When are We going to see a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea DVD Release?!!!!! - Page 12

My sentiments exactly. Of the 7 episodes I've watched, these are the only two that I rate in the 2 star category. Nick Adams talent is largely wasted in "Turn Back the Clock" actually, something I only realized after watching it last night for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Hey--we're at page 12 now!

Yes, the stock footage was especially unfortunate in "Turn Back the Clock," as the first half of the episode was actually quite good. When it started veering into big chunks out of "Lost World," it seemed to lose its way.

I found the LOST WORLD footage in "Turn Back The Clock" to be fun. I barely remember that movie - I think I saw it once about forty years ago. Some of that same footage was in the TIME TUNNEL episode "Chase Through Time" and a smaller amount was used in TT's Unaired Pilot.

This morning I watched the rest of "Turn Back The Clock" and then watched "The Village Of Guilt." It was fun to be able to identify Irwin Allen's voice as the newscaster on the radio broadcast. And again, the clarity was so good on the HDTV that I could spot the wrinkles in the sky backdrop used as the Seaview surfaces after seeing the giant catfish.

Harry

Irwin Allen sure did love to recycle footage from his own-and others films;
not to mention monsters and set pieces...

And I would have loved it had they explored more of the complex in TIME TUNNEL...

My TV must not overscan enough. I saw the top of the back drop sky (big time!) when the Seaview surfaced in "The Mist of Silence". If we had shows like this in HD just think of the things we could see that we shouldn't!

I just finished this set. I was suprised by how much I did enjoy these episodes. The last episode involving the President was excellent. Much suspense. Good to see James (Scotty) Doohan also in this one. Great job FOX .

I am awaiting news about the 2nd half of Season 1.

RickER wrote:


Here's a screen capture I made of that picture in question from "The Mist Of Silence":



You can clearly see the catwalk above the top of the "sky", and if you look carefully, you can see the wrinkles in the "sky" itself.

(No doubt, we should always be seeing wrinkles in the sky after the Van Allen Belt caught fire in the VOYAGE movie!)


Harry

I'm 37 and I enjoyed reruns of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on a local station in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I won't be buying it on DVD though, because I don't have any interest in collecting that series.

Earlier in this topic we had the B & W vs. Color discussion, and I see it was revived. I enjoy both, and I have no problem with a show being shot in B & W, but not due to artistry. That certainly didn't apply in this case. These classic TV series were done in black and white strictly for budgetary reasons. That explains why "Eleven Days to Zero" was shot in both color & black & white simultaneously. CBS wouldn't give Allen the money to use color film for the first season, but it did help him to sell the series. It seems kind of silly though for the network to air the B & W version of the Eddie Albert episode when the color one was available. (The same can be said for The Man from U.M.C.L.E. over on NBC that same season).

It's also why the entire second year of Voyage (1965-66) was shot in color, yet that was also the first year of Allen's Lost In Space (in black & white). The same season, ABC was doing the same thing with Quinn Martin's series. It was the last in B & W for The Fugitive and 12 O' Clock High, yet the first for The FBI, and that was in color from the start.

The problem with 12 O' Clock High and Combat! is that there is very little WWII color footage that could be used in the final seasons of both shows, and that is the exception to the rule.

It all comes down to the money in TV.

The real reason why some of the later seasons of certain TV series pale in comparison to the early seasons of a show that began in monochrome and went to color is simple: The writing of Allen's series got progressively sillier. Whether it was at the request of the network to intentionally dumb down his shows to also appeal to kids, or quite possibly because of the bored writers running out of original ideas. Maybe both.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was on NBC in it's final season, and still doing well in the ratings. If Hitch's writer James Allerdice hadn't died, it would have continued for another season. Every prime time NBC series in 1965-66 was in color except for I Dream of Jeannie and Convoy. So Hitchcock's series may or may not had switched to color.

I enjoyed every season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. , The Wild Wild West, and The Fugitive, yet in color those shows were more believeable as color always is. After all....life is not in B & W. It would take single episodes of Moonlighting, Wiseguy, Magnum P.I. and some other hit series in the 1980s to bring back B & W, and only they did it for artistic reasons.

From "The Fugitive Recaptured--The 30th Anniversary Companion to a Television Classic":

[Quinn] Martin was one of the first producers who really exploited the visual possibilities of television, according to scholar David Thorburn. "He was very conscious of the extent to which black-and-white photography, that sort of shadowed effect that was created these dark streets [in both 'The Untouchables' and 'The Fugitive'], was an explicit echo of film noir...He saw 'The Fugitive' as a show that tried to recapture some of the ambience of film noir".

