Around the dial

Wo, no matter what anyone says; a movie called If You Go Down in the Woods Today is not going to end well, even if you try to style it as a comedy. But don't take my word for it; that's the target of John's essay this week at Cult TV Blog. 

Last month, the Hadley household finished up the four-season run of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on DVD; this week, at Silver Scenes, the Metzingers look at the movie that started it all. Irwin Allen's epic starred Walter Pidgeon as Admiral Nelson (shh; don't tell Gypsy!) and Robert Sterling as Captain Crane. Fun fact: the role of Crane was originally offered to David Hedison, who turned it down. He'd get his chance later.

Who's our guest star on "Body Slam," this week's episode of The A-Team? None other than wrestling champ Hulk Hogan! And while Hogan manages to turn the entire episode into the Hulk Hogan show, what happens to everyone else? At The View from the Junkyard, Roger has more!

Abbe Lane died earlier this year, aged 93, although we didn't find out about it until last week. And if you don't know who Abbe Lane was, it's your loss. Fortunately, at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence is on the case, with a retrospective look at the career of the singer/actress, who was a TV fixture in the 1960s.

I first learned of Dick Tracy not through the newspapers, or even old movie serials, but the animated adventures that appeared in the early 1960s. Who could ever have believed there would be two-way wristwatches? Anyway, Martin Grams looks at the book Calling Tracy: Six Decades of Dick Tracy, by James Van Hise, that looks well worth it. 

We'll wrap it up at Classic Film and TV Corner, where Maddy looks at some big-screen movies that I've seen mostly on the small screen, specifically the Britsh New Wave movies of the 1950s and 60s. These movies, many of which fall into the "Angry Young Man" category, comprise some of my favorite movies of that era, including one of my very favorites, This Sporting Life, with future Doctor Who William Hartnell in a small role. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider leaving a tip at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

This week in TV Guide: July 16, 1966

You might think that being the captain of the most sophisticated nuclear submarine the world has ever seen, with the opportunity to travel the world on scientific missions, encountering strange underwater life and outer space aliens, would be enough for most men. But not for David Hedison. The co-star of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (along with Richard Basehart and the Seaview itself) still struggles with being, in his words, "one of the nameless heroes of television." From being mistaken for John Derek to having his name mispronounced, it's part of the terrain for a man who can only say, "I wish I had an image." 

Part of it, as I suggested, is that he often has third billing next to Basehart and the submarine. And, in fact, the whole premise of Voyage requires something of a suspension of disbelief. "If you can make this believable," he says, "you have really accomplished something." He points to a quote from Basehart that "'Richard III' was easier than this because the lines were there." to show that he appreciates the real accomplishment when an actor can "take nothing and make something of it." At the same time, though, there's only so far you can take it. A co-worker, complimenting him, points out that "He doesn't take himself seriously. He knows it's just a comic strip." And Hedison himself envies an actor like The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s Robert Vaughn, who "can go so many places and be with women and wear a tuxedo."

Still, there's no doubting that Hedison has come a long way from the times when he would sell his blood at $5 a pint to pay for acting lessons from Uta Hagen. His talent was recognized at an early date by both Hagen and Fredric March; Hagen said of him that "He had a wild temperament, a tremendous eagerness to make good in the theater. He had great promise." He won a 1956 Theatre World Award for his performance in the off-Broadway play "A Month in the Country," the only actor from an off-Broadway production to win. He was signed by 20th Century-Fox to appear in The Enemy Below, a submarine movie.* But since then, his primary claim to pre-Voyage fame came from his starring role in the now-cult classic movie The Fly, when he was known as Al Hedison. 

*Interestingly, the article doesn't mention that Hedison was originally offered the role of Captain Crane in Irwin Allen's original big-screen version of Voyage, but turned it down; Robert Sterling wound up playing the captain. Hedison would also turn down the role of Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch, a move I susped he didn't regret.

