For me, the Terrible Leprechaun. Unbelievable garbage.
Why did the scriptwriters produce such appalling stories? What on earth was Allen thinking, he must have encouraged it?
The Terrible Leprechaun, Return of Blackbeard, Werewolf, etc, they are all absolutely ridiculous.
The third season of Voyage is unbelievable, the fourth season was a bit better overal but there were still some absolutely pathetic episodes.
The worst episodes of VOYAGE??? This was unbelievable garbage!!!
What in the hell was Irwin Allen thinking when he came up with these scripts?
Did he encouraged it? These were some of the WORST episodes of "Voyage" that appear during the show's third season. The fourth and final season of the series was a bit better quality,but overall there were some episodes that were not only pathetic but totally ridicious and absoultely silly. It was NO WONDER that actor David Hedison was set the quit the show during the third season...
The episodes were....
1. The terrible Leprechaun (Unbelievable garbage!!!)
2. The episode where the crew of the Seaview meets Captain Bligh???
3. The Nazi.
4. Aliens from another planet take the crew and the Seaview hostage.
5. The Return Of Blackbeard
6. The Werewolf
7. Giant Sea Monster From the deep
8. A British captain takes over the Seaview??
9. The Lost Island-where Admiral Nelson and Captain Lee land on a island inhabited by prehistoric creatures....
10. The Hippie Child whose mind bending powers take over the Seaview(this was the worst of them all!!)
First of all, David was never ready to quit the show. He had a five year contract, and had no intention of leaving. Neither did Richard, Robert or any of the regulars. In the sixties, actors didn't break contracts, as they do today. They had a sense of committement, no matter how the series was going, they did their best to make it work.
As to your list,
2. The episode where the crew of the Seaview meets Captain Bligh? Never was such an episode.
8. A British captain takes over the Seaview?? Never happened was no such episode
9. The Lost Island-where Admiral Nelson and Captain Lee land on a island inhabited by prehistoric creatures.... never an episode by this name. There were several episodes where they landed on Islands, only one where Nelson and Crane were on one together and theat one was the first season, Turn Back the Clock, and there were other characters with them. And it wasn't an actual landing,since the Island was beneath the ocean, and they were in the diving bell, drawn into it by a whirlpool.
10. The Hippie Child whose mind bending powers take over the Seaview(this was the worst of them all!!) This one never happened. You never watched This on Voyage... perhaps you are getting mixed up with Seaquest
Irwin was at the beck and call of the network. They made ALL the final decisons about content, not Irwin. They wanted it to be a kiddie show, not Irwin. Blame ABC for the quality of the show, not Irwin. Put the blame where it belongs, the network, not Irwin changed the show.
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Doomsday Island? ROFL!
The one scene that got me is the two guards guarding the circuitry room and one of the guards is looking down at the floor and the shadow of the creature approaching could clearly be seen on the floor! Yet the guard didn't react or alerted his colleague!
Has anyone notice how creatures and villains are allow to roam the ship freely down empty corridors even though there are suppose to be over 100 crew?!
Yes, such as the Episode from Season 1 called "Invaders"..... this dude from an advanced lost city under the sea is allowed to roam around the ship, he talks like an idiot, has no ears and I couldn't help wondering that if he was from such an advanced race why did he have such bad teeth? Did they lack dentistry 20 million years ago when his civilization was at its prime? Also, how come that at the most there were 4 crew fighting him and they all fight like fairies.....and seem to wait for him to draw his "ray" gun and shoot them.....Deerrrrrr!
shareThat episode wasn't so bad once you realize that the alien was played by a young Robert Duval.
shareThe puppet one with Vincent Price is really cringe-worthy. Even he couldn't save this episode, the puppets looked like leftovers from "Thunderbirds" which was an awful show in itself. Ugh.
shareThe episode in question, "The Invaders," is one of my favorites from year one, mostly because of the young Duval who would later be featured in another great guest turn in Allen's "The Time Tunnel" two years later.
shareI guess "young" is relative, but he was 34 at the time.
This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.
The shadow man episode was pretty bad.
"It's the stuff that dreams are made of."
Actors can't break contracts regardless of their character. People from the 60s weren't any more moral than they are today. Bigger hypocrites? Yep.
This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.
By the start of Voyage's third season Irwin Allen had three shows in production (Voyage/Lost In Space/Time Tunnel) and was already prepping for production of LAND OF THE GIANTS.
Quality control was going down the tubes since Irwin kept the same writers and directors working on all of his shows. William Welch was a perfect example; he wrote several decent first season Voyage episodes and had been promoted to story editor when the talented William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter departed for Mission:Impossible. Welch's output for Voyage resulted in many bad episodes most likely due to him being over-worked while contributing scripts to LOST IN SPACE and THE TIME TUNNEL. He should have turned down a few assignments but writers were well paid and he probably didn't want to lose the income.
I wouldn't blame the ABC for this situation. Irwin made all the important decisions and should have realized his 'regulars' were overtaxed and brought in some new blood.
Another factor was the cost of network television production. At the time, costs were increasing rapidly due to inflation and the use of color film (including processing and special effects). Networks pay a set license fee for shows and the evolving costs dictated that most of the episodes would have to take place on the Seaview with as much re-cycled footage as possible. That's why you see so many shots borrowed from Irwin's THE LOST WORLD feature, and why the creature costumes were recycled for LOST IN SPACE with only a minimum revamp. The same situation happened to STAR TREK and BATMAN. Remember how spare those third season BATMAN sets were?
