I fondly remember watching this show when it first aired in 1978. I was very excited about it thanks to previews in Starlog magazine, and had been waiting for it for months. I videotaped all three episodes on my dad's Betamax. I was 11.
I enjoyed it, but even at 11 I was *very* aware that it was, at root, a retread of the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea premise about a super-sub and it's super-genius owner/builder who save the world from certain annihilation every week. The sets were similar to Voyage ones, the feel of the show was similar, and at one point during a dive scene, we even get a few bars of the old Voyage theme music. I would not have been surprised if Admiral Nelson or the Seaview showed up at some point, it was just that similar. (And I later found out that the Nautilus miniature was actually a heavily re-worked Seaview miniature!) That said, it wasn't that good. I enjoyed it as only an 11-year-old weaned on crappy Irwin Allen shows can, but I was very much aware that it wasn't a really great show. It's about on par w/ some of the 4th season episodes of Voyage: watchable, but kinda' lame. Not only was it derivative of Allen's earlier work (And even managed to use a lot of stock footage), it had a strong dose of "Whatever people like right now" so you had shootouts very similar to the ones in Star Wars in corridors that resembled those of the Death Star, etc.
I'm a bit confused about the production, however: This aired as a 'series' that ran for 3 weeks, and wrapped up it's entire storyline. Years later, I saw it as a movie version that included - as far as I can tell - all of the 3 episodes of the series. I get the feeling this was perhaps filmed as a 2-hour-and-change movie, and then chopped into three parts to fill a hole in CBS' schedule or something.
I wouldn't mind watching it again, just to see how fuzzy my memory has gotten, but I didn't mind too much when it got canceled.
