Viaje al fondo del mar

This was great stuff for the time. I remember that my family rarely missed this show! Richard Basehart as Adm. Harriman Nelson and David Hedison as Capt. Lee Crane were always searching for new undersea discoveries. These, of course, very often led to adventure and drama. We never knew when the Seaview was on her last voyage. There were often giant undersea monsters to deal with. And, of course, even though they haven't been spotted by man in all of written history, they were THE biggest danger of our time. They obviously had to be dealt with, now didn't they? By today's standards, the special effects were quite laughable but for their day, they did their job. I recall some of these shows even today, decades later.

A wonderful TV adaptation of the popular 1961 box office hit. Starring the wonderfully talented Richard Basehart as Admiral Harriman Nelson and a young and very handsome as well as talented David Hedison as Commander Lee Crane and of course the marvelous nuclear powered submarine Seaview of the future. This series was a mix of top notch spy thriller, science fiction at it's best and sometimes not the best but none the less entertaining and pure fantasy with a little bit of levity here and there. This show was produced at the height of the cold war by the master of disaster Irwin Allen who produced epic disaster flicks like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. The first 31 episodes are black and white with the remaining 79 in color. This would be a wonderful TV series to release on DVD. It would be a dream come true to see it remastered and in wide screen. The popularity of this show which aired for 4 seasons led to other science fiction TV series like Lost In Space and Star Trek. The show with a wonderful cast led by Richard Basehart is a must see for all science fiction fans old and new.

Richard Basehart is best known for his 4 year stint as Admiral Nelson who is also the creator of the nuclear powered submarine Seaview and head of the Nelson Institute of Marine Research. He also starred in many films such as Moby Dick, La Strada, and He Walked By Night as well as other numerous stage and screen plays from the 1940's to the early 80's. He also starred in the highly acclaimed TV adaptation of The Andersonville Trial which received the Emmy for best outstanding drama.

David Hedison is best known for his role as Captain Lee Crane of the submarine Seaview. He also is known for films like The Fly and Irwin Allens The Lost World among other films and stage performances with other TV guest appearances too numerous to list.

Other cast members include Bob Dowdell as Chip Morton, Terry Becker as Chief Sharkey, Del Monroe as Kowalski, Paul Trinka as Patterson, Henry Kulky as Chief Jones (1st Season)and numerous other regular cast members and note worthy guest stars like Vincent Price, Robert Loggia, Robert Duvall, and Patrick Wayne to name a few.

Irwin Allen became known as a special effects wizard because of this series which was the most successful. The photography in it was always great, & Allen knows how to create effects. The SeaView - the main sub in the show would still be futuristic today. Of course the ideas for this series was spawned by the movie that preceded it with the same name.

Richard Basehart & David Hedison were great choices to be in command. They carried the dialog real well & there were plenty of good name guest stars in episodes too. Once in a while a pretty woman would stop in for an episode but most of the time the male cast carried this show to the top for ABC.

Later in the series, they introduced a flying submarine, something which in reality has still never been created. This show can really fire the imagination with how it worked. Now that it is on DVD, it might get some more new fans. As for Irwin Allen Productions, while they have done more recent work, since 1982's Code Red, there has not been as much success as this & the 60's & 70's stuff they did.

The Seaview is confronted by a giant seaweed monster with two eyeballs. "I've never seen anything like it!" Exclaims Nelson. Yes, you have, it was on three episodes previously. In fact that eyeball monster was a regular fixture on the show. Whenever they ran out of ideas (which was all too frequent) out would come Mr Eye balls. In one episode they couldn't be bothered to show some rogue scientists so they just had someone relay the information that there were a bunch of rogue scientists on the seabed controlling Mr Eyeballs. They had a villain on board who kept talking to them through a walkie-talkie. Spare no expense!

But you gotta love those titles, usually self explanatory such as 'Terror on dinosaur island' or my personal favourite, 'The monster from outer space.' Highlights include a scientist who took a drug that expanded him in size. It also expanded his clothes and he sprouted fangs ('Behemoth', God, why do I remember that?) Also the under-sea spider. Well cool. Every week Kowalski would be chewed out by the chief or the crew would fling themselves from side to side of the sub. Getting bored with this they introduced a flying sub that would fly around endlessly for little reason and inevitably crash land.

On and on the series went. Eventually they dispensed with all the monsters and had the crew just walking up and down the corridors with the odd lobster man dropping in to break the monotony. Richard Basehart, seeing a once promising career disappearing under the beach break, became increasingly irritable as the series staggered on. In one episode the Seaview was taken over by seaweed for the umpteenth time and he was hilariously indifferent and short-tempered. Grabbing a laser gun with a 'don't-bother-me-with-this' shrug he flatly said "We'll burn it with this" and proceeded to do so with all the urgency of a man filling in a tax bill. Eventually the writers ran out of final scenes so the cast would just stand there looking at each other uncomfortably waiting for Nelson to ad lib something like "er, let's get under way."

It's missed. Sort of.

I watched Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on TV when Channel 4 screened it on Sunday afternoons in the early 1990's.

The first series was black and white and the remaining episodes were in colour. It is about the Seaview nuclear powered submarine and each episode had a different story, including aliens, monsters and espionage.

The series starred Richard Basehart and David Hedison and was directed by the great Irwin Allen. The flying sub used in this series was to appear in Allen's 1971 movie City Beneath the Sea.

It would be nice to see this series again and for it to be released on Video/DVD.