For all his doubts about Voyage, he understands the nature of the television business. "When Voyage first started I was apprehensive and didn’t like to talk about it. But then I watched the other shows on television, and I decided ours was nothing to be ashamed of." It's difficult, though, to not look back at his original hopes in the business. Hagen, for one, was sorry to see him go to Hollywood. "Young people see a chance to make some money; and then, without even realizing it, they get trapped. The last time I saw him, when he was visiting New York, he seemed sad. The fire had gone." And Hedison, who spent the Voyage hiatus in London attending the serious plays he still wants to do, followed by a stint in "The Teahouse of the August Moon" near Los Angeles. And then there's the role that still awaits him, that of Felix Leiter in a pair of James Bond movies; but that's another story.

l  l  l
During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Sullivan: Guests include Ed’s guests are Dinah Shore; comics Jackie Vernon and Dick Capri; Sgt. Barry Sadler; the rock ‘n’ rolling Four Tops; puppet Topo Gigio; guitarist José Feliciano; Les Feux Follets, Canadian folk dancers; and Markworth and Mayana, bow-and-arrow act. Rock ‘n’ rollers Simon and Garfunkel are seen performing in a recently taped segment. (The show originally aired on January 30; the Simon & Garfunkel segment was taped and added to this broadcast.)

Palace: Hostess Kate Smith introduces singer-dancer Juliet Prowse; singer-composer Charles Aznavour; Avery Schreiber and Jack Burns, who offer a comedy sketch about a talking vending machine; Charlie Cairoli and Company in a slapstick routine about a bakery; the Eight Rodos, German tumblers; comic Albert T. Berry; and illusionist Prasano Rao.

It almost seems un-American to go against Kate Smith this week, particularly with Chrlees Aznavour at her side, but let's face it: Dinah Shore, José Feliciano, the Four Tops, and Simon and Garfunkel. So nothing can be finah than Dinah, which gives Sullivan the victory this week.

l  l  l

From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

We come to you under somewhat false pretenses this week, as Judith Crist subs for Our Man Cleve, who's on vacation for the summer. And we couldn't have a better show for her to lead off with than the "Outstanding Dramatic Series of 1965," The Fugitive. As the series prepares to enter its fourth and final season (and first in color), Crist steps back to look at just what it is that has made the adventures of Dr. Richard Kimble such compelling viewing, week after week.

After all, the basic framework, which features the good doctor escaping from the clutches not only of the police, but any number of onlookers wishing Kimble ill, "is enough to try the patience of the most gullible among us." For even though it's a given that "the various arms of the law Kimble almost inevitably encounters in each episode are going to be too stupid to recognize him or, if he is recognized, too inept or kindhearted to capture him in the midst of the good deeds he is almost inevitably involved in, we still want to have the empathic thrill of skirting danger and facing doom along with our hero." And besides, common sense tells us that he can't be captured until 1) the series goes off the air, or 2) it changes its title. So what is it that keeps America tuning in to watch its favorite fugitive from justice elude the forces of law and order?

First and foremost is the performance of David Janssen, who plays Kimble "as one of the least monotonous of the secret-sorrow, dogooding, compassionate humanists  to have come our way; he’s remarkably durable on the eyes, interesting in the performance." There's also a freshness in the show's approach, in the "scene, plot and characters that the hero's rootlessness, an able assortment of scriptwriters and directors, and an astute producer provide." In the last three weeks alone, we've seen Kimble match wits with William Shatner (an unequal contest, to say the least) at an exclusive boys' club, Mickey Rooney in a self-serve laundry, and Melvyn Douglas as a neurophysicist. Oh, and did we mention Barry Morse as Lieutenant Gerard. Coincidences may abound, plots may be padded, and storylines may get tangled in overcomplexity, but the secret is in "letting the illogic of the format go by and riding with its presumptions." It is, Crist concludes, "a secret most of us have stumbled on."

l  l  l

When you've been doing this gig for fifteen years, you look for different angles to approach the highlights of the week. That's especially true during the summer, when, to be honest, it's hard to find anything fresh to talk about. One thing we've noted many times in the past is how, in these pre-VCR days, reruns were the only way to catch up with the shows you'd missed, for one reason or another, earlier in the season. So this week, we'll concentrate on some of those episodes you'll want to see with that second chance. 

