VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA-TERROR ON DINOSAUR ISLAND

 VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA-TERROR ON DINOSAUR ISLAND 

TERROR ON DINOSAUR ISLAND

Writer-William Welch

Dir-Leonard Horn

 

Teaser

Benson, a crewman on Seaview, is what Kowalski calls a gold bricker. He asks him or Patterson to switch duty watches with him--a duty that Bishop has put him on (Bishop is the name of an officer from Season One). Pat goes to sonar watch. Ski suggest Benson ask his buddy Grady, "He's your pal."  Benson muses that Ski is right--he can talk that kid into anything. Sharkey and Nelson are in the Flying Sub (NOTE: the backdrop of the interior of the Flying Sub looks a bit odd--as if it were wooden, not well lit, and perhaps not the entire Flying Sub set-up). An island seems to rise out of the water at them. They believe they are witnessing the birth of an island. Chip gives lee a pressure report and Lee warns the Flying Sub--but it is too late. The Flying Sub heads for the crater which is blowing up! Nelson tells Sharkey to grab his chute and jump--they have ten seconds. They jump and the Flying Sub hits a plateau--and explodes via stock explosion from THE LOST WORLD (1960-and the Irwin Allen version).

 

Act One

Seaview has 8 windows. Pat gets the explosion reading. Chip calls Lee, "Sir, the island is blowing."  Over the intercom, Crane tells everyone to brace themselves. A shock wave hits and Seaview has four windows. Underneath the sea, the debre and trees hit Seaview in a turbulent whirlpool (stock from TURN BACK THE CLOCK) and the sub has 8 windows, then two, then four! Sparks is not in this episode. Nelson gets up in a fogged shrouded area where there is an unearthly silence. He passes his oddly spotted, leopard colored parachute lodged in a tree. He passes large vegetation and finds his radio no longer has its antenna--he tosses the antenna and the radio. Up high on rocks, Nelson scans and spots Sharkey below. He wakes him. Sharkey says, "Anytime you can walk away from a landing it's a good one."  Sharkey's leg seems fractured. Nelson must set the break (well, guys, is it a fracture or a break?). He must make a splint afterward. Nelson, who seems as if this is his first mission with Sharkey, says, "Chief Petty Officer from the US Navy on Leave, what do your friends call you?"  Sharkey says, "Francis,"  and Nelson laughs. He sets it and it, true to Nelson's warning, hurts. (NOTE: In TIME BOMB, Sharkey tells Katie that everyone calls him Sharkey). Patterson on Seaview picks up a large object or objects. Benson on bow lookout tells Crane and Chip he saw a large object. Chip asks Benson why he is here and not Grady. Before he can answer, a large Brontosaurus's face is at the window. It roars.

 

Act Two

The Brontosaurus (really an invalid name for a specimen that belongs to the genus Apatosaurus--although it should be noted that no one on Seaview calls it a Brontosaurus--just "thing") attacks as the crash doors close. Gen Quarters is called. They can't use a torpedo since it is too close. It hits mid ship with its neck (actually the neck looks like a giant squid arm prop used in the movie and the pilot). The head of the Bronto as seen through the Seaview window as well as later brief Bronto sequences are quite possibly stock edits from either Irwin's own THE ANIMAL WORLD or props from the movie DINOSAURS! which boasted models by Marcel Delgado--the man who worked on the original THE LOST WORLD and the original KING KONG. Either way, these models are far superior to the old lizards as giant dinos used in the second THE LOST WORLD and the original ONE MILLION BC and a dozen other films about giant lizards. Men run out of compartments filling with water and out of rooms to help each other. Stock from SUBMARINE SUNK HERE is here. Crane and Benson, Benson realizing Grady is in the lower compartment where 34 men are trapped, run to help. Ski and sailors help men out of the room. The Bronto hits again (squid arm again--you can even see the suction cups this time). Grady is trapped as halls shake and water comes pouring in to halls and a few lower rooms. Grady falls under--a man tries to reach him but can't. Grady seems to fall under and drown. Looking at this now, it seems he could have been saved...but Crane orders the hatch secured and shuts the door to the hatch area himself. Benson tells Crane he killed Grady. Quietly, they walk in the subsiding water of the upper hall. Seaview levels off. Compartments 40 to 48 are flooded but the water tight hatches are holding. General power is restored and they are on two thirds speed. Chip feels they can reach negative buoyancy. Nelson makes a flag pole from the parachutes but Sharky doesn't think anyone is coming--he doesn't like the looks of the island, they landed on the wrong island. As Nelson tries to explain, Sharkey talks of Manhattan Island (giving the impression he is from there). Nelson feels this island from the boon docks and flora, that the island has been above ground in recent times...yet they saw it rise out of the sea. Sharkey puts it more plainly, "You mean this island has been going up and down like a yo-yo."  Nelson calls him Francis. Seaview is on the beach...an interesting mock up set of the Seaview partly on dry land! Quite nice. Shipfitters and carpenters are fixing the ship. Crane asks Chip for Patterson and Ski to go with him. In the crew quarters, Ski and Pat come in joyous but tell Benson they are sorry about Grady. Pat is in a red outfit. Benson tells them Crane killed Grady and talks like he won't let Crane off the hook. Chip asks Pat and SKi to get their fatigues on to go with Crane. Benson volunteers. Pat tells Ski that is the first time he volunteered for anything. As Ski starts to remove his shirt, he watches Grady take out a gun. Nelson is on the rocks, looking around. Sharkey tells him to go scouting on his own but Nelson doesn't think it is a good idea. Sharkey tries to prove he can walk but hears a giant roaring of some animal. They hear and see brush moving in an effective use of the stock footage from THE LOST WORLD-1960-as the lizard slowly makes its presence known. Nelson tells Sharkey it has caught their scent (?) and diverts it, pushing Sharkey away, "Now move!"  He uses his gun but gets his foot caught between two rocks. Sharkey sees this and another lizard comes and fights the first one! Sharkey hobble-runs to Nelson, uses a stick to push the boulder opposite Nelson. The creatures roar in battle. (NOTE: music used here is from THE X FACTOR.)

