Fourth season Voyage brings the WTFery

[annathepiper]

Now that fourth season Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has finally come out on DVD, I have leapt gleefully upon it... and have been reminded that oh my yes, this show got just mental by the last season. I had a small number of them on videotape thanks to a kind fan who sent me a bunch of tapes ages ago before it was on DVD, and some of those were from fourth season. I remembered a few others from that era too, from when I watched 'em as a kid.

But really, I wasn't at all prepared for re-watching them on DVD. 'Cause I mean, holy crap, people, Vincent Price and his marauding puppet army taking over the Seaview! This is almost good as Giant Whale + Atomic Bomb = OTP from Season 2! It even got spazzkat's attention and made him sit down and watch the episode along with solarbird and me.

Interesting trends of the episodes watched include:

- Frequent kicking of Captain Crane's ass; in fact, two of the four episodes I've watched involve Crane being unconscious for most of the episode. Curiosity leads one to wonder what Hedison was up to in late 1967 that his character had to be out of it for most of those two episodes!

- I've spotted at least two non-white crewmembers in these episodes, one of which had actual speaking lines. Ha, somebody must have been realizing they should vary things up a bit on the lily-white crew. Good!

Also among the highlights thus far:

"Fires of Death" - Episode 1 in the set, featuring the Seaview trying to stop a massive volcanic eruption that threatens to destroy half the planet, only OHNOEZ! There's a batshit alchemist on board who wants to harvest the eruption for the elixir stones that keep him immortal!

"The Deadly Dolls" - The Vincent Price episode. Oh man, this had everything. Attempt to take over the Seaview! Evil puppets! A monster FROM THE FUTURE! Crane in the air vents! Shooting a charge through the hull! Swapping out most of the crew for evil dopplegangers! And VINCENT PRICE, people!

"Fatal Cargo" - Not nearly as batshit an episode as the previous two, but it does amusingly feature a "white gorilla" on the rampage on the sub--a "white gorilla" that fans of Star Trek will recognize as the "mugato" from "A Private Little War". I knew there was some overlap of actors between the two shows, but I didn't know they were overlapping monster costumes too!

"Rescue" - This by far is the least batshit of the episodes I've watched so far, and is almost on Season 2 levels of coherence. OHNOEZ! Crane's trapped on the bottom on the flying sub and running out of air and there's a saboteur on board the sub who wants to keep the Seaview from getting to him in time!

And now, some stats!

Number of episodes involving:

• Crane getting his ass kicked: 2
  
• Crane getting his ass kicked by puppets: 1
  
• Crane in the air vents: 1
  
• A monster on the loose in the sub: 1
  
• Mind control of one or more members of the crew: 1
  
• Transformation of one or more members of the crew: 1
  
• Batshit "scientist" as the villain of the episode: 1
  
• Game of "Spot the saboteur" (hint: it's the new member of the crew you've never seen before!): 1
  
• Fighting off the monster of the episode by sending a charge through the hull: 1

The rest of these are going to be fun. Muahaha.

(crossposted between my journal and voyage_forever)

Comments

[maellenkleth]

Okay, now you really have me jonesing to see the puppet episode again; I just recall that, even by the standards of Voyage, it was just plain wierd. Thanks for the refresher micro-course!