Saturday is one of those nights where it seems as if everyone's going to pick their channel and stick with it: ABC with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet at 7:30 p.m., The Donna Reed Show at 8:00, Lawrence Welk at 8:30, and The Hollywood Palace at 9:30. Over on NBC, you've got Flipper, I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, and Saturday Night at the Movies. CBS is the odd man out, at least for part of the evening; at 7:30 it's Continental Showcase, the summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show; this week, Jim Backus hosts, with the Swingle Singers leading a group of international acts; Secret Agent at 8:30, with Drake working at a pirate radio station to track down a spy; and The Face is Familiar, with Jack Whittaker hosting celebrity guests Pearl Bailey, Allen and Rossi, and Mel Brooks. Ordinarily the night would be capped with Gunsmoke at 10:00, but this week it's preempted by the Miss Universe Pageant.

It's no surprise that Branded only survived for two seasons, considering the series on at the same time: The FBI on ABC, and The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. Nonetheless, this Sunday gives us the second of a two-part story in which our hero (Chuck Connors) finds himself in the middle of a war between landowners and gypsies. (8:30 p.m., NBC) You've also got a choice to make at 10:00 p.m.; if you've started watching the ABC Sunday Night Movie at 9:00, you're going to pass up CBS's Candid Camera and NBC's The Wackiest Ship in the Army, which heads for the island of Kanapura, and a group of Australian girls who've been spying on Japanese shipping.

The John Forsythe Show (Monday 8:00 p.m., NBC) didn't fare very well as a successor to Forsythe's successful Bachelor Father, but with competition from 12 O'clock High on ABC and I've Got a Secret on CBS, it was probably an uphill struggle even if the show had been better. Tonight, John has to go toe-to-toe in the ring with Moose Grabowski, the academy's new football coach. I'm afraid he doesn't have his angels to help him out, either. Meantime, you may have missed Art Linkletter's Talent Scouts (10:00 p.m., CBS) while you were trying to decide between The Big Valley and Run for Your Life (although The Big Valley started the season on Wedneday), but tonight you can catch a rerun that features Jim Nabors, Jill St. John, and Ray Walston. Unfortunately, they aren't performing; they're just introducing their talent prospects, one of whom is comedian Alan Sues. 

If you're a fan of Daktari on Tuesday nights, you might have missed this tense episode of Combat! in which a lone German sniper takes aim at Saunders' men (7:30 p.m., ABC). They'd wiped out the German squad earlier, and now the survivor plans to pick them off one by one, saving Saunders for last. Since Combat! returns for a final season this fall, it's safe to assume he won't succeed. You also would have missed a double-bill of sitcoms on NBC; first, on My Mother the Car (7:30 p.m.), "Dave is given one last chance to sell the Porter—before Captain Manzini (Avery Schreiber) shrinks the antique auto to the size of a toy." That's followed at 8:00 by Please Don't Eat the Daisies, as a leaky room convinces the family it's time to sell their old home before it becomes a money pit.

Two of the season's big ratings winners come on Wednesday, where Batman (7:30 p.m., ABC) and The Beverly Hillbillies (8:30 p.m., CBS) both finish in the top ten. As an alternative, we've got a Lost in Space episode that features both space werewolves and hillbilly space farmers. (7:30 p.m., CBS) How could you ask for anything more? Meanwhile, ABC's World War II half-hour spy drama Blue Light (8:30 p.m.), which got smashed by Hillbillies in the ratings, stars Robert Goulet as an American double agent who, tonight, is threatened with exposure unless he agrees to become a triple agent by working for the Soviets. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire.

You definitely could use a VCR on Thursday: with Daniel Boone on NBC and part two of the Batman adventure on ABC, how are you going to make room for The Munsters on CBS? (7:30 p.m.) Tonight, the family's pet dragon, Spot, runs away after Herman disciplines him, and heads for the sewers. On the other hand, if you did watch The Munsters, you might have stayed for Gilligan's Island (tonight, featuring the Wellingtons, who sing the show's theme, playing a hit rock group looking to escape from their fans), which means you'll miss Gidget (8:00 p.m., ABC), where Gidget goes for a ride with a friend without telling her father first. Whoops!

