Intersection Logs

I have finally acquired -- not that I couldn't have done so any time the last several years -- a copy of the Theodore Sturgeon novelization of the 1961 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea movie. Now, I've watched the movie a few times, and I know it's a universe or three over from the TV show, and not in the same direction as most of the fanfic I've seen. Even so, flipping through the book revealed a piece of dialogue that has completely broken my brain by its incompatibility with the characters I'm familiar with. Not in a million years can I see Lee saying that, not even in a severely altered state -- or Harry letting him get away with it, either. I'm not going to post it right now, but no doubt I'll blog the book in due course, and see if I feel the same way about it when I've read the whole thing.

This is going to make no sense to most of you -- it doesn't make much sense to me -- but I had a dream this morning,

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In the meantime, I'm getting no forwarder with the writing, but another story -- or at least a bit of indulgent fluff that might do as the setup for a story -- is telling itself to me.

Today's Voyage episode was the S1 The Village of Guilt, a.k.a. the one with the overgrown octopus. I laughed out loud when Captain Crane said that even if he saw a sea monster he wouldn't believe it, and Nelson solemnly told him that they did exist, but were only six or seven inches long. This was, I suppose, the first episode with aquatic megafauna, but by no means the last.

I'm falling for this show all over again, I really am. I did wonder about the tropical reef fish in a Norwegian fjord, though.

My stray package was waiting for me when I got back from lunch; the first sixteen episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in a slim package of three double-sided DVDs.

It's hard to explain why I love this show so much; I admit it's corny, and relies heavily on stock footage, and is generally regarded as strictly kids' stuff. I first encountered it when I was in my mid-twenties, living alone for the first time with a tiny old B+W TV that had no channel presets at all, just a tuning knob on the side. Channel 4 showed it at 1pm on Sundays, and I got adept at cooking my Sunday lunch in the commercial breaks. It was a fairly stressful time in my life, and the show -- silliness and all -- was my joy and delight. It had an adventure hero who was a scientist! It had characters who cared about and respected each other, without getting gooey about it. (That made a nice change from the endless squabbling and permanent annoying characters on Lost in Space and Land of the Giants, which had preceded Voyage in the same time slot.) And cool toys! And sea monsters!

It was also the only show that ever inspired me to fanfic, which meant that the characters stayed in my head for years after that Channel 4 run ended.

I got cable in London so I could see it again on the Sci-Fi Channel. Sadly, they cut it to pieces to fit in more empty commercial breaks -- they weren't actually selling much advertizing at the time, but the holes had to be there -- and the version on the US Sci-Fi channel that I taped when I moved to Tucson was even worse. It always seemed to be the little bits of character development that got snipped, not the endless stock shots or fights in the missile room. I've been waiting and hoping for these DVDs for a long, long time.

At long last, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on DVD!. Only three more months to wait!