Cover Cavalcade

 

December is Under the Sea month.

This George Wilson cover is from 1968.

Put a Computer in Charge of the Ship? That NEVER Works!

Well, actually, putting a computer in charge of a ship did work at least once. Sort of.

As I've written before, the 1964-68 television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was very hit-and-miss in terms of quality during its three color seasons. I acknowledge in that old post that the first black-and-white season was the best, but until I started methodically watching it when it became available to stream, I don't think I appreciated just how good it was.

Once or twice a month (I don't believe in binge-watching), I pull up the next first-season episode and watch it. I've thus been enjoying stories that mix science fiction with Cold War espionage which, along with some really cool production design work and a strong cast, resulted in some excellent drama.

I just finished watching "The Human Computer," which first aired on February 15, 1965. In this one, the Seaview is being used to test a new super-computer that can supposedly run the submarine efficiently even with no crew aboard. To test this, the Seaview will participate in war games, with other naval ships hunting her.

This premise will ring a bell with Star Trek geeks, of course. I'll get to that in a moment.

Over the years, science fiction has trained us to be distrustful of super computers. Whether we're talking about HAL, Skynet, Westworld, or WOPR/Jason, if you put a computer in charge, it will inevitably start murdering all us puny humans.

"The Human Computer," though, is an exception to this. The computer works fine, dodging all efforts by the Navy to pretend-destroy her and not once trying to kill anyone despite presumably having control of a nuclear arsenal.

It's a human being that causes all the trouble. Captain Crane is on the ship alone during the war game maneuvers. Or he's supposed to be alone. An enemy agent (implicitly a Russian, though never overtly identified as one) is also on board. His job is to kill Crane in a way that looks like an accident, then reprogram the computer to take the sub to his home country. The Russians will study the computer to get its secrets, then give the sub back to the U.S. with their regrets that Crane died in a tragic mishap and that the darn computer apparently took the sub off course.

David Hedison, as Crane, gives an excellent performance in this episode. At first he's clearly antsy about being on the sub alone without anything useful to do. When he realizes there's an intruder aboard, there's an tense, extended sequence with virtually no dialogue in which the two men stalk each other through the submarine, with Crane frightened and on edge without ever losing command of himself. Hedison does wonders to ground Crane in believable humanity from start to finish.

The spy eventually traps Crane in the ballast room, blocking off the one exit and knowing the only other hatch leads to a tank full of water. He does not count on Crane's ingenuity and superior knowledge of the ship  to find a way out and get the drop on him.

Heck, the episode even stays aware of the fact that the pistol Crane carries only has eight shots, using this as an important plot point. (Though one can armchair-quarterback Crane and criticize him for not grabbing extra ammo when he had a chance.)

The starship Enterprise put a computer in charge in "The Ultimate Computer," which aired on March 8, 1968. This time, the story follows the expected direction--the computer starts blowing up other ships and won't relinquish command of the Enterprise back to the humans. A poor Red Shirt is fried by a power beam when Kirk and crew try to manually disconnect it.

William Marshall gives a superb performance as the increasingly unstable designer of the computer and the overall storytelling is strong. Kirk eventually defeats the computer by talking it to death via twisting its own logic back on itself. This is something Kirk did a lot--using that tactic in a total of four episodes. It is fair to say that this was an overused plot device, but it is also fair to note that the individual episodes in which Kirk does this are often pretty good ones."The Ultimate Computer" is arguably the best of the "talk the computer to death" episodes.

So what do we learn from all this? Primarily that it's okay to put a computer in charge of a submarine but not a starship. But we also learn that the same basic premise for a story can be used by different storytellers to go off in many, equally viable directions with their stories.

By the way, this is the second time I found a reason to compare a specific Voyage episode with a specific Star Trek episode. Here's the first time.

Dinosaur on a Submarine!

During its career on both TV and comic books, the submarine Seaview ran into a lot of weird stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure there were at least two TV episodes that involved a Lost World on which dinosaurs still lived.