Then again, there are some shows that just never had a chance; with The Wild, Wild West and The Flintstones as the opposition, even the rerun season (and Nina Wayne) couldn't save Camp Runamuck (Friday, 7:30 p.m., NBC), with features Arch Johnson's Wivenhoe announcing his plan for a successful diet. Honey West (9:00 p.m.), probably didn't have a prayer against Gomer Pyle, USMC, despite Anne Francis doing double duty tonight, playing both Honey and her lookalike, the notorious thief Pandora Fox. And with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. riding high, the rerun season might have been the only time you'd have watched the British import Court-Martial, starring Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves. (10:00 p.m. ABC) Tonight, an MP goes on trial for killing a German concentration-camp commandant. Breathe easy, though: it's not Colonel Klink.

l  l  l

We do get some specials along with the reruns this week, and they're doubly special because we can actually watch some of them. 

This week's programming may be preempted or delayed by the launch of Gemini X, which took off, as scheduled, on Monday afternoon for a four-day mission, and I suppose some people might be blasé enough about the space program to look at it as a rerun. On board were astronauts John Young and Mike Collins; Collins, who became the first astronaut to perform two spacewalks, will later be a part of the famed Apollo 11 crew, where, as the sole member of the crew to remain in the capsule during the moon landing, he will be farther away from any other human than anyonce since Creation. Young, for his part, will later walk on the moon, and still later will pilot the first flight of the Space Shuttle. Gemini X splashes down safely on Thursday; the networks will provide complete coverage. Speaking of which, here is NBC's coverage of the launch, with Frank McGee.

I mentioned Miss Universe earlier; Margareta Arvidsson of Sweden is crowned Miss Universe 1966 in the pageant, held in Miami Beach. Pat Boone and June Lockhart are the hosts on the stage, while Jack Linkletter does the honors on the television broadcast, which exists in its entirety on YouTube.

On Tuesday, CBS presents an acclaimed portrait of composer Igor Stravinsky, "considered by many to be the world's greatest living composer," originally shown in May. (10:00 p.m.) The network is probably hoping more people see it this week than did in its original run two months ago. Charles Kuralt is the narrator; you can see a clip from it here.

NBC counters with an original news special on Wednesday, as Moscow bureau chief Kenneth Bernstein narrates an hour-long look at "Siberia: A Day in Irkutsk." It's not the Siberia you think of when you hear of dissidents being exiled there; Irkutsk, a city of nearly a half-million, is not only the cultural center of Siberia, it also has the Trans-Siberian Railroad, not to be confused with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which may or may not have anything to do with Irkutsk, or anything else for that matter. No freebee, but you might be able to watch it if you subscribe to Peacock+.

l  l  l

Well, we haven't had a fashion spread here for awhile, and we could go for something that's chic and sleek and modern, and who better to display such wares than Janice Rule, the wife of Ben Gazzara and a pretty fair actress in her own right, in both television and on the big screen.

Here she is modeling the latest from the summer collection of Dynasty of Hong Kong, with a decidedly Oriental accent. Wonder if she wore anything like this while Ben was filming The Killing of a Chinese Bookie? Yes, I know that was made ten years after this, but it's still a good thought.

l  l  l

MST3K alert: Earth vs. the Spider (1958) Teen-agers in a small community are threatened by a giant spider. Ed Kemmer, June Kenney. (Sunday, 3:00 p.m., KSBW in Salinas) The description is accurate as far as it goes, although the spider isn't selective; it's threatening the whole town, not just the teens. But the real highlight is that June Kenney and Eugene Persson, who play the two teens trapped in the spider's lair, also play teens in episode 607, Bloodlust!, which stars a pre-Defenders Robert Reed. What do you think of that? TV  

Around the dial

Our opening feature this week comes from bare-bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project looks at the sixth-season episode "Self Defense" by John T. Kelley, starring George Nader, Audrey Totter, and Bob Paget, and including some interesting unanswered questions.

David brings Comfort TV to 1976, with his review of Sunday night programming. Some solid shows: 60 Minutes, Kojak, The Six Million Dollar Man, Disney, and the Sunday Mystery Movie. Some not so: The Big Event, Cos, Delvecchio. Another great look back.

Cult TV Blog continues the "Sylvia Coleridge Season," and this week John arrives at the 1986 BBC TV movie The Good Doctor Bodkin Adams, a drama about one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, with as many as 300 victims to his credit. If this is news to you, as it was to me, it's worth checking out.

