For the first of two episodes, Admiral Nelson is gone from the Seaview and Captain Crane and Admiral Park must deal with Dr Borgman who behaves like a modern day Dr Frankenstein with an army of "Menfish". One night a Seaview crewman is turned into a "Manfish", by Borgman, and this is just the start of a really odd voyage that ends with an astonishing giant monster Vs Seaview effects battle. Year two's The Menfish and The Mechanical Man (screened back to back) have two big things in common ... a Dr Frankenstein storyline and no Richard Basehart.

Ray Dutczak has gone on record as saying that The Mechanical Man is his second favourite Voyage episode, I like it as well, the end-of-the-world feeling of the storyline and robot James Darren lifting his hand in the air and doing the ultimate fireworks show in the Seaview control room, but Ray likes it more than me, I think The Menfish is the best of the two episodes, in fact, The Menfish is one of the best episodes of year two Voyage. The Menfish proves that Basehart is 50% of Voyage, but he is not 100% of Voyage. This tale actually survives without crusty old Nelson being around! The early sections of the episode will go down well with LIS fans, music very associated with LIS is heard.

Also, "the manfish" did double time on both Voyage and LIS!  But this is no Voyage Meets LIS episode, this episode belongs to guest stars Gary Merrill and John Dehner. Both are given great lines from a pair of writers who would, sadly, never work for Voyage again after this episode. The direction of these guests is well done, so in the end what you have is motion picture television!  Five years before this, Merrill had appeared in the under-rated Captain Nemo motion picture - Mysterious Island (1961) - and after Voyage he would play that SOB in The Time Tunnel pilot! The semi-comical John Dehner is best remembered, by me, for his guest starring role in a year two Land Of The Giants episode.  Is The Menfish semi-comical or totally-comical?? I have screened this episode to three people in Australia, granted my country is known for laughing at anything but I must say that all three viewers were on the floor laughing at John Dehner, mainly the way he talks and that scene where he controls Parks with Crane present and Crane having no idea what the hell is going on! 

I saw the funny side as well but, as always, I am on the straight faced level of Irwin Allen and I can take this kind of cartoon stuff very seriously. It depends how strong your imagination is or maybe I am just as warped as Irwin? But Irwin did not write it I hear you say? No, but I read that Irwin has some creative control. Firstly, he handed the manfish costume to the writers and said make a story out of this. Secondly, a scene at the end started getting too emotional for Irwin, Hansjerg grabs Borgman by the neck and Irwin yelled at the director and demanded the scene be cut down to about two seconds. We get enough drama on the tv news so I think Irwin did the right thing!  Irwin was probably on hand for the astonishing Giant Manfish Vs Seaview effects at the end of this tale, the motion picture television title is well deserved from beginning to end on this episode!

But the most movie-like element to Voyage was missing, Richard Basehart, and after watching both The Menfish and The Mechanical Man you might find yourself feeling more open minded about what makes this series so good (but remember the 50% remark above) and you may wish to seek out other Basehart-less submarine fantasy shows of yesterday. I would go with Irwin Allen's The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978) and DVD's of Gerry Anderson's Stingray (1964). Nemo had the great acting and Stingray had the great miniature effects. Both had the music. Irwin's Big Four Tv Shows, Nemo and Stingray are my top six science fiction tv shows of all time. Thank you.