City Beneath The Sea
1962 - United KingdomImagine a modern city, scientifically equipped and operated, built on an extinct volcano-500ft. beneath the Pacific Ocean...Imagine underwater rocket sites with launching pads aimed at the world's capital cities...These are the exciting background to ABC's new children's serial City Beneath the Sea, which will take the stars of the Pathfinder series, Gerald Flood and Stewart Guidotti, on new adventures. But instead of setting off for outer space they will embark on an exciting voyage in the atomic submarine Cyana and arrive eventually at Aegiria, a submarine city named after the sea - god Aegir. As science reporter Mark Bannerman and his assistant Peter Blake, Gerald and Stewart visit Cyana to see the tests of revolutionary new underwater electronic equipment. Cyana is dramatically captured by a pirate submarine and taken to Aegiria, the "brainchild" of Professor Ziebrecken (Aubrey Morris), a scientist with dreams of conquering the Earth through the control of "Inner Space."
The dark, silent, chilly world 500ft. below - which oceanographers are still trying to discover today - is the scene of Surrey writer John Lucarotti's story. And since the sea is virtually unknown, he has free scope to let his imagination wander. But the fantasy of the City Beneath the Sea doesn't stray too far from fact. Lucarotti's method is to take a known scientific fact and enlarge on it.
Published on December 4th, 2018. Adapted from original TV Times article November 1962 by Pat Dasey.