Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV Series) Turn Back the Clock (1964) User Reviews

The Lost World..erm, I mean "Turn Back the Clock"

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 13 May 2012]

This episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Seas borrows ideas from The Lost World, basically an adventure story as Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane follow the seemingly only survivor of an Antarctic expedition involving a diving bell which separated from its cable. A second diving bell carrying Nelson, Crane, survivor Jason (Nick Adams, Rebel Without a Cause; his character suffering from amnesia, or so they think), and the missing leader of the missing expedition's daughter, Carol (Yvonne Craig, known for Batgirl on the Adam West Batman 60s series) will soon discover a tropical oasis, along with dinosaurs, an active volcano (and lava), and a fire god tribe (including the stunning Vitina Marcus as a native girl whose curves and legs look mighty nice in animal skins). The character of Jason is seen at the beginning running from a dinosaur (a dressed up lizard), and he behaves suspiciously when he spots a compass once they return to the oasis. Later turning up looking like a haggard Moses is Les Tremayne as Denning, Carol's father. With impressive sets (you can tell producer Irwin Allen had far more budget in the early seasons than later when Fox's disastrous production of Cleopatra started to sink the studio financially) and lots of action (a duel between dinosaurs, one a dressed baby alligator, escape from a cavernous prison where human sacrifices are kept prior to a great fire god ceremony, Crane following after Marcus through a spider-webbed path, etc), "Turn Back the Clock" may not be particularly imaginative creatively, but it doesn't ever get dull, that's for sure. Voyage… often feels like a weekly B-movie creature feature and "Turn Back the Clock" is no exception.

OK episode

[darthquincunx · 6/10 · 7 June 2012]

There is a huge flaw with this episode in that there is just no way a tropical paradise could exist In Antarctica. Geothermals was used to try an explain it but even with this how do you how the tropical region could survive the Antarctic winter? Plants need light and sunlight is non existent during the polar winter, plants would die, the whole ecosystem would collapse. So when the doctor scoffed at Nelson's idea of a tropical zone in the Antarctic, he was right to! Nelson should have known better. Quite a bit of stock footage is used from Allen's Lost World. Irwin Allen did like to cut costs down! David Hedison said he did not enjoy working on the Lost World, so I wonder if he enjoyed acting out this episode?

Lifted most of the episode from 1960's "The Lost World"

[mcq_14 · 17 March 2006]

Funny, but when I recently watched this episode on DVD, I couldn't help but notice that Irwin Allen basically just used footage from his 1960 movie, "The Lost World." It, conveniently, starred David Hedison, and they brought back "native girl" Vitina Marcus to reprise her role. Most of the episode is simply clips from the movie, with some closeups to fill in the new plot. You can clearly see, in some of the shots, actors from the movie, such as Jill St. John, and others. The dinosaur fight is still interesting to watch, as are the interspersed shots of Hedison going from movie to TV show episode. I think the only thing Irwin Allen had to worry about in this show was continuity. Just use similar costumes and props and hope no one notices. Pretty funny.

Not entirely fantasy...though it WAS made on the cheap!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 18 September 2017]

The premise to this episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" is that a man (Nick Adams) escapes from a tropical island in the Antarctic! While this sounds very, very fanciful and ridiculous, there is SOME basis for this. Many years ago, I watched an episode of "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau". They were exploring the Antarctic and were shocked to find an area with greenery*. No, it wasn't tropical like in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"...but it wasn't icy and snow-covered due to geothermal activity. So at least I understand where they might have gotten the idea of this episode.

The show begins with Jason (Nick Adams) escaping from a tropical island. This gives Carol (Yvonne Craig) some hope, as Jason worked with her father...a man who disappeared some time ago. Oddly, however, they were working in the Antarctic...yet Jason appears to have no evidence of this. Could there be some tropical portion of this continent AND could the Doctor still be alive?

To create this lush world, they lifted significant portions of the early 60s film "The Lost World" and interspersed them in the episode. This is NOT a good thing. Despite David Hedison being in both, the dinosaurs in "The Lost World" were god-awful--monitor lizards and alligators wearing crappy prosthetics to make them look dinosaury...provided you are very drunk or are Mr. Magoo! Dopey is exactly what I'd call them...and it clearly takes away from the quality of the episode...especially if you've recently seen "The Lost World". I did...and recognized all of this. Because of this, I'd give this one a very low score of 4...it's a muddled mess and a lazy one at that.

*FYI. Some Facebook posts have described this region and say it's proof of Global Warming. Well, regardless of what anyone thinks of the theory, this region's been around for some time...so it's NOT a recent discovery (despite what some well intentioned folks say on Facebook).

A Batman tie-in, of sorts

[tforbes-2 · 7 April 2012]

"Turn Back The Clock" was an odd episode, in that two alumni of the 1966 "Batman" series, Jill St. John and Yvonne Craig, play the same role.

And there is a reason for this.

Back in 1960, David Hedison starred in a movie, "The Lost World," based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which Ms. St. John starred in. Four years later, it was a matter of recycling the story, with Yvonne Craig. Both Ms. Craig and Ms. St. John were tied in with "Batman," in that the former played Batgirl while the latter played the moll in the pilot episode, which established the series.

But that was little more than a year away, especially for Ms. St. John.

In the meantime, we get to see an episode where Yvonne Craig does the closeups, while Jill St. John does the longer shots (taken from the 1960 film). Vitinus Marcus reprises her role from 1960 here, and another Batman alumni, Robert Cornthwaite, has a role here as well. Not the greatest episode (David Hedison hated the 1960 movie), but it is still very interesting nonetheless.

Good But Not Great

[StuOz · 28 October 2016]

A lost tropical world is discovered.

The first of a few Voyage episodes about dinosaurs (the later ones are in colour) but this one has all that cool footage of the full scale diving bell surfacing in a lagoon and two guest stars who would later be known (to me) for roles in super hero shows. We have Yvonne Craig soon to be Batgirl in Batman (1966) and Les Tremayne who eventually become Mentor in Shazam! (1974).

Also, there is a funny bit between Crane and Chip on the deck of the Seaview concerning a cute girl being brought on the sub.

And finally, great "stereo" sound effects on the DVD.

However, there is no question that the hour features just too much stock footage taken from The Lost World (1960) movie.

In a nutshell: this hour is good but not great.