GG2 - The Underwater Menace 2

We meet the main villain of the piece, Professor Zaroff, briefly in Episode One, but he gets his big unveiling in Episode Two. Now I see why this story has been dumped on so much. Zaroff so desperately wants to be a great James Bond villian - he has a way out scheme to conquer the Earth, he has a funny accent, he has a pet octopus, and so on and so forth.

Of course, Zaroff isn't a great James Bond villain. He's not even a good one. His idea of draining the ocean to raise Atlantis from t he depths is scientifically ludicrous, for one. (Obviously, science fantasy has fired the first salvo in the war between fiction and fantasy I mentioned a couple posts back). Zaroff probably thinks he's Goldfinger in a story that's more akin to Moonraker. I can't tell,though, if the character Zaroff's failings are because of because of bad writing by Geoffrey Orme or bad acting by Joseph Furst. At this stage, it's being hotly contested between the two.

I'm more happy about the fact that, after 13 straight, non-existent episodes (the longest such stretch that I'll have to endure), I can actually watch something where the pictures move next episode - hooray!