 

Act Three 

There are some excellent effects as we see Sharkey pushing the rock and Nelson caught all in the same frame as the battling enlarged lizards. These types of effects would become common place on LAND OF THE GIANTS. Unfortunately we also hear the scream of Jill St. John from THE LOST WORLD which managed to get on the soundtrack by accident! Nelson is freed by Sharkey and they run, Nelson commenting that their one advantage is they are smaller and can hide under the rocks and foliage. Crane, Benson, Pat, and Ski start out but a small tremor rocks them. Benson has a rifle but calls Pat chicken. Ski interferes with, "You're the one who's always ducking the tough details."  Pat breaks them up just as a fight begins. Crane comes and asks about Benson being here. He tells Crane he is good with a rifle and thought he could help. Crane tells him they all feel badly about Grady--it couldn't be helped. They push in toward higher ground. The whole island is a volcano, Crane tells them. They hear a roar. Benson ducks away from Pat and Ski. Using binoculars, Crane is looking at a Brontosaurus eating from trees when Benson points the rifle at Crane's back. Crane reports to Chip--he is near the center of the crater. A quake shakes everyone, preventing Benson from shooting Crane. Seaview also shakes. Later, Crane makes the foursome take a break but Benson thinks it is wasting time and asks to split up--he with Crane. Ski and Pat talk among themselves--feeling even Crane is giving up hope of finding the other two. Ski feels they should have found some sign of the Admiral and the Chief and tells Crane this. He tells Crane, despite urging from Benson, that he and Pat will stay with him and Benson. Sharkey and Nelson watch a newer dinosaur which Nelson names a Stegosaurus. Sharkey says, "I don't care what his name is as long as he can't get to us."  This was used as a part of TV 55's promos on Long Island when they aired VOYAGE and LOST and GIANTS. The beast (from THE LOST WORLD-1960) knocks a tree down near them. They run and fall. Nelson needs to build a fire and uses wet leaves to make smoke. Sharkey takes out his wallet and has a little black book which Nelson wants to use. Sharkey doesn't want to give it up but one roar from the creature makes him hand it over. Nelson tears out pages but glances at a name he recognizes, "Oh, I used to know...uhmmm...."  Sharkey grabs the rest of the book back from him, "Just make a fire!"  Sharky tells him that in the Boy Scouts he never got his Merit Badge since he used matches to make a fire. Nelson makes a fire (?). Chip suggests Crane call off the search--the island looks as if it is about to blow up in minutes. Crane tells Chip to get ready to shove off, they will come back. Benson orders the trio to drop their guns, "Captain Crane--I'm gonna kill you."