Welch also wrote one of the fourth season's best episodes, "The Man of Many Faces," which proved he could deliver the goods given a little time and rest.
When you think of what could have been if writers like Harlan Ellison were allowed to write for the show...we'd be talking about classic episodes forty years later...instead of the turkeys!
Mike Clark
Harlan did write "The Price Of Doom" in Voyage's first season, but was so unhappy with the result (after 18 rewrites I believe) that he took his name off it and used his nom-de-plume Cordwainer Bird.
shareHarlan did write "The Price Of Doom" in Voyage's first season, but was so unhappy with the result (after 18 rewrites I believe) that he took his name off it and used his nom-de-plume Cordwainer Bird. -- ytsejammer
Episode 5, "The Price Of Doom": First "monster" story, albeit a great one!
http://www.vttbots.com/season_one_landmarks.html
Harlan Ellison was dismayed with the changes Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana made to his story (which included, among other things, a drug-addicted Enterprise crewman) – so much so, that he wished his credit to read "written by Cordwainer Bird," a request Roddenberry denied. Though Ellison had the final right to have his pseudonym attached, he claims that Roddenberry made veiled threats to the effect that if he did so he would "never work in this town again."
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever
share
By popular acclaim, this is the single best episode of the original series, earning a 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (and the other four nominees were all episodes of Star Trek). It was 25 years before another television program received the honor, "The Inner Light". TV Guide also ranked it #68 in their 100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History feature in the 1 July 1995 edition, and also featured it in another issue on the 100 greatest TV episodes of all time.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever
Harlan Ellison is a spoiled, overrated, egotistical maniac.
I met him at I-Con (a Long Island-based SF convention) around ten years ago. I brought with me an original copy of "The Price of Doom" for him to autograph. When I finally got to Ellison, he literally FREAKED OUT when he saw the script! He yelled at me with: 'where did you get this?! Do you know this is studio property and that I have the right to coinfiscate it?!' I was dumbfounded, and stuttering a bit. Finally, I told him that a friend had given it to me (not true I bought it some years earlier from a vendor). I asked him if he'd be kind enough to sign it, but he refused to do so. Ellison waved me off and that was the end of that. What a Drama-Queen! You'd think that a script from a series done more than two decades earlier wouldn't even merit such an over reaction. All I can say is: Mr. Ellison, you are a BIG JERK!
I know. I own the box set that includes The Price Of Doom LOL. Does anyone know if the original script can be read somewhere? I know there's a book about the original Trek episode City on the Edge Of Forever.
shareIt's been ages since I've seen this but I remember an episode where the Seaview was sailing under the South Pole (unbelievably stupid scientific error #1) and there was some flying fire monster hovering in the sky, causing the South polar ice cap to melt and sending chucks of ice down where they were crashing into the sub (incredibly stupid scientific error #2).
The scriptwriters simply followed the commands of Irwin Allen.Make no mistake about it,Allen was the man in charge & everyone knew it.He was infamous for having his TV series lack logical plots,character development & consistency.He would chastise writers if they introduced lengthy dialogue that was character revealing.If the writers attempted to address issues of plot rationale or continuity Allen would refer to it as "quibbling."He often said that his shows were about action,grand sets & FX.He called them "running,jumping" shows.He wasn't at all interested in producing episodes that dealt with issues or intriguing characters.Twilight Zone,The Outer Limits & Star Trek were sf series that offered substance & depth.Allen's shows were all sizzle & no steak.They were exactly what he wanted them to be.
shareThe scriptwriters simply followed the commands of Irwin Allen. Make no mistake about it,Allen was the man in charge & everyone knew it.
I wouldn't be surprised considering this was also the guy who directed both "The Swarm" and "Beyond The Poseidon Adventure". It's hard to believe it was all studio interference that accounts for the lack of quality in some (or even alot) of his work.
By far the worst season of "Voyage" mirrored the second season of "Lost in Space" where nonesencial storylines involving fairytales and wacky aliens were the norm. Not surprising that the worst years for both shows was the 1966-67 season when of course Irwin turned his energies to bringing
"Time Tunnel" to the TV screens. Thankfully, both 1967-68 seasons of "Voyage" and "Space" got back to basics with some much better scripts and episodes that were similar to what got the shows off the ground in the first place. But, the innane, and 'goofy' episodes slowly creeped back in, so that by the end of 1968 "Voyage" and "Space" had worn out their welcomes at thier respective networks.
They were bad, but we enjoy laughing at them!
shareI agree. The first season in black and white had much better and believable stories. The seasons where they went into fantasy: mermaids, rock people and so on was a bad turn to the show. It went downhill after than. It is on MeTV here on U-verse 2013.
shareThe vegetable people episode of Lost in Space has to be the worst one Irwin ever made.
"Gentlemen, This is a War Room, There's no fighting allowed in Here!"
The Great Vegetable Rebellion episode was unanimously panned by the actors also. lol
And now, my beloved disciples. The moment of truth... the needle of love
U-Verse? Really? MeTV is available over the air, too. I thought it was only over the air; I haven't paid for TV since 2006.
"Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from Magic."