So, when the Seaview runs across a prehistoric creature in Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #8, it's really not considered particularly notable by the crew. In fact, I'm a little surprised that Admiral Nelson doesn't sigh and mutter "What, another one?" in a resigned voice.

What makes this particular dinosaur encounter interesting is that it's just one part of a larger story. Weird stuff aboard the Seaview is so usual, that a rampaging carnosaur isn't enough by itself to form a complete story.

Nelson and his crew have taken aboard a trio of scientists and begun an exploration voyage under the arctic ice to the North Pole. What they don't know is that this means they will stumble across a secret weapon cache being maintained by a hostile nation. The cache is stockpile of bombs that causes anyone caught in its area of effect to enter a state of suspended animation, unless they've received an inoculation before hand.

One of the scientists is a double agent tasked with destroying the Seaview before the bombs are discovered. His first attempt involves sabotaging the helm controls.

Soon after this, the sub finds and recovers a dinosaur frozen in an iceberg. They bring it aboard for further study after their mission is completed.

This is further evidence that the crew of the Seaview is pretty jaded. They find a living dinosaur in suspended animation and pretty much just stick it in a closet until they find the time to deal with it.




The double agent sees a golden opportunity and thaws out the dinosaur. It precedes to rampage through the ship until Nelson manages to dump it out an airlock.

The Seaview eventually nears the North Pole and surfaces through a crack in the ice. Since the

weapons cache is nearby, the spy simply uses one of the bombs to "freeze" the sub's crew. Fortunately, Nelson and a few others are underwater in deep sea diving suits, shielded from the blast. This gives him a chance to turn the tide on the villains, save the crew and recover the remaining bombs.

I was making fun earlier of how casual this story is in introducing a dinosaur into the story as just one small plot element. But actually, I love this. The original TV series lost some of the dramatic edge it originally had as the plots grew more and more bizarre, but the comic book was able to be just as bizarre and make it work. A combination of good writing and Alberto Giolitti's wonderful art work glued the bizarre elements together into entertaining and imaginative stories. Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic book provides us with a constant reminder that pretty much the only reason the Seaview existed is to stumble across weird stuff on a regular basis.

Giant, Aquatic Robinson Crusoe.

Cover Painting by George Wilson

There are some odd things at the bottom of the sea, aren't there? Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #4 (May 1966) rather vividly reminds us of this.

Admiral Nelson and the Seaview are called to investigate when ships passing through the Sargasso Sea report geysers, whirlpools and 600-foot strands of super-tough seaweed. That's odd in of itself. But the giant footprint they find on the sea bottom is even odder.

What follows is a gleefully told tale in which Comic Book science is allowed to run wild. But the story, tentatively credited to Dick Wood and/or Marshall McClintock, never runs out of control. "Robinson Crusoe of the Depths" represents something I've written about many times in the past--a story which creates its own logic, separate from real-life logic, and follows the ensuing trail without ever getting lost.


And it's all supported by Alberto Giolitti's vivid and engrossing art. In fact, as I not just look at his art, but also write about it and make a video about it, I become more and more admiring of his skill. I believe I am ready to officially announce that that my Best Ever Comic Book Artist list has expanded from a three-way tie to a four-way tie. It is now Barks-Heath-Kirby-Giolitti (in no particular order of preference).

Back to the story: A superstitious crewman on the Seaview gets more and more panicky--and who can blame him? The next thing the Seaview finds is a pod of whales penned up behind a giant seaweed cage. Someone is apparently herding them the way we herd cattle.

When the whales "stampede" and endanger the Seaview, Admiral Nelson metaphorically tells
Greenpeace to stick it and opens fire with torpedoes.

A little later, when he's out exploring in a deep sea diving suit, he discovers a huge undersea farm. Then he discovers the farmer. Or rather, the farmer discovers him.


Fortunately, the giant speaks fluent "porpoise," which Nelson can run through a translation program. The two are able to talk and Nelson gets the big guy's back story. (Though one wonders why porpoises apparently have words to describe land animals such as mammoths.)