 

Act Four

Crane tells Benson to stop this and they will forget all about it. He tries to talk sense into Benson, "Do you think I wanted to do what I did to Grady. Do you think I get some kind of sadistic pleasure out of it? What would you have had me do--lose the whole ship?"  Benson tells them he will kill all three of them. Ski says he will testify that Crane tried to kill Benson---there is no reason he should have to die for Crane. This allows Ski to get closer to Benson. Ski waves Crane off saying he never liked Crane anyway. Patterson tells Benson to count him out of their little plan. Ski grabs the rifle away from Benson and it falls. Crane tells Pat not to shoot Benson who runs off. Sharkey and Nelson hear shots--Pat firing at Benson before Crane's order. They think that the rescue party saw the smoke. The two run toward the shot sound but are blocked by a giant lizard. They go back. Crane, Pat, and Ski are almost lost and each thinks to go a different way and lots of tremors, geysers, smoke blasts hamper their efforts. The volcano blows up. The plateau blows blasts (LOST WORLD). Seaview shakes as Chip calls, "Lee, get back to the ship, we can't wait much longer."  Nelson helps Sharkey as lava flows dangerously close to them. Crane, Ski, and Pat see a giant lizard--the first one Sharkey and Nelson saw before--among the trees. Ski hears someone--unaware it is Nelson calling Crane's name over and over. Crane fires shots for them to follow, unaware of who it is but guessing and hoping it is, "The Admiral!"  He uses the binoculars and thinks the sound is from Benson--who runs into a dinosaur lizard who is rising out of the lava (LOST WORLD end dino). Contrary to publicity material and another, erroneous book, Benson does not get eaten by this dino---he falls as trees tumble down and gas shoots up from the ground. Crane warns him but Ski tells him to let him go. Crane says, "No, we can't let him die, not if we can save him!"  Crane yells at Benson to lookout. A geyser of hot gas hits him and he falls off a ridge of rocks (to where we don't really see).

 

Tag

Crane tells the other two that Benson is dead. Nelson and Sharkey get to the other three as trees fall, geysers open up, rocks fall down from the air. They get to Seaview which pulls back off the island into the water. The whole island blows up (ENEMY BELOW stock). Nelson tells Crane, later as they sit at the nose of Seaview that he cannot turn in a report about dinosaurs. Chip tells them that there is a problem in the galley---Pat brought back a souvenir from the island--a dino egg! It was in the galley refrigerator and took up space. Nelson wonders if it could be old Tyrannosaurs Rex himself. It is the evidence they need. Pat is credited as the Sonar Man for some reason. I also got the feeling that Riley was originally supposed to be the one who went with Crane and Ski on the island. The ending purposed a sequel just as THE LOST WORLD of 1960 did but just like that movie, it never happened. The first LOST WORLD was a silent movie that has the egg brought back to London to open up and have a dino--a bronto--attack the city. Brontos hardly ever went as deep as shown in TERROR ON DINOSAUR ISLAND, nor would they really attack the sub as they did. It is jarring to see two types of dino effects here--the Bronto (possibly from DINOSAURS!) and the giant lizard standard effect (albeit mixed well with tiny shots Nelson and Sharkey during the major battle). While much of this was seen already, some shots were new, mostly the mixing of the tiny images and the lizards--at least the tiny images were new. The other lizard effects were used over and over many times in other movies and in VOYAGE as well--TURN BACK THE CLOCK for one. The one really interesting sub plot here--the one with Benson--would have been much better if somehow Benson redeemed himself by purposely getting Nelson and Sharkey back to Crane, Ski, and Pat. In the way it was done, Benson's actions accidentally lead to their recovery of Nelson and Sharkey. It would have also have been more dramatic if some other threat besides the Bronto attacked Seaview--perhaps some Elamosaurus or other sea creature that was purported by scientists to actually live that deep under the sea. Pat is credited only as the Sonar Man. A new LOST WORLD and RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD was made as direct to video movies and are not bad at all taken in that context--they are better than this VOYAGE episode. They starred John Rhyes Davies of SLIDERS fame.

 

NOTE: I like the clever banter in this season and in this episode. What I don't understand is why it seems as if Nelson is getting to know Sharkey for the first time. They have already worked together for a time now..a short time, yes but why is Nelson acting as if this is the first time he's met Sharkey? That was a bit strange to me since they already went through THE MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, THE X FACTOR, THE PEACEMAKER, THE DEADLIEST GAME AND ESCAPE FROM VENICE together with VENICE and GAME being Sharkey-Nelson missions. Perhaps this is the first time they really talk as people and not as work partners or boss and underling. Here he tells Nelson his friends call him Francis but in TIME BOMB Sharkey tells Katie he is called Sharkey by everyone when she mentions Francis as his first name. This episode made good use of music from JONAH AND THE WHALE.