Turn Back the Clock

The premise to this episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" is that a man (Nick Adams) escapes from a tropical island in the Antarctic! While this sounds very, very fanciful and ridiculous, there is SOME basis for this. Many years ago, I watched an episode of "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau". They were exploring the Antarctic and were shocked to find an area with greenery*. No, it wasn't tropical like in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"...but it wasn't icy and snow-covered due to geothermal activity. So at least I understand where they might have gotten the idea of this episode.

The show begins with Jason (Nick Adams) escaping from a tropical island. This gives Carol (Yvonne Craig) some hope, as Jason worked with her father...a man who disappeared some time ago. Oddly, however, they were working in the Antarctic...yet Jason appears to have no evidence of this. Could there be some tropical portion of this continent AND could the Doctor still be alive?

To create this lush world, they lifted significant portions of the early 60s film "The Lost World" and interspersed them in the episode. This is NOT a good thing. Despite David Hedison being in both, the dinosaurs in "The Lost World" were god-awful--monitor lizards and alligators wearing crappy prosthetics to make them look dinosaury...provided you are very drunk or are Mr. Magoo! Dopey is exactly what I'd call them...and it clearly takes away from the quality of the episode...especially if you've recently seen "The Lost World". I did...and recognized all of this. Because of this, I'd give this one a very low score of 4...it's a muddled mess and a lazy one at that.

*FYI. Some Facebook posts have described this region and say it's proof of Global Warming. Well, regardless of what anyone thinks of the theory, this region's been around for some time...so it's NOT a recent discovery (despite what some well intentioned folks say on Facebook).

A lost tropical world is discovered.

The first of a few Voyage episodes about dinosaurs (the later ones are in colour) but this one has all that cool footage of the full scale diving bell surfacing in a lagoon and two guest stars who would later be known (to me) for roles in super hero shows. We have Yvonne Craig soon to be Batgirl in Batman (1966) and Les Tremayne who eventually become Mentor in Shazam! (1974).

Also, there is a funny bit between Crane and Chip on the deck of the Seaview concerning a cute girl being brought on the sub.

And finally, great "stereo" sound effects on the DVD.

However, there is no question that the hour features just too much stock footage taken from The Lost World (1960) movie.

In a nutshell: this hour is good but not great.

Funny, but when I recently watched this episode on DVD, I couldn't help but notice that Irwin Allen basically just used footage from his 1960 movie, "The Lost World." It, conveniently, starred David Hedison, and they brought back "native girl" Vitina Marcus to reprise her role. Most of the episode is simply clips from the movie, with some closeups to fill in the new plot. You can clearly see, in some of the shots, actors from the movie, such as Jill St. John, and others. The dinosaur fight is still interesting to watch, as are the interspersed shots of Hedison going from movie to TV show episode. I think the only thing Irwin Allen had to worry about in this show was continuity. Just use similar costumes and props and hope no one notices. Pretty funny.