Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, season 1
release year: 1964-5
genre: TV action/adventure (32 episodes)
viewing setting: home DVD 6/28/22 - 7/5/22 and 3/2-31/25
synopsis: This series showcases the adventures of the advanced submarine Seaview and her crew.
impressions: Made in the mid-1960s, this took place in the then-future world of the 1970s. It was one of those shows that fascinated me as a young child, but may not have aged well. This first season seemed to have a lot of "enemy government" presence, or maybe some secret evil group like in some Bond movies. It also had a lot of episodes where the entire sub and its crew were at risk so that some scientific experiment or research could happen/continue despite evidence of the danger...which made me think that the Seaview was like that one team at work that gets handed all the shit jobs that no one else wants to do, and has to do them because the order came from high above. Anyway, here are really brief episode synopses where I pull no punches:
episode 1: the pilot, in which the sub goes to the North Pole to stop world-threatening earthquakes, and is challenged by opposing governments led by a shadowy, bald, cigarette-smoking man right out of a James Bond movie (plus there's some recycling of footage from the movie)
episode 2: much land-based espionage as they search for a hidden undersea city
episode 3: enemy agent menaces the sub with fear gas, as they dive to crush depth...not the best plan
episode 4: fairly boring political drama involving a Latin American country
episode 5: monster episode! giant creeping plankton! (plus guest star Jill Ireland)
episode 6: a UFO crashes in the ocean and the Seaview is sent to find it
episode 7: they investigate a lost tropical land hidden beneath Antarctica (bonus: the photographer woman was played by the same actress who portrayed the green-skinned woman in the Star Trek original series episode Whom Gods Destroy)
episode 8: Norway! a fjord! a qiant octopus!
episode 9: Russians have a missile gone awry and only the Seaview can stop it from destroying San Francisco (bonus: a presidential aide was played by a young James Doohan, before his time as Scotty in Star Trek later in the 1960s)
episode 10: The sub sinks within a minefield and it's a race against time for a diving bell to help them before they run out of air
episode 11: They go to some small Central American country that's somehow developed a magnetic beam, the country's chief of spying somehow gets on board, and then the ship is slowly being pulled to its doom; there were overtones of James Bond here as evidenced by the foreigh guy who's well-connected and helps out
episode 12: As the ship transports a Russian defector to the U.S., an assassin gets on board; this was another one influenced by James Bond, as the assassin was very much like Red Grant in From Russia With Love
episode 13: The Gulf Stream has changed, causing really cold weather, and someone doesn't want anyone figuring out why so they brainwash a scientist to kill Admiral Nelson. Another espionage episode that didn't feature the submarine or underwater action much.
episode 14: A scientist's obsession with a huge whale gets his son killed, so he ends up aboard the Seaview seeking revenge but pretending to be seeking science. The Moby Dick allusions are obvious and overdone, and Admiral Nelson takes too long to realize what's going on.
episode 15: The ship takes a young prince on board, he turns out to be an immature asshole of a child, but he gets better during the trip.
episode 16: They have to transport the President while he has surgery, but don't know about the assassin who also got on board (which kind of makes you wonder about national security in the 1960s.)
episode 17: Admiral Nelson is kidnapped by renegade Nazis who plan to take over the world.
episode 18: A whole bunch of nonsense happens so that there can be tension and conflict between Nelson, Crane, and some crusty admiral who happens to be on board.
episode 19: Things get tense on board as there appears to be a good chance of a nuclear war on the world above, and some of the crew can't deal with it.
episode 20: The sub finds weird metal canisters on the ocean floor, picks one up, opens it, and an alien played by a young Robert Duvall emerges and begins doing bad things...and they let him.
episode 21: A robot from deep space is recovered but runs amok, while its creator thinks of excuses not to destroy it (and also repeatedly calls it a "ro-butt" as everyone did in the 1960s and 1970s.)
episode 22: The sub gets hijacked by a master thief who has a goal in mind. This was yet another example of how easy it is to get on board and put the entire ship and its crew in danger.
episode 23: The sub is empty for a computer-controlled wargames exercise, except for the captain...and a foreign assassin bent on killing him and taking the computer. This one had a lot of tense cat-and-mouse action as they chased each other around the ship.
episode 24: The Seaview is carrying some super-nuclear missiles and a lot of extra guards...yet somehow the captain was taken away before the voyage and brainwashed for nefarious purposes. These Cold War spy episodes are getting boring (and often implausible.)
episode 25: A mission takes the ship through a hazardous area, and a junior officer whose brother's ship sunk there cracks under the pressure. Meanwhile, the admiral and the scientist basically completely ignore the danger.
episode 26: Scientists at an underwater research lab have found a way to turn humans into amphibians, but the side-effect is that they turn aggressive and want to make everyone else like them.
episode 27: A foreign ruler plans to escape to the U.S., which serves as the setup to have a murder mystery and hostage situation in a small raft on the open ocean. This was another Cold War driven political drama episode, which I'm getting tired of. It doesn't showcase the Seaview or its unique capabilities at all, had no monsters or aliens, and while tense was not science-fiction action like I wanted from an episode of this series.
episode 28: The Seaview must contend with a giant manta ray, an irrational admiral played by Leslie Nielsen, and Nelson's stubbornness about science when the ship is in danger.
episode 29: An island run by Henry Silva and his "Peoples' Republic" forces serves as a backdrop for a sinister psychological experiement on Nelson and Crane. A young Tom Skerritt (who would be the captain of the Nostromo fifteen years later) has a very brief appearance at the beginning.
episode 30: The ship ends up in Loch Ness, where there are reports of a sea monster sinking boats...
episode 31: Once again, an idiot/asshole/manaic puts others in danger in the name of his experiement/research but someone doesn't notice and lets it go. This time it's a super-deep-sea diving bell and the admiral who wants it to succeed at any cost. And there's also some sort of giant, weird plant-monster at the bottom of the ocean; it kind of looks like the Godzilla foe Hedorah but this was seven years before that movie was made. This was another episode that felt rushed at the end - they literally went from being in terrible danger to all being well within a 60-second span.
episode 32: Admiral Nelson's sister is kidnapped by foreign agents who want U.S secrets. This was another Cold War espionage episode which featured very little submarine action, plus villains who could obtain false credentials in order to get on board.
acting: Aside from minor roles, there are only two recurring characters of note at this point: Richard Basehart as the admiral/inventor/scientist, and David Hedison as the actual captain. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's really in charge.
final word: Fun, if dated submarine drama/action/sci-fi.
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