Created by Irwin Allen, 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' was a long-running science fiction series based on the hit Twentieth Century Fox movie of the same name. Basically, it told of the colourful exploits of the Seaview, the world's most technologically advanced submarine, commanded by Captain Lee Crane and created by Admiral Harriman Nelson ( Rtd. ) of 'The Nelson Institute Of Marine Research'. Each week, the sub would save the world either from saboteurs, aliens or monsters. David Hedison and the late Richard Basehart brought more to the characters than was ever there on paper. Four seasons were produced - of which the first was the best - and the show was a favourite of mine when I was a boy.
Rather than regurgitate the show's well-documented history, however, I want to use this review to recount a personal memory.
In the early '90's, Britain's Channel 4 announced that it had purchased the entire run, and planned to screen it on Sunday afternoons in the slot vacated by 'Lost In Space'. I was overjoyed. The last reruns of 'Voyage' ( as it shall henceforth be referred to ) were back in the early '80's, and took the form of sporadic showings of Season 2 and 3 stories such as 'The Mechanical Man' and 'The Lost Bomb' ( I'm referring to the H.T.V. screenings. Other regions may have had different ones ). Particularly exciting was the news that the run included the first season, which I had never before seen. Being black and white effectively precluded it from a reshowing in the colour crazy '70's.
So, in 1990, the Seaview set sail again. But there was a problem. In my neck of the woods, we had S4C - the Welsh fourth channel - and they commenced the run several weeks behind Channel 4. Which meant that when English viewers got onto the colour episodes, we were still watching the monochrome ones.
Nothing wrong with that, you may think. I was grateful to be seeing 'Voyage' at all. But then The First Gulf War happened. Someone at Channel 4 realised that the episode 'The Magnus Beam' was too close to what was happening in the real world - set in the Middle East, it concerned a madman who wanted to start World War Three by capturing U.S. spy planes, and decided it was not suitable for screening at that time. It was shelved - along with 'The Blizzard Makers', whose only crime it seems was to mention The Gulf Stream several times. The run carried on without them.
After the war ended, Channel 4 showed the episodes. All seemed well. S4C then made a staggering blunder. After 'The Magnus Beam', they were to have followed C4's lead by screening 'The Blizzard Makers' before recommencing the normal order. But they didn't. Instead they put on 'Leviathan', the seventh episode of Season 2! I was horrified. The station had managed to omit a dozen episodes ( six from the first year, six from the second ). Any hope I had of building a complete library of 'Voyage' episodes went straight out the window. Amongst the 'lost' stories were classics like 'Jonah & The Whale' and 'And Five Of Us Are Left'. It would be like a comprehensive 'Star Trek' season forgetting to include 'The City On The Edge Of Forever' and 'Amok Time'.
Enraged, I fired off a letter to S4C, hoping to obtain an explanation for this act of crass stupidity. I eventually got a reply. The unsigned letter claimed that the decision to skip twelve episodes was Channel 4's, insisting that the S4C transmissions should harmonise with theirs. I didn't buy it. For one thing, they were still a week behind, and secondly, why would an English television station care what was being shown in Wales? 'The Waltons' was also being rerun at the same time, and S4C's reverential treatment of 'John-Boy' and company contrasted sharply with its unmistakable contempt for 'Voyage'. The letter writer concluded by inviting me to take the matter up with Channel 4. In other words, they were passing the buck. They had messed up, and were refusing to even say sorry. I tossed the letter in the bin.
S4C weren't finished with 'Voyage' either. A screening of the Season 3 episode 'The Death Watch' was plagued by so many technical problems it rendered the plot incomprehensible. A year later, 'Cave Of The Dead' was displaced by coverage of the Urdd Eisteddfod, never to be rescheduled. None of this would have mattered had the series been available on V.H.S. at the time. It wasn't. I had to wait fourteen years to see the missing twelve, when 'Voyage' was rerun on the Sky satellite channel 'F.X.289''. And then they only ran the first two seasons. If you think the S4C debacle still rankles with me after all these years, you'd be right.
