1964 - VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, 11 Days to Zero

Kicking around in my DVD collection is the first season of Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  Let's take a quick look at the pilot episode for this series.

The first season of this series was shown in black and white on television but the producer Irwin Allen was prescient enough to film it in color since the remaining seasons were broadcast in color.  Irwin Allen was what I guess you would call a character.  He was drawn to science fiction and fantasy themes but as an actual producer he was kind of a cheapskate.  Allen was known for reusing footage from other episodes of his TV series and any movie he could lay his hands on. The later seasons of his TV shows tended to get more ridiculous plot wise as the look of the series got cheaper.

For the pilot episode 11 Days to Zero, Allen actually cast interesting actors.  Richard Basehart was Admiral Nelson the inventor of the submarine Seaview.  David Hedison played Captain Lee Crane.  It should be a tribute to these two actors that they kept a straight face during the run of the series when faced with a series of ridiculous monsters.  Giant sea plankton, a giant manta ray, a giant jellyfish and who could forget the unforgettable heat monster that threatened the Seaview during the series run.

The pilot episode of 11 Days to Zero was written and directed by Irwin Allen himself.  A close examination of the episode shows that it was a rehash of Allen's 1961 movie version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  Allen cleverly loaded the story up with lots of stock footage from that film and stuck in a decent guest star, in this case Eddie Albert who was able to stir up a little character conflict.  The pilot is enjoyable mostly because it's fun to see how many scenes he lifted from the movie and stuck in this episode.

Probably the coolest thing about this series was always the submarine Seaview itself.  It has a pair of wings in the back of it and the famous windows in the front.  Inside the Seaview itself it's like living in a Hilton.  Everything is spacious and very bright.  I have no idea if this design is even practical but for a 10 - 12 year old kid it's probably the ultimate in cool.

 

Obviously Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was no Star Trek but as a simple and at times very silly adventure series it entertained.

The running time for 11 Days to Zero is 52 minutes.