| "Big Fish" | |||
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| Joe 90 episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 10 |
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| Directed by | Leo Eaton | ||
| Written by | Shane Rimmer | ||
| Production code | 7 | ||
| Original air date | 1 December 1968 | ||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Joe 90 episodes | |||
"Big Fish" is the tenth episode of the British Supermarionation television series Joe 90. It was first broadcast on 1 December 1968 on ATV Midlands.
Contents |
When a submarine is crippled inside enemy waters, it is up to Joe to remove it before the military regime discover the craft and cancel free elections to be held in the state.
Having completed target practice, a U85 nuclear-powered submarine is returning to base. However, a torpedo tube fails to close prior to re-loading and the resulting flood causes the vessel to sink and crash on the ocean floor. Alarmed to find that the submarine has drifted miles off course into the territorial waters of Porto Guava, a Latin-American military dictatorship, the two crewmen transmit a distress signal and abandon ship via the airlock. Following a near miss with a Porto Guavan patrol boat on the surface, a rescue helijet airlifts them to safety.
At the McClaine cottage in Dorset, England, Shane Weston and Sam Loover explain to Professor McClaine and Joe why it is in WIN's interest that the U85 be removed from Porto Guavan waters as quickly and as quietly as possible: if its presence were known, military leader Juan Chaves would have an excuse to cancel upcoming free elections, dashing all hopes for democratisation in the country. With one narrow torpedo tube the only access to the submarine, Joe 90 alone can dive to the U85 and enter it, pump out all the seawater and pilot the vessel into international waters. Equipped with the brain impulses of aquanaut Bill Frazer, supplied by the BIG RAT, Joe flies to Porto Guava with Mac for what is ostensibly a one-week fishing holiday.
At the harbour, Mac offers a boatman, Miguel, a large amount of money for the private hire of his yacht. While Mac fishes, Joe carries out underwater reconnaissance with the BIG RAT electrodes fitted to his diving mask. Father and son intend to complete the mission that evening. Later, Miguel visits the McClaines in their hotel room and confesses that, suspicious of his customers' motives, he spied on the yacht from the rocks. He warns the McClaines that they are inviting the unwanted attention of the authorities. In fact, a lieutenant has already reported a sighting of a boat to Chaves, who decides to accompany the patrol boat that night.
Arriving at the dive site in the yacht, Joe kits up and submerges, Mac telling Miguel that his son is hunting a "big fish". Disaster strikes when Joe traps his leg in a giant clam, unable to extricate himself, with a dwindling air supply. Meanwhile, Mac and Miguel have been discovered by the patrol boat. Noticing that Joe is nowhere to be seen, Chaves arrests the men on suspicion of murder and orders that the boat be put in tow. By the next day, Mac and Miguel have been sentenced to death and are awaiting execution by firing squad. However, to their joy, Chaves enters their prison cell only to announce that the convictions have been overturned. He presents Joe, who freed his leg just in time and succeeded in moving the submarine. Soon, Miguel drops by the hotel with a proposal to capitalise on Joe's diving skills for profit. However, after all their excitement, Mac and Joe are simply looking forward to flying home.
Shane Rimmer was first offered the chance to script Joe 90 while writing a book with Century 21 script editor Tony Barwick. Barwick contracted Rimmer to contribute two scripts to the series (one being "Big Fish", the other "Splashdown").[1] "Big Fish" incorporates footage re-used from the 1966 Thunderbirds episode "Lord Parker's 'Oliday": the McClaines' hotel in Porto Guava is the same model as the Monte Bianco Hotel that appeared in the earlier series.[2] Music for this episode was recorded on the 10th April 1968 at CTS Studio between 2:00 to 6:00pm along with music for the episode The Unorthodox Shepherd.[3]
Historian Nicholas J. Cull links this episode to other as such as Arctic Adventure and Attack of the Tiger looking at the use of Nuclear Technology. Unlike previous episodes he points out that in this one it shows Nuclear Technology in more favourable light.[4]
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