The undersea Crusoe was a prehistoric man. Mutated by a falling meteor, he gradually grows into a giant and also becomes immortal (or at least very long-lived. ) Many comic book fans will, of course, immediately think of DC's Vandal Savage. whose origin (minus the becoming-a-giant part) is identical. It's kind of fun to wonder if in some cross-over universe, perhaps it was the same meteor.

In a story that gleefully invents its own "science" as it goes along, its interesting that a real-life concept is taken into account. As the guy grows bigger, the square-cube law goes into affect and he has trouble supporting his own weight. He takes to the water to lighten the load. At first, he holds his breath for long periods. Eventually, he grows gills.

Unlike Vandal Savage, this guy is actually kind-of nice; though he has somehow become arch-enemies with giant squid. When the squids attack, he uses pre-prepared traps to fight them off. The Seaview lends a hand as well. Based on this story, its amazing that Nelson hasn't depopulated the oceans. His first reaction to large sea life seems to be "Fire torpedoes!"

The superstitious crewman almost wrecks the sub at this point, but the giant helps save it. In fact, though he briefly considers destroying the Seaview to keep his existence and his home a secret, he ends the story by sacrificing his life to save his new friends.

 I really love this story. It involves a giant, water-breathing caveman who speaks fluent porpoise teaming up with a high-tech submarine to fight giant squid. It is, in fact, impossible NOT to love this story.

Submarines and Starships

The 1957 war movie The Enemy Below is essentially proof that a good cliché or trope can be used again and again as the basis for good storytelling—as long as the story is skillfully told.

The movie used what even by 1957 was indeed a cliché—the story of a submarine and a surface vessel stalking one another. And it definitely is done skillfully.

The surface vessel is the destroyer escort USS Haynes, which is tracking a German U-boat. The crew of the Haynes is eager to do their jobs, but they’re nervous about their new captain. Captain Murrell (played with quiet intelligence by Robert Mitchum) just transferred into the Navy from the merchant service after spending nearly a month on a raft after his last ship was sunk. His current crew harbors some doubts about him.

But he soon wins their confidence when he proves himself capable of out-thinking his opponent. But Mitchum doesn’t out-think him every time. The German captain makes some clever moves of his own.

The German is played by Curt Jurgens. In real life, the German-born actor spent some time in a concentration camp for his anti-Nazi sentiments, so it’s ironic that many of his best-known roles after the war were playing soldiers or sailors in the German military. Here he plays a determined professional who simply wants to get his boat and his crew home alive.

Much of the movie counterpoints Mitchum and Jurgens as the two men strive to kill each other while simultaneously developing a mutual respect for one another’s abilities. Both the cast and the effective plot construction are combined to make a tense and entertaining movie.

Mitchum’s executive officer in the movie is played by David Hedison (billed as Al Hedison in this early part of his career). Seven years later, Hedison would transfer from surface ships to submarines when he played Captain Lee Crane in the television version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

In the January 2, 1966 episode titled “Killers of the Deep,” Hedison got to relive the events of The Enemy Below. A sub belonging to a small nation is stealing nukes from underwater missile silos because (as the sub captain explains): “A very small country with a few nuclear missiles suddenly becomes a very large country.”

Crane and Admiral Nelson (Richard Basehart) scout for the enemy in the Flying Sub, but are shot down. Crane ends up a prisoner on the enemy sub, while Basehart is picked up by an American destroyer and leads the effort to destroy the sub.

The episode uses a lot of stock footage from The Enemy Below, but manages to weave this fairly seamlessly into the episode. Though “Killers from the Deep" is a little shameless in how closely it follows the plot of the film (including having Basehart twice use the exact same chains of logic Mitchum uses to predict the sub’s actions), it’s a very entertaining episode. It leaves out the Enemies Gaining Mutual Respect trope, but the villain is played by Michael Ansara, who is always fun to watch as a bad guy.

