Voyage To The Bottom Of
The Sea – Season Two, Volume One
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B
By its second 1965 – 1966 season, Voyage To The Bottom
Of The Sea went to full color and though the show was not a great show and still suffered one too
many silly monster episodes, redesigns for color shooting made the show look
better and was more convincing. More
money was put into the show. Richard
Basehart and David Hedison returned and the show became an even bigger hit. This Season Two, Volume One set is 3
DVDs.
To recap,
the show centers on the adventures of The Seaview, the most advanced and
technologically innovative submarine in the world. Every foreign power wants to steal or destroy
it, other forces of unexpected power will cross it and that is just the
starting point for so many good teleplays written by some of the best writers
of the time. This time, Victor Buono,
Lloyd Bochner, John Cassavetes, Bert Freed, George Takei and John McGiver are
the familiar guest star faces that make the show good. Buono’s show in particular has him as a
madman involved in robotics and bionics (!) building a robo-duplicate of
Basehart’s Admiral. We get the first 13
shows and they play as well as the first season. There will be fans who stick by the first and
only black and white season, but I think the show improved a bit here.
The 1.33 X 1 DeLuxe color image is pretty good throughout,
maybe a tad sharper than the black and white shows in the first set and the
color is very good. The Dolby Digital
2.0 sound is again available in Stereo and Mono, with both sounding about the
same this time. The combination is
better than I have ever seen these color shows before too, though sometimes, I
thought maybe the color could have been more vibrant on some prints. This time, the only extras are a reprint of a
Mad Magazine spoof and silent footage
of the visual effects worth seeing. Even
when they show their age, the color and effort in making them is more admirable
than ever.
- Nicholas Sheffo
