User Reviews

Episode 1.28, "The Creature", is an odd one because episode 1.25, "Cradle of the Deep" is so similar. In fact, I find them too similar...thus my score of 6.

When the show begins, you see stock footage of a Vanguard rocket on the launch pad. Suddenly, some ultrasonic sound strikes and there's a huge explosion. Soon, the Seaview is asked to assist Captain Adams (Leslie Nielsen) in learning what destroyed his rocket project. Unfortunately, through the course of the show, you see that Adams is about as well as Captain Ahab, as he has a dangerous desire to kill a giant Manta Ray(!???). To do so, he even puts the ship and crew at risk and earns himself a court martial.

In addition to being so similar to a previous episode, the show is craptastic towards the end...when the Admiral and crew are able to regain control of the ship yet inexplicably watch Adams so poorly he's able to AGAIN nearly destroy the ship!! Overall, a big disappointment.

Crazy-man Leslie Nielsen is on Seaview doing battle with a giant manta.

This would have got a ten out of ten rating before 1980 but the comical performance of Leslie Nielsen in the film Airplane! (1980) now takes one point away from it as after seeing Airplane! it is just impossible not to laugh at Nielsen when he takes himself so seriously, as he does in The Creature.

But away from Nielsen, The Creature is a knockout hour that features season one's best Seaview miniature effects (next to The Ghost Of Moby Dick).

We are now so close to season two beginning, and you can see that the Voyage series is warming up for that "bigger and better" look of the second year.

Well this episode is rather good and efficient enough to keep you interested, but it's not the highlight of the series. It takes place entirely in the submarine. But that's not the problem, if problem it is. No, not a problem except that we have already seen this topic with a giant monster, octopus or manta, that threatens the ship. Just a routine story which can be highly appreciated by the die hard fans of the show. A fantastic show that supposes to give from time to time so forgettable schemes, because so classical. But, I repeat, that's not a bad story. Not the best but not the worst either.

Never heard of the director.