Coming very late in B&W year one, the disaster/ monster/ wild adventure roots of color Voyage can clearly be seen in this story of a growing microscopic particle (not from space) which is taken on board the Seaview (the crew even get taken over for a short time).

The monster grows so much that even bible talk can't seem to stop the sub from nearly being destroyed with all hands lost! Did Irwin Allen have monsters on his mind or did the ABC TV Network turn Voyage into a monster show?

I am reluctant to bring this up as, amazingly, some year one lovers refuse to think that Irwin was monster minded. But I am here to do a review of the early sci-fic days of Voyage, so these "issues" need to be mentioned. At the start, ABC had NO interest in the world of turning Voyage into a monster show, there is no question about that. But Irwin ("The Big Kid" as a LOTG star called him) had Lost World/ Big Circus monsters on his mind long before the first frame of the 1961 Voyage film was done!

In 1965, Voyage was moved to a family time slot and ABC requested a more child-friendly Voyage. But Irwin was ALWAYS child-friendly, he always had monsters on the mind. According to Mike Bailey's Voyage web site, as early as Voyage episode The Price Of Doom, Irwin was pushing and pushing the director (James Goldstone) to get the monster more involved in the story. But this is my view of the situation and since Irwin has been a life time hobby of mine, I think I am in a position to put this view on line. But don't take my word for it, search the net and watch all Irwin productions, then decide for yourself.

Now to my review of Cradle Of The Deep ... Despite a rather average monster that looks like a lesser version of the bubble creature from LIS's The Derelict, Cradle Of The Deep is a lot of fun! It is nice watching a Voyage monster show done with the more realistic non-colorful year one seamen uniforms. That might sound trivial but we spend three whole seasons looking at the same old bloody uniforms so it is nice having TWO uniforms in Voyage (there is nothing trivial about cloths in a 1960s tv show, cloths can partly decide if a series is dated or not.

The lack of women and women's 1960s cloths partly prevented Voyage from being as dated as other shows of the period).  Also, in Cradle, when the Seaview takes on water we see it happen, unlike the color shows where we are just told it happened. In Cradle, we really feel like we are at the bottom of the sea, even if the Seaview lighting is too strong in the scenes with Clark in jail. But considering this was the early days of American television, we can forgive a lighting mistake. It was the early days of something else as well ... Irwin's disaster roots were first seen in the 1961 Voyage movie when the fire in the sky appeared, but the early stages of Cradle resemble a disaster movie as well.

Clark (Paul Carr) tells Crane that the Seaview is going into too dangerous waters, when Crane pays little attention, Clark walks into Nelson's private cabin and warns him! Then the disaster happens. This resembles any number of 1970s disaster movies. But despite the quality acting of Paul Carr, it is not him who steals this episode ... This is a Basehart/ Hedison episode, the pair have a well spoken debate about science and Seaview safety. I have read that Basehart was not too happy when doing this episode but you would have no way of knowing this when watching it! However, if Basehart was bothered by his lines in the closing frames of this episode, I fully understand that!

The ending brings new meaning to the word CORNY. Cradle Of The Deep is an episode about beginnings. The beginning of creation. The beginnings of Irwin disaster. The beginnings of LIS-style monsters. And the beginnings of Sobey Martin. This was the third hour of Irwin tv that Sobey ever directed and, as any true Irwin fan should know, Sobey worked a lot on ALL Irwin tv shows. Jonah And The Whale (Voyage), The Hungry Sea (LIS), End Of The World (Time Tunnel) and Chase Through Time (Time Tunnel) were Sobey's best directing jobs. Sobey also directed the year one Voyage episode, The Creature, which came shortly after Cradle.

I like most of Voyage year one, but in The Creature (episode 30 in production order) Voyage was FINALLY working on all levels. Many year one shows were damaged by crap Seaview effects (even the effects in Mutiny failed to please me) and average music scores but now things were changing. The Creature has outstanding miniature effects of the Seaview swimming with, or being attacked by, a giant fish. The musical score was finally coming together.

The episode had something to say about how people should behave when trying to prove something.  And Leslie Neilsen performs amazingly well as the crazy guy. Now Voyage was working on all levels, now the Voyage series was a masterpiece. Thank you.