Of course, the episode adds Captain Crane’s adventures as a prisoner aboard the enemy sub to the overall plot, where he eventually gets loose and leads the enemy a merry chase through the air vents. (Submarines in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea universe had absurdly large air vents.)

There’s one interesting side effect to using footage from The Enemy Below. Voyage was made in the 1960s, but set in the far future decade of the 1970s. But even by the '60s, the World War II-era depth charging techniques being used by Nelson were long out-of-date. Modern warships could fire ASROCS (anti-submarine rockets) from miles away to take out enemy subs. But the stock footage shows depth charges, so Nelson is stuck with that tactic and ASROCS aren’t even mentioned.

By the way, if you watch the clip below, you may notice the ensign being given orders by Admiral Nelson in John Wayne’s son Patrick. In 1977, Patrick would earn major geek cred by starring in both The People That Time Forgot and Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

Anyway, the year 1966 was not yet done with The Enemy Below. On December 15, the starship Enterprise went up against the Romulans for the first time. When a Romulan ship equipped with a cloaking device destroys some Federation outposts, it’s Captain Kirk’s job to track the ship down and destroy it.

“Balance of Terror” does a great job of translating the ship vs. sub situation into an outer space setting and (with Mark Leonard doing an excellent job as the Romulan captain) it pulls off the Enemies Gaining Mutual Respect vibe quite nicely. It is one of the strongest episodes of the original Star Trek series.

So The Enemy Below was based on a clichéd idea, but used that idea so effectively that its plot bled over into at least two television episodes and still remained a strong story. It’s not an inherently bad thing to reuse an old story idea. The only question is simply whether you tell that story well.

Cover Cavalcade

Gold Key often used photo covers for their TV adaptations. Fortunately, for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, they opted to go for far superior painted covers.

The 3rd coolest make-believe submarine ever

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea began life as a movie. Produced in 1961 by Irwin Allen, the movie is actually pretty lame in terms of plot construction, but it did introduce the world to what has become the third coolest make-believe submarine ever.


The Seaview looks pretty nifty. Designed by Admiral Harriman Nelson (played by Walter Pidgeon), it was a sort of combination warship & exploration vessel, equiped with both advanced laboratory facilities and a bunch of nuclear missiles. That pretty much leaves you ready to handle any situation that might arise.


The movie's plot involves Nelson's quest to use the submarine to save the world after the upper atmosphere mysteriously catches fire. It's a silly plot--which by itself isn't a bad thing. Silly science fiction can be entertaining in its own right. But (as stated above) poor plotting and some overacting by Pidgeon largely spoils the film.


But the Seaview is still cool to look at. The hull design (with observation windows in the bow and those neat-o bow fins) is definitely a fun one that gives at least the illusion of being functional as well. The sub's interior is also well-designed--including a small aquarium and a mini-sub that can be launched when needed.



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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea came to television in 1964, with Richard Basehart as Admiral Nelson. The first year, filmed in black-and-white, mixed some science fiction elements together with Cold War-era spy stuff and did a number of strong episodes. Basehart was really good as Nelson, playing the role straight even when the scripts started to get silly.


The last three seasons were in color and gave us a re-designed Seaview, making the submarine even cooler. The bridge now extended forward to include the observation room, while a hanger for the Flying Sub was also added. When the plot called for it, the Seaview was capable of doing anything from electrifying its hull to firing a laser beam out of its bow-light.


But it's the Flying Sub that added the most to the Seaview's coolness factor. It is after all, a submarine that can fly. That's one of the best ideas ever. Heck, it's even fun to just say it. Flying Sub--Flying Sub--Flying Sub.


The show became more science fictiony in the later seasons, running into countless monsters, aliens and time travelers. Any one particular episode might be silly-fun (the crew replaced by animated wax dummies) to silly-annoying (a guy in a lobster costume playing the latest invading alien). But even when a particularly inept episode was grating on your nerves, the Seaview still looked cool. There are, in fact, only two other make-believe submarines that are cooler than it is.