Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Episode Guide Year 3

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Production information and notes by Mark Phillips
Story synopses, Mike Bailey

Werewolf Original Airdate: September 25, 1966

Either a cover for a Steppenwolf album or a savage lycantrope.

The episode's ticking bomb....a volcano.

Above, scientist, soon to be dead, first espies contagious wolf as island's volcano rumbles ominously in the background.

Seaview is headed to study the potential danger of radioactivity from an island volcano when a scientist is killed by a radioactive wolf carrying the scourge of Lycanthropy. Another scientist (Hollis) is infected with the disease when scratched on the arm by the dying man. Shortly thereafter, waiting off shore, the Flying Sub's pilot is cut down by a man/wolf and when Crane contacts FS-1, it is Hollis who answers, saying that the pilot is dead, apparently the victim of a wolf attack. Seaview arrives at the island and Nelson & Crane find Hollis, the dead pilot and the Flying Sub in shambles.

In the reactor room, Hollis exposes his wounded arm to
the radiation his disease makes him crave.

Back on the island to retrieve the dead scientist's body are Crane, Hollis and a shore detail. Crane is almost killed by Hollis in another werewolf phase, but they all manage to survive a strong earthquake and make it back to Seaview where Nelson has ordered time-delayed implosion torpedoes (???) fired into the base of the island in the hope to prevent a major eruption. Doc studies tissues from Hollis's wound and discovers a strange virus that he had also found in the mauled, dead Witt. Doc tips off Nelson to his findings just as Hollis makes for the reactor room. He overpowers Patterson and sticks his infected arm into the reactor.

This seems to relieve his agony. He is eventually taken down with tranquilizer guns and confined in sick bay, only to later escape, claw Nelson and return to the island. It's now a race against time for Crane and a small shore party who must find Hollis on the Island before the implosion torpedoes implode -- they have 30 minutes. On the island, Crane comes between Hollis and the wolf, and Hollis miraculously attacks the wolf to save Crane. Now close to death, Hollis's blood is extracted, he dies, and Crane & company make it back to Seaview just in time to avoid the implosion bomb and for Doc to concoct an antidote to save Nelson.

The mask used in this episode was less effective than Ben Nye's makeup for the season four's Manbeast.
Yep, feelin' better.

Written: Donn Mullally
Directed: Justus Addiss Guest Cast
Dr. Hollis.....Charles Aidman
Witt.............Douglas Bank
Pilot.............Ralph Garrett
Corpsman.....Jim Arnett
Johnson.. .....Darryl Scott
McFadden
Missile Room man....
Orwin Harvey

Charles Aidman as Hollis--finally at peace.

Mark Says: This episode is hurt by a lack of subtlety - the director does little to enhance or create suspense. The wolfman looks kind of cool at first but the more you see of it, the more it looks like a shaggy dog. The biggest detriment to the show is the one-dimensional Dr. Hollis. Charles Aidman is a good actor but he plays it with so little energy and with so little vulnerability that you don’t get caught up in his tragedy. The sets are good, the action scenes play pretty well and I like the scenes where Nelson is behind the cage, fighting off his own werewolf transformation as Richard Bull (Doc) has this VERY worried look on his face.

And if this had been an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, we would have had several long and boring scenes explaining how a wolf got trapped on a tropical island. Voyage offers no explanation, which is part of its charm.

Mike Says: This episode might have been more subtly constructed and there are some terrible plot-holes (an unexplained wolf attack inside the Flying Sub seemingly shrugged aside by Nelson and Crane), but I still like it. Some of the island sets are really good and the cinematography frames the tortured relationship of control between the wolf, the disease and the humans. The episode does not fall into the soporific daze that so many of Voyage's jungle-staged eps do -- no endless scenes of people walking listlessly through the flora, barely exerting themselves, yet for some reason, constantly having to stop for breaks (only one such turn in this

Fabulous jungle sets and lighting.

episode). Director Justus Addiss (Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Adventures in Paradise) gives this outing a more intense Season-One kind of feel, even if some of the potential pathos got left on the dock.

Return to Episode Central