"To me 'The Fugitive' was essentially a mood piece and the B&W shows really brought out that element", said Standford Whitmore, who wrote the pilot episode. "The black-and-white shows gave the series an edge that was lost when the show switched to color. I felt that the show became a little too 'pretty' when it switched to color, and that it lost a lot of the moodiness that was created by the black-and-white"

"From an aesthetic point of view, the black-and-white did bring a dimension to the drama that was lost by the switch to color", added co-producer George Eckstein.

Reiterating, thank goodness the first season of "Voyage" was shot in B&W. If it hadn't been we wouldn't be as appreciative of the brilliant directing of Leonard Horn and John Brahm, to say nothing of the superb cinematography of Winton Hoch. These three and several others exploited B&W photography to wonderful effect. No way would shows like "The Twilight Zone" and especially "The Outer Limits" enjoy the fandom they've achieved had they been produced in color--the entire ambience of these shows would be severely minimized. I'm one to actually stick my neck out and state that "The Invaders" would have almost certainly been a superior show if it had been done in B&W.

My recollections of the American television networks switching to color are pretty much what is detailed above. Putting it more simply, NBC was big into becoming the first "full-color" network, which is what they began calling themselves even in that 1965-66 season. Being owned by RCA, they had a vested interest in selling color TVs. With just two prime-time shows in black & white, they felt they had a right. "I Dream Of Jeannie" was unproven in its first season and used a lot of trick photography, so money played a role in that decision. "Convoy" used a lot of stock footage that was only available in black & white.

ABC was next in early-color adopting, with shows like VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA going color that year along with a number of others like THE FUGITIVE and 12 O'CLOCK HIGH.

CBS brought up the rear, only because they were number 1 in the ratings and didn't feel the need to rock the boat by splurging on color. Many of their shows remained in black & white for that 65-66 season, and all networks pretty much made the leap in the 66-67 season to full color on their primetime lineups.

Harry

From the late Rick Jason's (Lt. Hanley on Combat!) autobiography "Scrapbooks of My Mind" on the show's switch to color during its fifth and final season:

"Color lost that gritty feeling you can get with black and white. I recently watched one of the color shows and there I am, in my wonderfully pressed green jacket in a combat situation and it looks as if the jacket has just been returned by the dry cleaner."

Personally I'm loving these black & white episodes. They're remeniscent of great black & white shows like THE OUTER LIMITS and THE TWILIGHT ZONE, mixed in with international intrigue thrillers like DANGER MAN/SECRET AGENT.

I watched "Hot Line" this morning. It was fun to see Jimmy Doohan and John Banner in their roles. Ford Rainey always made an impressive "President", and Michael Ansara is fun no matter what he's been in. Even Everett Sloane had several great turns in TWILIGHT ZONE.

Good stuff.

Harry

. . . and he appeared as Abraham Lincoln in "The Time Tunnel," only in color.

According to the IMDB, Ford Rainey played "Abraham Lincoln" three different times in his career.

He was also the President in "1997" when the Jupiter 2 launched. He must've been popular with the electorate...

Harry

I watched "Hot Line" and "Submarine Sunk Here" this weekend--looks like I'm still viewing these episodes at about the same pace as Harry.

I cannot say enough about the latter of these two shows. SSH is one of the finest hours of drama I've come across from TV series of this vintage. What one reviewer wrote on the VTTBOTS.com site about SSH reflects my opinions precisely:

"This is one of those Voyage episodes where you can lift virtually any frame from the film, and you've got a terrific still shot, so finely executed is the camera work. It was perhaps Voyage's reputation as a kid's show based on critical reaction to the pilot, that kept this episode and/or Richard Basehart from being nominated for an Emmy. I don't believe it's too far off the beam to suggest that it and he are that good. The entire cast shines."

My ratings for the first five episodes on disc 2:

"Turn Back the Clock" 2 1/2 stars
"The Village of Guilt" 3 stars
"Hot Line" 3 1/2 stars
"Submarine Sunk Here" 4 stars
"The Magnus Beam" 3 1/2 stars

I just watched "Turn Back The Clock" the other day myself. It's cool to see that I'm not the only one taking my time working through the set. With just half of season one, I want to watch through them slowly instead of blazing through it all at once.

