User Reviews

I enjoyed this episode - it was very exciting and it was not an easy rescue involving a complex dive (hence the full wet suits worn by Porter and Sandy) and explosives to free the trapped pilots. Brian Kelly and Luke Halpin were by now expert divers enabling the script writers to write more complicated underwater stories. This rescue comes complete with a very genuine looking sunken bomber!

This episode is the first of Season 3 so these are some thoughts about the whole third season. This ended up being the last season of Flipper and it was not just declining ratings that killed the once popular series. Both of the actors playing the two boys were getting too old for their characters. Luke Halpin was 19 when filming of Season 3 began and was 20 by the time it ended playing a 17/18 year old high school senior and Tommy Norden was almost 15 playing a 13 year old Bud. The impish mischief common to 11 to 13 year old boys that the script writers cooked up for Bud just didn't gel right using an actor who by now was almost as tall as, and stockier than, Sandy. Halpin had spent time in the National Guard straddling the start of the season and it shows in his shorter, darker hair. It's not uncommon for kids who are blond (or who go blond in the summer sun) for their hair to darken in late adolescence. Later in the season, to try and capture the signature blond mop of hair, Halpin died his hair blond as it grew back. In this series you can tell that Luke is a grown adult playing a high school aged teen - the age gap between Luke's real age and Sandy Ricks' character age was not apparent in the two movies and the first two TV seasons. By now Halpin had been acting as Sandy Ricks for 5 years with no other TV or movie roles and its almost as if he knew he'd been type-casted by the Sandy role. Little was he to know that Flipper was the high tide mark of his career - the lack of diverse roles since his childhood made securing substantive new roles post-Flipper far more difficult.

[Meanwhile, Flipper witnesses a small plane crash into the ocean. Fortunately there's only two men on board] Really this plane is not at all small: it is a 4 jet engine Vulcan Bomber of the Royal Air Force The crew usually was 5 men. The same aircraft was in 007 Thunderball (footage? Underwater) The 007 Thunderball movie was on the recovery of atomic bombs after the plane was hijacked by a faux "french pilot" (in service with the RAF ? And as pilot of an Atomic Bomber?) In the 007 movie the Canopy was released by the only survivor (aircraft crew on ejection seat) In the Flipper seem they are locked inside.. No canopy eject? And the door behind closed (in communication with the Bomb bay?) The "rescue team" Porter and Sandy use plaster esplosive to blow that door (Luckily bomb bay hatches are open) and save the 2 pilots with the SCUBA equipment.