Review: Ultraman Episode 24 - The Undersea Science Center

 Ultraman Episode #24

The Undersea Science Center

Original Air Date: December 25th, 1966

Directed by: Toshihiro Iijima

Screenplay by: Keisuke Fujikawa

Review by: Toku Tom Fool

Can you believe they forgot to make this a Christmas episode? Anyways, the episode begins with Hayata, Ide, and Arashi landing a Jet VTOL dangerously too close to a building. They really shouldn't let Hayata near any of these machines. The three men take an elevator down to an underwater base and Ide is a little too excited about it. A little white girl named Jenny is the 200th guest to the underwater base which means she gets a submarine ride to the new Underwater Science Center. Unlike in Willy Wonka, she isn't joined by Grandpa Joe but instead she gets stuck with the President Yoshimura who runs the center. Her father is in the episode but he isn't allowed to go for some reason which truly shows this episode was made in the 1960s. 

Jenny and Yoshimura are joined on the submarine by Captain Muramatsu, Hoshino, and Fuji. Fuji is piloting the submarine and Muramatsu tells her to be careful. They show Jenny some underwater creatures and they speak to her in Japanese but we find out she speaks English later in the episode. I have no idea if she even understands anyone. The submarine hits some sort of problem and the underwater pipeline breaks unbeknownst to the crew. Fuji drops the four of them off at the Undersea Science Center and leaves in the submarine. Muramatsu quickly discovers a problem and calls for Fuji to comeback and she realizes the pipeline is broken. Unfortunately, Fuji can't get back because the dock was destroyed by an underwater monster with a drill head. 

Ide, Arashi, and Hayata are trying to figure out what happened when Fuji returns to them and tells them about the pipeline. She believes it is all her fault so she takes this hard. The four at the the Science Center are starting to run low on oxygen. The moron President is trying to smoke a cigar when Muramatsu tells him he is polluting the air. Poor Jenny is crying with her head down on table. Hoshino tries to cheer her up with some funny faces and he does get a smile from her. The rest of the SSSP come up with a rescue plan involving a ship they call "tortoise" which they can use to get Muramatsu and company out of the Science Center.

 

We get some Nintendo trading cards product placement in this episode. Crazy to believe how long Nintendo has actually been around when most people probably just think of the NES being the start of Nintendo. President Yoshimura is tired of playing cards. All he wants to do is escape this place and he almost floods the place before Muramatsu stops him. Poor Jenny passes out from lack of oxygen but Muramatsu had been hiding some oxygen tanks so he finally gets those out and passes them out to everyone except himself. Jenny is fine after this. 

Ide and Fuji take the tortoise machine and Hayata and Arashi take a different submarine to the Undersea Science Center. Fuji wants to be the one that helps by doing the deepsea dive into the water and entering the Science Center. She gets out of the tortoise and that underwater drill monster comes out and tries to attack. She's able to avoid any trouble and accomplishes getting Muramatsu, Hoshino, Jenny, and President Yoshimura into the tortoise machine. Arashi and Hayata are happy about a job well done but then the drill monster named Gubila attacks their submarine and knocks it into the ground. Never ride with Hayata. Arashi is knocked out so this allows Hayata to transform into Ultraman.

We get a little underwater moving around by Gubila and Ultraman until Gubila drills into the ground and somehow comes out on land. Gubila must have went up at some point but we didn't see it. Ultraman flies into the air and lands on the back of Gubila because Gubila is a monster that Ultraman can ride which is always a hoot. Ultraman sends Gubila into a building which hopefully had no people in it. I was worried it was the above ground section of the underwater base but probably not. Ultraman steps on Gubila's tail during the fight which is humorous and this leads to Gubila getting angry and then getting monkey flipped through another building. Ultraman needs to be more careful with these buildings. He tries the Ultra Slash disc attack but Gubila uses his drill to send it right back at Ultraman. That's when Ultraman realizes this drill is a real problem so he chops it right off and hits the Spacium Beam to blow Gubila up.

The episode ends with Jenny reuniting with her father that looks like he could be her grandfather and everyone is happy. Arashi wakes is worried about Hayata but Hayata is in the submarine's driver seat ready to get them back to safety. Arashi gives him a weird look like maybe he suspects Hayata of something to end the episode. 

I tend to watch these episodes twice when I do these reviews. The first time I just watch and the second time I watch while writing these reviews to remind me of everything that happened. This is the first time where I thought the episode was way worse on the rewatch. I remember thinking this episode was decent the first time but the second time I didn't like it much at all. The stuff I did like was Hoshino being nice to Jenny and Fuji wanting to fix what she thought was her mistake. That stuff was good but everything else is just dull. I did enjoy the Ultraman fight as silly as it was but overall I don't care for this episode. 

Ultraman episode 25 is titled "The Mysterious Comet Tsuifon" which I think sounds pretty exciting. Maybe I don't like underwater episodes because the more space type episodes appeal to me more. We'll find out if I actually like the episode next time. Follow me on Twitter @TokuTomFoolery where I will be live tweeting episode 25 and all future episodes of the 1966 Ultraman series. Well, the next episode aired in 1967 but you get the point.