Thanks for the screencap, Harry_N. I'll have to go back and re-watch that. I didn't catch it while watching the episode before. There definitely have been some bits here and there where I notice elements of the effects that shouldn't be there. Even so, I still love it as much as ever. I've been slowly working my way through Time Tunnel as well. I'm almost at the end of that set, however.

I have to agree with "Submarine Sunk Here" as being one of the series' finest hours. Back before this set was released, but just after it was announced, I began some research into the series. I'd taped a bunch of episodes onto VHS from a Sci-Fi run a few years ago. They were awful quality, but after reading about how good "Submarine Sunk Here" was, I decided to see if I could find the old tape.

Even on that crappy old VHS tape with that awful 16mm print that SciFi ran, I was spellbound with the tautness and sheer gripping nature of the episode. I'm now eager to see it in good quality on the DVD. I'm sure it's going to be a thing of beauty.

Maybe I can even con my wife into watching it. She's been less-than-thrilled with watching these, mostly leaving me to view them alone. But she might enjoy this one.

Harry

Of course not, Jeff. Although you would be surprised at how much more fun it is to actually get these series rather than just talking about them.

Don't be silly, Michael. I've purchased a few dozen TV series on DVD over the years, and I've written about several of them on this forum also.

Harry, thanks for the frame grab! That was the shot. I bet they would never have guessed guys like me would get all "excited" looking at a SFX flub, saved 40 years later for me to nit...ain't it cool!

I'm wondering if that shot was filmed perhaps for the motion picture version with a "widescreen" vision, but somehow in the editing ended up on TV. Probably not. TV's overscanned so much back then, it probably wasn't much of a consideration that anyone would ever see the full frame like we're capable of doing today.


Harry

My wife really enjoyed watching "Submarine Sunk Here" with me. She was suitably engrossed enough with the story she couldn't stand the suspense of not knowing how the crew was going to get out! She also enjoyed "Hot Line" and "The Magnus Beam". The ones she couldn't sit through were "The Price of Doom" and "Turn Back the Clock" for obvious reasons. I know that by the time the third season sets come out, it's going to be just me and my five year old on the couch...

I haven't been able to convince my girlfriend to watch any Voyage with me. I thought she might be more interested in Time Tunnel (she loves Quantum Leap), but so far no dice on that either. She's seen snippets of Voyage in the past from tapes I have. Maybe next time my daughter comes to visit I can get her interested. Probably not, but you never know.

Now tell me that "Voyage" fans are not an obsessive lot. A corrected cover for the DVD slim cases:

http://www.vttbots.com/dvd_alternate_lubliner.html

tvshowsondvd.com today posted the cover for S1, vol 2 and it looks great--even better than the cover for vol. 1! The Seaview nose window configuration is still wrong but the angle of the vessel is more flattering and the shots of Crane and Nelson look awesome!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=5327

Michael_ks, now they're going to have to put out a corrected DVD cover for the newest Voyage cover as well!
What's wrong with their Art Dept.? Even if they can't catch on to the fact that the Seaview sported two rows of windows in the first season at least they should be relatively square shaped windows if they're a second season Seaview, they never were slot shaped like this second DVD set cover depicts. Strange, it looks as if they forgot to put the band across the center when they were photoshopping the subs nose to break it into two rows of windows.

I'm normally a stickler for details when it comes to coverart...but this cover is great! It makes the covers for TTT even more embarrassing.

Ultimately I'm like many others here: Bottom line is uncut, pristine episodes. I'd prefer to see Fox get the correct Seaview configuration on the cover, but it's not a big deal.

Gary "hopefully we will get an official release date soon" O.

P.S. Thanks, as usual, to Gord and David.

Im all over this and maybe Season 2 part one;
But like Lost In Space, the show got goofier to compete with Batman after that..

Actually, season 2 is quite consistent throughout. Aside from the well received "Phantom" episodes in the second half of the season (Alfred Ryder as a U-Boat spook) there are a few segments that are highly reminiscent of season 1 grittiness ("Killers of the Deep", "The Death Ship") and a couple that showcase superb Seaview vs. deep sea denizen battles ("Deadly Creature Below" and "The Menfish"). I understand your trepidation vis-a-vis "Lost in Space", but all of season 2, IMO strikes the best balance between storytelling and eye catching color spectacle in the series 4 year run.