TERRIBLE LEPRECHAUN Airdate: Jan 7, 1968 Writer: Charles Bennett Director: Jerry Hopper Guest Stars: Walter Burke (Evil Lep), Walter Burke (Good Lep) Music: Leith Stevens

The fantasy of year four's The Return Of Black beard continues. An evil Leprechaun appears on the Seaview, he wants gold hidden under a nuclear complex.

However, a good Lep then appears and helps the Seaview crew battle the enemy Lep. Writer Charles Bennett was a man who remembered his roots. In the 1930s he wrote a script for a film called The Secret Of The Loch, then, three decades later, he wrote a script for Voyage, also called The Secret Of The Loch. Bennett wrote most of Irwin's 1950s/1960s motion pictures including The Big Circus (1959). Terrible Lep might be one of the most trashed hours in the history of Irwin tv but I don't care ... just like other Bennett Voyage scripts like The Heat Monster and The Deadly Dolls, Lep was more circus than sci-fic.

When LIS year two became a circus it went too over the top with Dr Smith and that badly painted alien planet set did not help things. But Voyage never forgets that Voyage is an EPIC and this episode features epic visuals of the flying sub. Pat and Crane are often seen at the FS1 controls and the camera actually pulls back to also include some of the sub's yellow shell. Also, new miniature effects of the sub. Any epic needs an epic music score and this has a highly unusual score by Leith Stevens that really captures the fantasy of the hour. Unusual seems to be the key word in doing this review. As a non-American I must say that Voyage is very American and it is oddly refreshing to have the Seaview in Irish waters with Irish Leps. Gerry Anderson's Stingray (1964) was British with American accents and with one Australian voice artist.

Sometimes, but not always, mixing the cultures does help. Despite all these unusual elements, it is the regular cast that holds the hour together. Sharkey walks into the control room trying to start up a conversation about Leps, this gives Nelson, Kowalski and Chip the chance to do a scene that steals the episode. It is not often that I put in a good word for Chip, but hey, I have to hand it to the guy here. His facial reaction to Sharkey is a gem. Then the camera slides over to Kowalski who also puts on a great facial reaction. In the final frames of the hour, Nelson is talking away to a Lep and the Leith Stevens score really captures the emotion of the scene, great film-making!

Over the years I have heard from so many Voyage fans in magazines, books and on-line. Only a small number of them mention the Voyage music scores or stock music scores as being an important element to the series. This is too bad and I feel if you don't like the Stevens score, well, you simply will not fully understand what this way out episode is all about! Be warned, such a way out, oddball and totally unique episode like this requires repeat viewing's before it will grow on you. I watched it three times in one week and after that I had a love/hate relationship with it, then, over three days, the show remained locked in my memory and it seemed to be casting a spell on me.

By the end of the three days I began to understand that the Leps were just as important to Voyage as the grim reality of year one's The Fear Makers and The Enemies. The fact that Voyage could go in any direction was a huge element to the series. To me, Voyage would not of been Voyage if the series remained the same for four seasons. QMs The Fugitive remained more or less the same for four years and, despite some high quality episodes, The Fugitive is NOT in the same class as Voyage. Thank you.