You'll remember my traumatic years living in the World's Worst Town™, where I was held hostage in a town with one commercial TV channel; well, this week at Mavis Movie Madness, Paul looks at another of those movies I heard of but never got to see, the 1978 teleflick Deadman's Curve, the story of Jan and Dean.

At Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick shares seven things to know about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The first season and a half, with its Cold War overtones, was consistently good; the last two and a half, which featured lots of monsters and weird things, not so much. But it's still one of my favorites for a fun evening. 

Two highlights from A Shroud of Thoughts: first, Terence remembers Denise Alexander, the soap opera legend who was also a frequent guest star on television in the 1960s and 70s; then, it's a celebration of the Muppets and their television debut, 70 years ago. Man, do I feel old.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger's latest turn on The A-Team is "Pros and Cons," which features a perfect example of the "Chekhov's gun" trope. Oh, by the way, it's also a pretty good episode, with some particularly violent scenes.

Finally, the latest episode of American TV with Mitchell Hadley is up, a fun episode in which Dan Schneider and I compare lists of the ten most significant moments in TV history. There was very little overlap, although many of them were complimentary, which makes it even more fun. TV  

What I've been watching: Winter edition

Shows I’ve Watched:	Shows I’ve Added:
The Loner Poirot Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea	F Troop Nichols World War I

It occurs to me that I haven't done one of these for awhile, mostly because our viewing lineup has been pretty stable. That's in the process of changing, though, as some of our longer-running series come to an end, and I embark on a search for various programming options to fill the gap. The result as been a mélange of things, some of which I'll be recounting below.

One series that wrapped up recently is Rod Serling's The Loner, the 1965-66 Western starring Lloyd Bridges as William Colton, a Civil War veteran traveling through the West in search of a meaningful life. The series ran for 26 episodes (most of which were written by Serling), and bear all the trademarks of typical Serling stories: provocative ideas based on a strong moral sense, with messages that frequently hammer us over the head with their lack of subtlety. 

That's not necessarily meant to be a criticism, by the way; there's only so much character development that can be accomplished within the structure of a half-hour drama (minus commercials), and by definition we should expect things to unfold at a more rapid pace than if the running time is longer. The stories are, without exception, presented in a literate and thoughtful way, and Bridges delivers his lines with a firmness and conviction. As a result, The Loner is rarely less than good and occasionally better than that, and the storylines are almost always worthy of thought afterwards, even when they fall short of their potential. 

We know that Serling was disappointed in the final result, believing that network interference compromised his vision of a "realistic, adult Western" in favor of more "traditional" Western action. And in truth, there are episodes that present an undeniable tension between Serling's desire to lean on the philosophical and the constructs of the Western genre, resulting in endings that can be somewhat less than satisfying. Merely preventing the man in the black hat from acting on his homicidal impulses does not necessarily mean that said black hat won't resume being a threat once Colton has departed the scene; in other words, you can't always shame a bully into reforming himself in the Old West. Sometimes you have to eliminate that threat permanently, if you catch my drift. Don't take that caution as a deterrant, though; your investment in The Loner will likely be a satisfying one. 

One show that's been a delight to revisit is Poirot, with David Suchet providing the definitive interpretation of Agatha Christie's iconic Belgian detective and his "little grey cells." Our last viewing of Poirot came when the series was in its original run, which makes it almost as good as new. In addition, since some of the later episodes were exclusive to Acorn (including the series finale, "Curtain"), those episodes will be new.  

I referred to Suchet as the "definitive" version of Poirot, not only in his brilliance, but his mannerisms, fussy eccentricities (Suchet fought to portray Poirot down to the last "obsessive-compulsive" gesture), and relentless determination to discover the truth. His dedication to justice, occasionally tempered by mercy, makes him a very dangerous adversary, and for all the good humor that is built into the character (frequently causing his opponents to take him lightly), Suchet does an excellent job of projecting that danger. I would not want to cross swords with him, regardless of the circumstances.

