This never should have been made into a series. Except for very early shows like "Sea Hunt" and "Flipper," nearly all undersea series sooner or later fall into the same trap. With some wonder but little drama beneath the waves, plots turn to alien invaders, time travel, dinosaurs, robots, mind control, evil twins/imposters, the supernatural and other claptrap. "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" was the first and most egregious example of this. After the first season's cloak and dagger plots were exhausted, Voyage became the rubber-suited monster of the week show. More recently, SeaQuest 2032 (née DSV) struggled mightily to stick with science, but eventually brought in a battleship-sized alligator, time travel to the Cuban missile crisis, even a ghost story, although it never sunk to VTTBOTS depths with leprechauns, the ghost of Blackbeard, lobster men, plant men, the abominable snowman and a werewolf. But none seemed to go straight to the schlock as this series did. According to this show, the sea floor is strewn with time and dimensional portals. Through them, water-breathing Mark Harris could venture to an arid desert region to face off against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to ancient Verona to actually meet Romeo and Juliet, and to the Old West, where he found the lost twin he never knew he had. All the while, it used and reused stock effects footage of the submarine from the first movie.
This was reportedly the first American show broadcast in the People's Republic of China. I wouldn't wish this on our worst enemies. Still, Patrick Duffy did like to say at the time that he was a bigger star in China than here in the US.
The WBshop has now released all of the TV movies and the complete series on DVD. One can clearly see how the quality plummeted through the second through fourth movies before bottoming out in the series.
This was reportedly the first American show broadcast in the People's Republic of China. I wouldn't wish this on our worst enemies. Still, Patrick Duffy did like to say at the time that he was a bigger star in China than here in the US.
The WBshop has now released all of the TV movies and the complete series on DVD. One can clearly see how the quality plummeted through the second through fourth movies before bottoming out in the series.