parents come from Cuba, and my Latin heritage is very important to me. But by the same token, I´m an American, I´m college-educated, I speak Engllish clearly and television doesn´t represent a lot of people like myself. It´s either the drug dealer or a guy who doesn´t speak English at all and that´s very insulting." In some small way, then, Sanchez is helping change that. "It was a pleasure to do seaQuest and not have to speak with an accent," he says. "Nor was I some kind of shady character. That was a very positive aspect of one to model my career after. Ther wasn´t anybody like me that I could say, 'Hey, that´s whose career I want to have.' " Sanchez, who also had a recurring role on Knots Landing, is getting to do Sons of Thunder, a series getting a six-week test run, after playing Carlos in about 15 Walker episodes over the past two seasons. "And it´s been so nice not to have make a big issue about the whole Latin thing on the show." First season reruns of seaQuest air at 4 p.m. weekdays on the Sci-Fi Channel. Walker reruns play at 7 p.m. weeknights on USA.