User Reviews

Seaview comes across a strange mound on the sea bed. The sonar picks up heartbeats. Investigating, Crane finds the mound contains a hidden weapons laboratory. Venturing inside, he is confronted by a man in Nazi uniform and wielding a Luger. He is 'Admiral Von Neuberg' ( John Van Dreelin ) of the Third Reich who thinks it is still 1945. He - and 'Lt.Froelich' ( Jan Merlin ) - have been in suspended animation for 35 years as the result of nerve gas leakage which occurred during during an Allied bombing. They plan to finish what Hitler started by launching missiles at major cities. When the missiles fail to function properly, Von Neuberg decides to take over Seaview and use its missiles to unleash global destruction...

Written by Sidney Marshall and Charles Bennett, this features a return for Hitler's stormtroopers - they had previously appeared in Season 1's 'The Last Battle'. The late John Van Dreelen played 'Shroeder' in that episode. Ignoring the wobbly cardboard missiles and the improbability of two men managing to get the better of the Seaview crew, this is a fun story, and a welcome respite from the endless procession of 'monster' tales that cluttered up Season 3. Van Dreelen plays the crazed Nazi with relish. At the end, the effects of the nerve gas wear off, causing Von Neuberg to revert to his true age in time-honoured 'Lost Horizon' fashion.

Nazis in an underwater weapons research lab who've been in suspended animation for 35 years refuse to believe the war is over, and are intent on using missiles to destroy New York, Washington, London and Paris.

Good story idea-- annoyingly-bad execution.

I'm not sure which is the most frustrating. Crane, who's seen everything by now, refuses the accept the idea of suspended animation, despite this being an Irwin Allen show set in 1980. Nobody told these guys the second they woke up what year it was. Security on The Seaview is as PATHETIC as usual. (Two guards in the hall outside Sickbay, on hearing a knock on the door, should have contacted the Captain, NOT opened the door!) Nelson & Sharkey fail to KILL Baron Von Neuberg after nearly being killed themselves, and TWICE he gets the drop on them in the undersea base. The Nazi missiles FAIL to fire, not from anything Nelson did, apparently just from old age systems failure, but there's no mention of the cause. It goes on and on like this. Right up to the climax, when Neuberg is able to FIRE one of the sub's nuclear missiles-- an act that, to anyone who watched seasons 1 & 2, should KNOW this is IMPOSSIBLE, due to the exhaustingly-complex FAIL-SAFE system. (I guess the writers never watched the show.)

MY favorite moment was when Chip Morton got on the comm and told the crew, in reference to Froelich, "KILL him is you HAVE to!" I would have!

I find it interesting that this episode aired on January 8, 1967. 9 months EARLIER, in April 1966, comics writer JACK KIRBY brought back THE RED SKULL from suspended animation in the "Captain America" series. In that story, neo-Nazis revived him, but he was such an Uber-Nazi, he decided to double-cross them and steal their ultimate weapon to use for himself! It's a pity Irwin Allen didn't have any writers that good working for HIM.