Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea / and Seaquest

I have been watching Voyage to the Bottom of the sea. As I entered into the second season, it seems to have gone from undersea exploration to a more cloak and dagger. Man from U.N.C.L.E plot line. This seems to be what happened to SEAQUEST also. The first season was about the ocean, yet Season 2 became Star Trek, and Season 3 had another new approach.

So far in Season 2 of VTBS, the stories have been pretty good, but I seem to remember it changing later on. I am 5 stories into Season 2, but I really like the writing. Actually Season 1 had some pretty good stories too.

 

There's definitely some gold in season 1 and season 2; it was the leprechauns and such in season 3 that killed it for me. Still, some great moments, nice sets, and generally a good cast.

 

I love Voyage! Yeah, season 3 started to decline.

 

This is one of those shows that just does not hold up for me very well at all.

The few times I tune in for it on ME TV I always end up changing the channel less than 15 minutes in.

 

I think the first two seasons are good but I agree the decline started in Season 3 and then proceeded steadily from there.

I did wonder as a kid how all the instruments in the Seaview control room could be spitting sparks and mini fireballs everywhere during those "dramatic scenes" and then magically continue to work after the "emergency" was over.

Or the fact that they even sparked at all.

Guess the Seaview was a victim of government construction fraud. Circuit breakers were ordered but the contractors never installed them and pocketed the cash instead.

The same thing seems to have happened to the Robinson family's Jupiter 2...

 

Irwin Allen seemed to have a real talent for taking what started out as a good story line, and then continually adding in goofy monsters and childish plots. I thought Voyage started out as pretty good sci-fi (for TV in the 1960's, that is) and then it descended into stupidity.

 

How much of watching people lurch from side to side can one watch without getting seasick?

 

I still want to know how the flying sub could dock in the front of the Seaview when there was nowhere near that much room in there. Same deal with Lost in Space and the motorized "Chariot" and the "space pod." Irwin Allen had the strange habit of adding three times more space than was ever possible to props and sets that had been around since the first episode.

Don't get me stahted on the third level of the Jupiter 2... Even at 10 years old, I saw this on the air and said, "WTF?"

 

Maybe that great architect Mike Brady designed the 3rd level of Jupiter 2. After all, he had Greg Brady put his bedroom in the attic (3rd level) of the Brady House, but looking at that house from outside, I could never figure out where that would be.

 

I want to believe

Man I loved me some Flying Sub... I mean how cool was that?



Yeah I built that bad boy.

 

I always liked how aliens or enemy saboteurs could easily hide from search parties. On a submarine?

 

I've seen it from the street in North Hollywood, and the real house doesn't even have a 2nd level! It's also up against a big canal, so there isn't much of a back yard, either.

I was just looking at an episode of Lost in Space the other day on the new Blu-ray box (which looks and sounds excellent, BTW), and it's hilarious to see how bad the sets were on this show. Those fake paper-mache "planet surface" rocks are preserved in every hokey detail. There's also some memorable moments where you can see that the Robot is wearing no pants, since actor Bob May frequently only had the top half of the costume on for close-ups and medium shots. The Blu-ray also has some amazing outtakes and stock footage that shows the Fox technicians on location with the miniature spaceship, with the real-life stuntman piloting the jet pack, and a full-size "Space Chariot" roaming the desert. Terrific footage.

 

Well. The Seaview and Jupiter 2 both had TARDIS qualities built into them ...

The "third level" of the Jupiter 2 was beyond WTF...IMO...

 

You gotta love those ventilation vents ...!

 

But Star Trek called them by the much more techie name of Jefferies tubes.

 

Season One of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA was the mostly-serious one. There were a lot of espionage stories and some undersea "wonders" but EVERY TIME they did a monster story, the ratings went through the roof.

Season Two started out with the blend of undersea wonders (now in color!) and a some near-total espionage stories with the sub barely in view. That was the MAN FROM UNCLE factor taking hold. Toward the end of two, they started getting toward the "monster of the week" format as the network saw that those stories garnered the biggest ratings.

Thus we come to Season Three where the wacky "monster of the week" format took hold big time. It's nearly unwatchable for some.

Season Four gets the show initially back on track with some decent early offerings - but quickly devolved into some really cheap episodes with either recycled footage, or monster of the week in the form of one of the crew that's been possessed - or even better, an entity that hops around from crew member to crew member. If you watch any of the later season four, you'll see an awful lot of crew members wandering around the sub looking for someone else. Those episodes were cheap time-filler.



Harry

 

I used to love this as a kid. There's one episode that I would like to see again where a huge, hairy caterpillar-like serpent gets inside the ship. Does anyone know which episode that is?

 

Can't help you with that episode name, but I can say that several cast members have said that captain/star Richard Basehart had some personal issues during production, and basically couldn't do much dialogue after lunch because he'd be too tipsy. As a result, they'd have to get any major dialogue scenes from him during the morning.

There was pressure from ABC to present a "monster of the week" kind of show, so that's one reason the show kind of deteriorated over time. You can only have so many episodes with guys in rubber monster suits before it gets kinda old.

 

That could be about 15 episodes. Here's a list with descriptions of each episode

Episode Central, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea