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The late writer/producer/director Irwin Allen (1916-1991) was the engine behind a slew of wildly imaginative, pulp-adventure sci-fi shows from the 1960s, as well as the director/producer of several iconic 1970s ‘disaster’ movies (in terms of genre, not box office success), including “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972), “The Towering Inferno” (1974) and “The Swarm” (1978). After his successes, he still toiled in lower-budgeted TV shows, such as “When Time Ran Out” (1980) and “Cave In” (1983). Successful or not, Allen always did whatever he could to entertain his audiences, working with budgets ranging from paltry to healthy. I still remember seeing “The Poseidon Adventure” “Towering Inferno” and “Earthquake” theatrically as a little kid, and audiences in those days ate them up; especially “Earthquake,” with its ‘Sensurround’ gimmick (a strategically hidden subwoofer to make the seats rumble during key scenes of the movie). Irwin Allen was a master showman, if not necessarily a high art auteur.

In 1998, seven years after Allen’s passing, New Line Cinema (since merged with Warner Bros) produced a big-budget feature film reboot of Allen’s successful “Lost in Space” TV series (1965-1968), with high-end visual effects (for the time) and an all-new cast (including 1990s names such as William Hurt, Mimi Rodgers, Gary Oldman, Heather Graham & Matt LeBlanc). The screenplay, written by future Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman was loosely based on several episodes of the series, including the pilot episode “Stowaway” and “Derelict.” Despite its high energy rollout (including a pop remix of legendary composer John Williams‘ third season title music for the TV series) the modestly successful movie was creatively disappointing. One reason for this laid with its less-than-stellar script (something the TV series was deeply guilty of for much of its run as well), which featured lots of dated 1990s-isms and some downright embarrassing dialogue.

Note: Akiva Goldsman won an Oscar for his screenplay of 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind,” the somewhat fictionalized biography of the Nobel laureate John Nash (Russell Crowe), a brilliant mathematician and economist who also suffered from paranoia and other mental afflictions. Directed by Ron Howard (“Apollo 13”), the film was a definite feather in Goldsman’s cap, given him considerable clout.

More recently, Netflix rebooted “Lost in Space” (2018-2021) for a successful three-season run (like the original). The reboot took its familial space colonists much more seriously, as the latest version of the Robinson family (Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, Taylor Russell, Mina Sundwall, Max Jenkins), pilot Don West (Ignacio Serricchio), and a gender-swapped Dr. Smith (Parker Posey) struggled to survive on an uncharted planet, following the destruction of their orbital space platform. Along the way, young Will adopts an alien-made, largely mute robot, who bears a dark secret (this model is more Cylon than the original TV series’ eager-to-please ‘B-9’). Under show runners Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, the new series felt like it’d finally achieved the largely untapped storytelling potential of the original series and the 1998 feature film.

Note: After seeing the pilot episode of 2018’s “Lost in Space” on a big screen at WonderCon 2018, I became an instant fan. Highly recommended.

Tune in Next Week…

Last month, a press release was issued to various outlets announcing that several classic Irwin Allen TV shows from the 1960s were being rebooted for Legendary Entertainment into a collective ‘shared universe,’ under the creative control of no less than 1998’s “Lost in Space” screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who hits as often as he misses (much like his late predecessor Irwin Allen). With “Lost in Space” already spoken for, the first of the three newly-rebooted Allenverse shows is “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1964-1968), based on Allen’s successful 1961 feature film of the same name starring Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lorre and Barbara Eden. The series made a full buffet out of the 1961 movie’s fast food premise, as viewers followed the ongoing adventures of an advanced prototypical nuclear submarine, the SSRN Seaview.

The TV series featured Richard Basehart (1914-1984) as commanding officer Admiral Harriman Nelson, with David Hedison (1927-2019) as executive officer Captain Lee Crane, along with a revolving door of colorful guest stars. Like “Lost in Space,” the series began in black & white, before shifting to color in season 2. And like “Lost in Space,” the shift to color also led to increasingly silly storylines as well, going from spy and espionage-adventure stories in its first year to lobster men, aliens, humanoid robots and ocean-dwelling civilizations later on. Managing to last four seasons, “Voyage…” was arguably the most successful of Allen’s shows, even if “Lost in Space” remains more popular in the cultural zeitgeist today.

Next came Irwin Allen’s “The Time Tunnel” (1966-1967); a color, one season-wonder that was a clear inspiration for NBC’s later “Quantum Leap” (1989-1993) and its short-lived revival (2022-2023). With an ensemble cast that included Whit Bissell as Project Leader Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk, John Zaremba as Dr. Raymond Swain, and Lee Meriwether (1966’s “Batman: The Movie”) as Dr. Ann McGregor, the series saw impulsive young scientist Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren) taking his own ‘quantum leap’ into the tunnel, with his mentor Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) entering the man-made temporal vortex of “Project TicToc” to retrieve him. The two men are then trapped in time, with their exploits in history being closely monitored in the project’s massive, top-secret subterranean base.  Their exploits ranged from landing on the deck of the RMS Titanic, to the Old West, to battling aliens from Venus. Granted, the show lasted only a season, but a typical season for a TV series in the 1960s ran about 30 or more episodes, which is nothing to sneeze at. This series nudged the equality needle a bit by casting Meriwether as a scientist, not a sex kitten. A significant step.

In the wake of “The Time Tunnel”‘s cancellation, the ever-ambitious Irwin Allen rolled out “Land of the Giants” (1968-1970); another full-color sci-fi series that managed to last two seasons before it too, got the axe. The show took place in the ‘future’ year of 1983 with the suborbital passenger plane Spindrift going on a cross Atlantic flight to London before it’s caught up in a dimensional gateway and crashes on a parallel, Earth-like planet where everything is roughly 12 times its normal size. Starring Gary Conway as Spindrift pilot Steve Burton, Don Marshall as copilot Dan Erickson, Don Matheson as wealthy engineer Mark Wilson, Heather Young as flight attendant Betty Hamilton, Deanna Lund as heiress Valerie Scott, Stefan Arngrim as 12-year old orphan passenger Barry Lockrige, and Kurt Kaznar as Alexander Fitzhugh; a fugitive who’d stolen $1 million and was escaping to London. Unlike Allen’s other shows, “Land…” had a bit of political subtext, as this parallel planet of colossi was dominated by an authoritarian leadership that was aware of the ‘tiny creatures’ living on Earth. The series ended without resolution, as most cancelled series did in those days (and today as well, particularly with US television). Like “The Time Tunnel” and its character of Dr. Ann McGregor, “Land…” strived to be a bit more modern by nonchalantly casting the late Don Marshall ( 1972’s “The Thing With Two Heads”) as Dan Erickson, the Spindrift‘s African-American copilot. For context, the series premiered only a few months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

News of the reboots, quoted from a staff-credited article at MeTV.com :

Three of Irwin Allen’s iconic sci-fi shows are getting new life for a modern TV audience. Land of the Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and The Time Tunnel will soon be reimagined by an Oscar-winning writer, producer, and director.

Akiva Goldsman will be developing a new “universe” based on the three shows. This won’t be the first time that Goldsman has been tasked with reinventing old properties — Goldsman wrote the screenplay for 1995’s Batman Forever, as well as the follow-up Batman & Robin. Nor is it his first time working with Irwin Allen’s content! He wrote and produced the 1998 Lost in Space film, starring William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Matt LeBlanc, and Heather Graham. While the movie’s reception was negative, it was a success financially and ended Titanic‘s 15-week run as #1 in the box office. 

In 2002, Goldsman won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the Ron Howard-helmed A Beautiful Mind. He would go on to collaborate with Howard again in 2005 with Cinderella Man, in 2006 with The Da Vinci Code, and in 2009 with Angels & Demons.

Goldsman also has experience reviving classic 60s series for a modern TV landscape. He’s worked on Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Akiva Goldsman’s Mixed Bag

Like his predecessor Irwin Allen, writer/producer/director/showrunner Akiva Goldsman’s track record is decidedly mixed. An Oscar winner with an extensive list of credits for writing, producing and directing, Goldsman brings considerable showrunner experience to these Irwin Allen reboots, but his failures are often as spectacular as his successes.

While some see him as a hardworking journeyman writer-producer, there are others who see him as everything wrong with modern entertainment. For every “A Beautiful Mind” (2001) or “Cinderella Man” (2005), there is also an “I Am Legend” (2007) or “Batman & Robin” (1997). Alternating between terrific and terrible, Akiva Goldsman’s work always seems to maintain a good enough standing in the industry to fund his next projects. He’s one of the few writer/producers who truly straddles the line between Oscar bait and unadulterated, unfiltered crap. His TV successes have also run the gamut, with engaging cult-TV stuff like like “Fringe” (2008-2013) and his miniseries adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” (2015), which led to his often troubled run with Star Trek.

Goldsman was one of the sought-after writers handpicked to bring Star Trek back to television/streaming (after a 12-year hiatus) with Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Discovery” (2017-2024); a five season series that never quite seemed to find a comfortable stride as it course-corrected all over the map. Despite a game cast, the show became stuck in overly-elaborate “puzzle box” story arcs that trapped viewers for a whole season before going belly up with mediocre resolutions. Goldsman also worked on the similarly-troubled “Star Trek: Picard” (2020-2023) before striking his arguably first surefooted Star Trek success with “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (2022-present); though that series second season hasn’t lived up to the promise of its first. Here’s hoping season 3 (airing later this year) gains altitude once again.

Irwin Allen shows are more sentimental favorites than high-brow sci-fi, but they have passionate fanbases that must be served as well, no matter how niche. Time for some of that line-straddling, I think…

Inspired By…

Irwin Allen’s sci-fi shows had fun premises that would serve to inspire other writer-producers later on. The little-seen sci-fi fandom comedy film “Free Enterprise” (1999) had a great line about how Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek (1966-1969) simply took Irwin Allen’s “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” into space. Comparing the two shows, there is certainly a similar dynamic; each features stalwart crews aboard advanced government vehicles seeking out “new life,” both at the ocean depths and among the stars.

Continuing that train of thought, the exploits of Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Phillips in “The Time Tunnel” might have easily served as inspiration for the TV series “Quantum Leap” (1989-1993), as well as its short-lived revival (2022-2024). Like “Time Tunnel,” “Quantum Leap” also had a large, top-secret government time-travel project with an operative trapped in time. The time-travelers of both “Time Tunnel” and “Quantum Leap” had no control over where fate would place them next, making an ideal anthology format within a nice, neat sci-fi frame. While Doug and Tony could leap anywhere in time, Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) was usually confined to leaping within his own lifetime, which began in 1953 (thus saving on expensive period sets/costuming, no doubt), though Sam’s successor Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) was allowed a lot more leeway in his leaps.

The 1990s would also see a quasi-remake of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” with creator Rockne S. O’Bannon’s “SeaQuest DSV” (1993-1996). Produced under mega-director/producer Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment for NBC/Universal, the series starred Roy Scheider (“JAWS”) as “Capt. Nathan Bridger,” who’s pulled out of retirement in 2018 (when 2018 was still ‘the future’) to take command of the advanced SeaQuest submarine. The cast included Don Franklin (“Commander Jonathan Ford”), Stephanie Beacham (“Dr. Kristin Westphalen”), Royce Applegate (“Chief Manilow Crocker”), Ted Raimi (“Lt. JG Tim O’Neill”), the late Jonathan Brandis (“Lucas Wolenczak”) and a dolphin crew member named “Darwin.” The big-budgeted show struggled to stay on the air (critics slammed it as “voyage to the bottom of the ratings”). After Scheider departed in season 2, new cast members came aboard for a 13 year time-jump and one final season under a new skipper (Michael Ironside) with a new title; “SeaQuest 2032.”

After that third season ended in 1996, “SeaQuest” was dead in the water, though its three seasons are still streaming on Peacock as of this writing.

Possibilities & Potential

Of the three Allenverse series getting the reboot treatment, I’d imagine “Voyage of the Bottom of the Sea” arguably has the best odds for success, given there’s nothing else quite like it streaming right now (when’s the last time we had a submarine TV show after “SeaQuest”?).

Like “Strange New Worlds,” “Voyage…” has the potential to be both futuristic and lovably retro. I only hope that Goldsman and company keep the storylines episodic and clean–none of these overly-elaborate, season-long puzzle-boxes that smothered some of the recent Star Treks. There certainly can be character arcs throughout the seasons (and there should be), but here’s hoping they keep the central stories confined to single-hour, easy-to-digest stories. That’s one of the secret ingredients in classic TV shows I miss most in modern TV/streaming. So much easier to say “the one with the lobstermen,” rather than “the one where they find yet another clue to the artifact that might lead them to their destination.” For chrissakes, keep it simple.

While time-travel is certainly more widespread in the cultural zeitgeist than submarine shows (“Doctor Who,” “Quantum Leap,” “Continuum,” “Timeless,” “Twelve Monkeys” et al), “The Time Tunnel” presents another chance for make something overused feel fresh again. As we saw in recent Marvel movies and TV shows with the Time Variance Authority, the idea of a temporal Grand Central Station is an appealing one, though it requires a deft touch, since other shows and movies have used one version or another of this idea. Even classic Star Trek’s celebrated “City on the Edge of Forever” was predicated on a mysterious time portal where one could step into a different era at will. That notion of living out different times and lives is part of the basic allure of all entertainment at its core. On the one hand, I wonder how a “Time Tunnel” reboot could possibly fail. On the other, I remember that even the original only lasted one season.

“Land of the Giants” is arguably the most batshit-crazy premise of the three, but watching it again a few years ago on Hulu, I was struck by how surprisingly grounded and even vaguely political it felt; despite the fact that characters were standing next to giant 20th-century prop telephones and pencils. There have been a few shrunken people movies in the years since the show’s 1970s cancellation (the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” film series, for example), but it’d be interesting to see this admittedly comical notion played completely straight–even if its ‘giants’ inexplicably violate the cube-square law. Modern visual effects can give the giants considerably more heft and gravitas than was possible in 1968, and the greater freedom of streaming content might even allow it to explore a few risqué size fetishes and kinks, as suggested with 1965’s “Village of the Giants.” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this genuinely weird idea actually catches fire again.

Another upside to rebooting all three of these Allenverse sci-fi TV shows is their new shared universe (à la Marvel, or DC). This certainly feels organic, given the similar tones of the original three shows back in the 1960s. The Spindrift could’ve easily come from the same universe as the Seaview. One of the strengths of a shared universe is that the other shows can pick up the slack of a failing sibling. If all three series (somehow) succeed, there’s also the promise of crossovers.

The success of these reboots will depend on how smartly the writers and producers mine their source subjects, as well as updating them enough to avoid being anachronistic curiosities. It’s certainly a risk, but if one wants to follow in the steps of of the late Irwin Allen, one has to dream big.

Where to Watch

All four of Irwin Allen’s vintage sci-fi TV shows from the 1960s are currently airing on the vintage MeTV (a cable/antenna-based free network). The original “Lost in Space” (1965-1968) can also be streamed on Hulu and Disney+ as of this writing, with the 2018-2021 reboot available on Netflix. “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” “The Time Tunnel” and “Land of the Giants” are not currently streaming on any subscription service, but can be purchased digitally on Amazon Prime Video and/or iTunes. Allen’s sci-fi shows were released on DVD/Blu-Ray (season by season or in box sets), though those sets are increasingly difficult to find outside of Amazon.com (prices vary). Good hunting!