VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which ran on ABC from 1964 - 1968, is perhaps not only the longest title of a major television network series (a real mouthful to say), but was for years the longest running U.S. one of the science fiction/fantasy kind. It is also the first and by far the best of producer Irwin Allen's four shows. The premise or the core idea of Voyage was the adventures of the futuristic, glass nosed submarine, the Seaview. The two lead actors are Richard Basehart and David Hedison. There are a good assortment of supporting characters. The sets and equipment were from the (very successful) 1961 feature film by the same producer.

The first season was photographed in black & white and was essentially a mix of foreign/enemy agent and espionage stories. These ingredients make for a show which is far more watchable than the later (ridiculous) episodes involving werewolves, terrible toys, and general, stock ridiculousness. Voyage was shot in "color" from the second season on which seemed to point the way to more, shall we say, colourfulness.

The ironic thing is the later episodes made for more enticing viewing to the average tiny tot. (I remember being a little bored by a story that took place in Venice. My mother said, "there's not much of the submarine in this one, is there?")

Watching Voyage now makes me appreciate the fact -- again, the earlier seasons -- that it is unfairly batched with the three other Allen telefantasy series (Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants). A couple I have seen lately are superior, by any measure. The crew acted like a real sub crew would, in the first season especially. In the third and four years the crew became a bunch of buffoons... in some cases not recognizing some fiendish plotting alien who copied what an earlier alien tried to do but failed. (I have never figured out how some evil force never managed to take over the vessel, lickity split.) The scripts became so consistently bad that they were often embarrassing.

In re-sampling this series, one quality I was pleasantly reminded of was the slight romantic feeling which reared its head from time to time throughout the series. This was helped by Paul Sawtell's superb theme tune -- one of the best tv-tunes of all time, as far as I'm concerned. You really do not get a signature theme of this quality in series television anymore. Times have changed.

If there is one Irwin Allen series that you might spend an hour of your life to satisfy any curiosity, this would be the one.

* Interestingly enough, someone posted this on Youtube the day I posted the above...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0TSQ1Q8YA6I