Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: "Eleven Hours to Zero." (The Color Pilot)

And thus, we enter the world of Irwin Allen.

I first became acquainted to the works of Irwin Allen a few days after I got cable.  The Sci-Fi Channel, the first thing in the morning, used to play a little known show called "Land of the Giants" which concerned an air flight from the future of 1985 (!) going off course and ending up on another planet.  This planet, however, evolved the same as Earth did, except it was eight times larger.  Meaning that it's inhabitants were 8 times larger, and our faithful lost crew were the size of action figures.  So, to repair their spaceship, they had to wonder about on this enlarged totalitarian world and get involved in various adventures.

Of course, right after this was "Lost in Space," the most famous of Allen's four TV series and the most tripped out.

But the adventures and assorted stuff was producer Irwin Allen's bread and butter.   All four of his TV series concentrated on this, more fiction than actual science.  Each week, like in an old-time comic book, our heroes (whether they be in a Giant world or trapped in time or space or just military men) would battle everything from ghosts, goblins, knights from Medieval days, scientists, Bug-Eyed Creatures from Another Planets/Galaxies/Dimensions,  pirates, spies, etc.   Basically, it was the dawn of pure bubblegum TV:  no real plot except to give the audience a ride through adventure each and every week, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.  And it worked during the greater part of the '60s, stretching from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's premiere in 1964 to Land of the Giants's last hurrah in 1970.  There, the Irwin Allen story becomes more popular as he went to his two Oscar hits, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno."

Sadly, the movies foreshadowed the same reason the shows all went into the toilet:  the budget was far, far too high.  In fact, I still think "Land of the Giants" is one of the most expensive TV shows ever produced and the greater part of that went into the special effects.  Which I hasten to add, are quite impressive for 1970.

But today's experiment goes back to the first & longest running Irwin Allen show: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.    A continuation of his very first movie of the same name, "Voyage" is the story of Admiral Harriman Nelson, an army man/scientist who creates the world's very first supersub, the Seaview, complete with specialized crew handpicked by himself.   But, thanks to enemy spies, the Captain of the Seaview (the second-in-command) is killed off and is replaced by Navy Man Lee Crane, who is deterred from running the ship his way thanks to the almost-spoiled behavior of the crew which is reinforced by Admiral Nelson himself.  Of course, all this tension takes backseat to the threat of a giant tidal wave and the fact that enemy spies are still on their trail, waiting to take out the Seaview at any cost.

And, being a Irwin Allen show, that is the plot in a nutshell.   The enemy spies fail, the good guys win, and Lee Crane becomes the new Captain of the Seaview.  There is a lot of suspense which fails to enter my mind.  Perhaps that is a good thing:  perhaps the then inventiveness of the plots has become so well-known that to expect it is mandatory as opposed to not.   Of course, the beauty of this series is that we haven't even gotten into the second, third, or fourth seasons when all the spy intrigue and Cold War relations went right out the window, replaced by rubber-suited monsters, melodrama, pirates, ghosts, and even (and I kid you not) leprechauns.

Indeed.  So, right now, we're only knee-deep in what is sure to become future reviews.  Just wait until we hit "The Phantom Strikes" and it's sequel (?), "Return of the Phantom."

But, for now, we'll have to be satisfied in the melodrama of the Seaview and it's enemies, trying to destroy the world.  Do they succeed?  Where have you been?  The Seaview wins, every time.

Also, an interesting fact:  Irwin Allen, for some reason, also made two pilots for both "Voyage" and "Lost in Space."  In the latter's case, it was a different cast (no Dr. Smith and Robot, take that as you will).   In this case, it was merely a color change AND a character change:  the mysterious head bad guy is played by two actors.  One of those Werner Klempner, who gained fame by playing on "Hogan's Heroes" as Colonel Klink.   Which leads to weird comparisons and tangents....could the bad guys be Nazis?

I doubt it:  that's strictly second season stuff.

RATING:  Not bad, but might seem bland to those who grew up expecting such.  Excellent performances all around, and if you hate cheese (Heaven forbid!) this will go down easier than the later seasons.  Certainly something to watch when you don't really want to think and just want pure action.   Or bubblegum.  Three out of Four Stars.  Not half bad.