My 'Voyage' collection is still missing two episodes at the time of writing. Despite its popularity, Channel 4 have not shown the slightest interest in bringing it back. Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane faced many untold dangers over the years, but one peril even they could not overcome was the general incompetence of television programme planners.
CODA: It is now 14th January 2010. I have bought the Region 1 releases off eBay, so the story has a happy ending. Shame it took two decades for me to get there.
Rather than regurgitate the show's well-documented history, however, I want to use this review to recount a personal memory.
In the early '90's, Britain's Channel 4 announced that it had purchased the entire run, and planned to screen it on Sunday afternoons in the slot vacated by 'Lost In Space'. I was overjoyed. The last reruns of 'Voyage' ( as it shall henceforth be referred to ) were back in the early '80's, and took the form of sporadic showings of Season 2 and 3 stories such as 'The Mechanical Man' and 'The Lost Bomb' ( I'm referring to the H.T.V. screenings. Other regions may have had different ones ). Particularly exciting was the news that the run included the first season, which I had never before seen. Being black and white effectively precluded it from a reshowing in the colour crazy '70's.
So, in 1990, the Seaview set sail again. But there was a problem. In my neck of the woods, we had S4C - the Welsh fourth channel - and they commenced the run several weeks behind Channel 4. Which meant that when English viewers got onto the colour episodes, we were still watching the monochrome ones.
Nothing wrong with that, you may think. I was grateful to be seeing 'Voyage' at all. But then The First Gulf War happened. Someone at Channel 4 realised that the episode 'The Magnus Beam' was too close to what was happening in the real world - set in the Middle East, it concerned a madman who wanted to start World War Three by capturing U.S. spy planes, and decided it was not suitable for screening at that time. It was shelved - along with 'The Blizzard Makers', whose only crime it seems was to mention The Gulf Stream several times. The run carried on without them.
After the war ended, Channel 4 showed the episodes. All seemed well. S4C then made a staggering blunder. After 'The Magnus Beam', they were to have followed C4's lead by screening 'The Blizzard Makers' before recommencing the normal order. But they didn't. Instead they put on 'Leviathan', the seventh episode of Season 2! I was horrified. The station had managed to omit a dozen episodes ( six from the first year, six from the second ). Any hope I had of building a complete library of 'Voyage' episodes went straight out the window. Amongst the 'lost' stories were classics like 'Jonah & The Whale' and 'And Five Of Us Are Left'. It would be like a comprehensive 'Star Trek' season forgetting to include 'The City On The Edge Of Forever' and 'Amok Time'.
Enraged, I fired off a letter to S4C, hoping to obtain an explanation for this act of crass stupidity. I eventually got a reply. The unsigned letter claimed that the decision to skip twelve episodes was Channel 4's, insisting that the S4C transmissions should harmonise with theirs. I didn't buy it. For one thing, they were still a week behind, and secondly, why would an English television station care what was being shown in Wales? 'The Waltons' was also being rerun at the same time, and S4C's reverential treatment of 'John-Boy' and company contrasted sharply with its unmistakable contempt for 'Voyage'. The letter writer concluded by inviting me to take the matter up with Channel 4. In other words, they were passing the buck. They had messed up, and were refusing to even say sorry. I tossed the letter in the bin.
S4C weren't finished with 'Voyage' either. A screening of the Season 3 episode 'The Death Watch' was plagued by so many technical problems it rendered the plot incomprehensible. A year later, 'Cave Of The Dead' was displaced by coverage of the Urdd Eisteddfod, never to be rescheduled. None of this would have mattered had the series been available on V.H.S. at the time. It wasn't. I had to wait fourteen years to see the missing twelve, when 'Voyage' was rerun on the Sky satellite channel 'F.X.289''. And then they only ran the first two seasons. If you think the S4C debacle still rankles with me after all these years, you'd be right.
My 'Voyage' collection is still missing two episodes at the time of writing. Despite its popularity, Channel 4 have not shown the slightest interest in bringing it back. Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane faced many untold dangers over the years, but one peril even they could not overcome was the general incompetence of television programme planners.
CODA: It is now 14th January 2010. I have bought the Region 1 releases off eBay, so the story has a happy ending. Shame it took two decades for me to get there.