Aiding Suchet in making the show so watchable is a brilliant supporting cast, including Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings, Poirot's loyal, if occasionally dim, associate. As is the case with Doctor Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories, Hastings frequently serves as a surrogate for the viewer, giving Poirot someone to whom he can explain how he got from point A to point B; also like Watson, Hastings makes up for a lack of imagination with an intelligence that, more often than not, provides an asset to Poirot. Philip Jackson, as Inspector Japp, provides a perfect foil for Poirot's brilliance; his confidence in his ability to solve the case is frequently undermined by Poirot's discovery of the pivotal clue (with Poirot often graciously allowing Japp to think he did it without Poirot's help), but make no mistake: he values both Poirot's intelligence and his friendship, and he'll be the first one to defend the detective against skeptics. And as Poirot's secretary Miss Lemon, Pauline Moran not only keeps the office running efficiently, she occasionally provides a needle to Poirot's non-insignificant ego. Just as in Perry Mason, Poirot functions as an ensemble, but with Suchet always the first among equals. 

The music and period detail—especially the breath-taking art deco accents—are a fundamental part of Poirot's appeal. Later stories, considerably darker in tone and frequently taking place on location, are still quite entertaining, but I have to admit that they lose some of their fun of the early seasons. Is that a quibble? I don't intend it to be, merely an observation; if those early seasons had never existed, the series would still stand on its own as one of the best British imports. Poirot very nearly made it on my Top Ten list, and when the next update comes around, I wouldn't be surprised to find it there.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has neither the existential depth of The Loner nor the art deco elegance of Poirot. What it does have is a very cool atomic-powered submarine, a raft of special effects, some cheesy-looking monsters, and a surfeit of fun. It's based on Irwin Allen's 1961 movie of the same name about a fantastic submarine of the future called Seaview, starring Walter Pidgeon*, and Robert Sterling; and in adapting the movie for the small screen, Allen was able to utilize a ready-made treasure trove of quality, big-budget sets and ship miniatures that gave the series a big-screen look from the get-go.

*But we won't tell Gypsy.

The first season, shot in black-and-white, is arguably the best of the four. It leans heavily into Cold War and espionage themes; given that the Seaview is frequently utilized for secret missions by the U.S. government, and that it's the most advanced ship of its kind in the world, it's entirely plausible that it would be the target of both foreign governments (i.e. the Commies) and meglamaniacs bent on world domination. As the series progresses, that realism becomes less and less common (and plausible), replaced (at the network's request) by stories that are more overtly science fiction and often populated by sea monsters, ghosts, aliens, and other kinds of flotsam and jetsam that one doesn't usually encounter in the ocean's depths—but then, since the Seaview is able to submerge to deeper depths than any other ship, who knows what they might find down there?

Several factors combine to prevent Voyage from completely descending (so to speak) into kitschy sci-fi, the first and unquestionably most important being Richard Basehart as Admiral Harriman Nelson, the visionary scientist and designer of Seaview. Basehart brings a gravitas and depth to the role that instantly provides the character—and the series—with a credibility it might otherwise lack. He's authoritative, incisive, suspicious, and dedicated to both science and the nation's security.

Nelson's number two is Lee Crane, played by David Hedison. Crane is actually the captain of the Seaview, the COO to Nelson's CEO, and proves himself more than up to the task. Regardless of the ship's mission, whether scientific or military, Crane's first priority is always the safety of the Seaview and her crew. Hedison portrays Crane as cool and confident, not afraid to butt heads with Nelson when he feels his men are in jeopardy, but never suggesting that he chafes under the weight of having the boss always around to look over his shoulder (and it's a mark of Nelson's confidence in Crane that he pretty much leaves the operation of Seaview up to him). He's ably assisted by the ship's Executive Officer, Chip Morton, played with competence and trustworthiness by Bob Dowdell, an actor who seldom gives a bad performance. And while the show's move to color in the second season coincided with a shift to more fantastical stories, it also bathed the episodes in a wonderful color palette that looks terrific.

What I like about Voyage—and I enjoy it tremendously; as I mentioned with Combat!, I set aside whatever else I'm doing when it's on—is that there's just enough to it that it's possible to tolerate the more ridiculous storylines. Basehart is, as I said, never less than terrific in the role, and while the scripts often require a mighty suspension of disbelief, for the most part they don't insult my intelligence. It's dumb fun without being dumb, television viewing just for the pleasure of it. If you want your adventure straight-up, with a minium of pontificating and existential angst, a voyage on the Seaview is well worth taking. TV