User Reviews

Fairly entertaining episode despite the familiarity of the story which has a plot which has been oft repeated in this series with slight variations – essentially it goes like this: There's an alien brain (which a guest star scientist wants to bring on board Seaview to study); the scientist gets taken over (as does the Captain) the alien brain wants to conquer and rule the world but needs energy from the Seaview's atomic reactor so starts drawing power from it. The Admiral builds a sonic weapon to protect himself and others from the telepathic influence of the alien and decides to overload the brain with energy by pulling out the reactor rods and risking melt-down. Of course the brain is ejected from Seaview and destroyed just in the nick of time – sounds familiar?. Actually, quite watchable though .... The voice of 'The Brain' is that of Dick Tufeld – who also provided the voice of the Robot in 'Lost In Space'.

Warning, may contain spoilers!

VTBOS Season Three starts off with a bang, and a brainy bang at that! The mind-controlled zombies theme that runs through so much of Cold War culture is alive and well aboard the Seaview! A giant alien brain is jamming world communications and the Big Sub is sent to investigate. The combination of a visiting scientist and a unknown element (in this case the giant brain) is always trouble for the Seaview, and this occasion is no exception. The fact that the brain seems to be speaking in the same bossy voice as Lost in Space robot B-9 makes it all the more enjoyable. The only small quibbles that I have with the opening episode is that Kowalski doesn't really get clobbered and Admiral Nelson almost snaps a pencil betwixt thumb and fore finger, but holds back at the very last moment! This series was one of my favourites as a kid growing up in the Sixties, and just gets better with age. I agree that all ships should switch to lurid red lighting when in distress and should maintain the policy of storing fireworks in key instrument panels, whenever possible. The classics just never go out of style!

Kowalski, on guard duty.

This episode is probably the best in the entire series.

You can tell it's a third-season show because of two easy to remember and obvious signals;

1. Action action action. It never lets up, right from the first shot we get hammered. I had to check the DVD player to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped over a scene or fast-forwarded through something. Nope. It's all there, it's just edited so frantically you keep asking "Huh?" and "What just happened?" Most of the shots are 4-6 seconds long, the extremely long pensive ones are at most 9 seconds. If you don't like what's happening, just hang around for a second or two and things will change.

2. Nelson's cheeks are pink. The new third-season makeup guy took one look at Richard Basehart's chain smoking, liver damaged face and decided right away to go HAPPY with it. A gallon or two of blush later, and presto, it's rosy pink cheeked apple-pie cute Admiral Nelson, ready for a picture in his best Navy Formals. His cheeks GLOW!

The episode itself is incredibly complicated. It's all about this brain they discover on the Bottom of the Sea. It's a really smart brain, like REALLY smart, but instead of writing symphonies or sculpting great works from marble, or applying itself to DNA research, it gets a Mussolini complex and seems psycho-bent on ruling. That's all, just ruling. It likes giving orders. Why it wants to rule is never explained (see how complicated this is?), and why ruling over lower-phyla humans is attractive to a superior being isn't even mentioned. Do humans like to rule over worms? Is it real fun shouting at worms? Even my crazy neighbor doesn't do that, and that guy is all about crazy.

But man, you gotta see the color cinematography. The emergency scenes are especially amazing, with bright red foregrounds and wavy water-dappled dark blue backgrounds, just the way a sub should look inside. I don't know if real nuclear submarines go all red when they get rocked back and forth, but you deep-sea navy guys should all run out to Home Depot, buy a bunch of red lights and screw them into those emergency sockets right NOW cause it looks really cool when something dangerous happens! Anyway, I'm not going to tell you Nelson's last line, but it's a great one, and sums up 1960's film-making so succinctly it should be written right across the front of . . .

the good ship Seaview.