Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV Series) The Haunted Submarine (1966) User Reviews

Quintessential

[qatmom · 6/10 · 19 January 2013]

This is the kind of episode that made me a fan of this series forever.

It isn't much of a story: Nelson's ancestor somehow comes back from the past (or maybe the future) and tries to recruit his descendant for...something. It's not really important.

The fun of this episode is watching Nelson smirk and cackle because he knows his wicked ancestor is playing games with the crew, freezing everyone in place except the admiral. Captain Crane has been sailing with Nelson long enough to know that the admiral is more than slightly demented, and that he won't come clean about what he knows. Crane's frustration is obvious.

One imagines drunken sessions with Crane & the Chipster, discussing the mental shortcomings and peculiar sense of humor of the admiral. Probably the crew has the same discussions, because it is so obvious that the admiral is more than slightly...odd.

Time Tunnel-ish Tale Gets Eight Out Of Ten

[StuOz · 3 August 2010]

Shades of Time Tunnel's Reign Of Terror episode, when a ghostly distant relative of Admiral Nelson - Captain Shamus O'Hara Nelson (also played by Richard Basehart) - appears on the Seaview. The ghost wants our Nelson to join him as a companion.

This hour begins with some boring bits but finally picks up at the end of act one when the ghost reveals himself. From the start of act two this episode is a knockout to be compared to the three other Voyage episodes that feature two Baseharts (The Sky Is Falling, The Cyborg and Day Of Evil). However, The Haunted Submarine gets two points taken away because of the average start. An eight out of ten show.

Some of the music is lifted from the Fox motion picture - The Young Lions - and the hour contains a semi-famous bit where Nelson can't stop laughing when seeing Sharkey covered in white foam. The final minute of the hour is a well scripted exchange between Nelson and Crane that ranks as one of writer William Welch's shining moments.

All in all, The Haunted Submarine is a classic once you get past the "frozen" first few minutes.

Ghost Wooden Frigates with Depth Charges? Seriously?

[jecskene · 2/10 · 12 May 2019]

I have to say that I've been spoiled by excellent TV as of the last decade or two. When I was a child, I used to love this show. This episode fails to realize its own potential. "Ye Old" Captain can stop time but fails to make an appearance until the end of the first, and very lengthy, realization of the "Frozen" anomally. That just feels padded out. They could have enhanced the effect of the ship a dozen different ways but "Depth Charges"!? They could have taken that first time-stop "pad out" and used that time to set the drama up right. The gravity of certain moments as well as most of the acting seemed pretty well "phoned in". "Ye Old" Captain was never all that enigmatic as he was very up front with his willingness to do harm. All in all, the acting was bland. The ambient music was weak. The story was sloppy. My issue is that there was the makings of a good story here if done right. We are spoiled in the current times by those who have plenty of time to craft a story for an episode right. Back in the day? Everything was rushed.

Time-warping "Flying Dutchman"-style ghost captain

[profh-1 · 4/10 · 28 June 2022]

I have to totally agree with "jecskene"s review, in that this episode is one of many that had great potential, but was totally-squandered in the execution. Which frankly, tragically, is "Irwin Allen" ALL OVER.

An ancestor of Nelson allegedly offers him a chance for endless adventure on the high seas and immortality. But really, he's been condemned for his crimes in life as a slave-trader, and hopes the current Nelson will take his place and live out his "sentence" for him. Taking that wild, way-out premise, the episode is played DEADLY straight and serious, with only a bit of humor at the expense of Chief Sharkey, who, for once, is the butt of a superior officer's frustration, when it's usually Sharkey making sure everybody under his command knows he's the boss.

What drove me to distraction, was Nelson REFUSING to tell anyone-- including Crane-- what was going on-- even after Crane gave him a long-overdue ultimatum-- and then, even after it was all over. Real people DO NOT ACT this way! If I'd been in Crane's position, at the end of the episode, I would have given Nelson another ultimatum. Either he explains what was going on, or I'd put in for a TRANSFER. You can't work with someone you CAN'T TRUST.

Watching so many Irwin Allen shows again over the last 3 years, I've come to an unfortunate conclusion. Allen had the emotional maturity of a 6-year-old. And this episode, if nothing else hadn't already done so, convinced me he insisted his writers do the same. Stories like this COULD have been so much better. He just REFUSED to allow them to be. It's the same level of creative malpractice that led him to give Jonathan Harris completely free reign to write his own material on "LOST IN SPACE", and had 95% of the episodes after awhile focused on Smith, to the near-total exclusion of so many other potentially-good characters, and REALLY FINE actors, who kept being given nothing to do. (Especially June Lockhart.)

The "time freezing" scenes had aleady been done earlier this same season on "THE TIME TUNNEL", and would most famously be used in the "UFO" episode, "Timelash", probably the single best example of the idea I've ever seen on film.