People in a sunk ship with time running out before they all die, death in rooms flooded with water, extras all over the set, intelligent thoughtful character study...no this is not The Poseidon Adventure but it sounds like it! We can only wonder if Irwin had the Seaview on his mind in the early 1970s when he made that box office hit that turned the world upside down!

I watched this Voyage episode again last night and I felt like I was watching a motion picture ... well in a sense I was because it stole mine field footage from the 1961 Voyage movie, but that is not what I mean... As much as I love the color years of Voyage, I have to say that those color years were sadly missing extras to play the Seaview crew. But this B&W hour is flooded with them, not only on the Seaview, but in the New London scenes as well. Color episodes like Shadowman and The Deadly Cloud were so lacking in Seaview crew that it actually upset the hour. Would it really of bothered the budget if they got a few more guys to run around the sub in those color shows? How does a sub work without crew, Irwin?

Also, those silent seamen in the color shows had more of a Baywatch-look about them (one was a James Dean-clone) which really gave the series another look all together.  But both looks were good. The extras in Sub Sunk looked like they just walked out of prison. And when you mix those Sub Sunk extras with the death in flooded rooms, well, you have motion picture television of the best kind. But there is more to this episode than all that, this is year one, when character study was the thing instead of the "make something out of nothing" method of film-making that entertained us in later seasons. Admiral Nelson speaks of the guy who sunk the sub, "It cost him too, he has to live with it...think about it". I hope the kids watching "think about it" as that is a message that could expand the mind of many young people. And Nelson was a father figure to many young people watching.

That bit was one of the two most memorable scenes of the episode, the other bit came at the end, but without wishing to give too much away, the other bit had three things working for it...1- Nelson and Crane talking about the birth of a child, 2- Two simply wonderful looking 1960s American cars, 3- Atmosphere charged music. The music may of been good at the end but for the bulk of the tale, the music could of been better. A year three episode - No Escape From Death - lifted footage of the Seaview sinking but it did it with much BETTER and more exciting music playing over the footage it stole. When viewing the two episodes back to back, you see which hour got it right with the music. But this was year one and, to me at least, the musical element of the series did not really come together until the very start of year two. But I am not putting down Sub Sunk, it is fine drama.

If I may conclude with more extra talk. The silent seamen were probably best when the same guys were seen all the time, and then, out of the blue, suddenly they DO something! That is when they become characters! That tall young looking one got killed - murdered - in the final scenes of year four's Rescue. Another guy finally gets to ACT - in shock - in year three's The Mermaid when the monster suddenly appears on the sub mid-episode.  This is when the extras become more interesting than the ship's Doc! As you can see, there are so many things to watch out for in this series...I could go on forever but I will make only one more comment.

With many thanks to StuOz for another great review!

# Thanks to Linda Delaney for the Basehart Hedison shot.