Undersea Adventure Becomes Waterlogged Soap Opera At Hands Of Cbs

Even Jules Verne couldn’t have imagined how television would transform his classic underwater adventure, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” into “The Love Boat.”

You can just hear the reasoning at CBS, which on Sunday airs the first of two new TV versions:

“We knew the 18- to 49-year-old women who make up most of our TV-movie audience wouldn’t watch an all-male adaptation - even though it would be true to the book. So we turned Professor Aronnax’s male assistant into his daughter, and she becomes part of a romantic triangle with Captain Nemo and the harpoonist.”

ABC’s four-hour miniseries of “20,000 Leagues,” scheduled for May, promises to be an equally silly cruise: This time, Nemo has the daughter, so she can fall in love with Aronnax.

Before CBS’ two-hour take becomes a full-fledged soap opera - and rejects Verne’s ambiguous ending in favor of a neater denouement - the movie flashes possibilities.

Richard Crenna, as marine biologist Aronnax, makes a regal entrance; a beefy Paul Gross (“Due South”) is sufficiently scruffy as the skeptical harpoonist Ned Land; and Ben Cross (“Chariots of Fire”) is plenty weird as Captain Nemo.

Even though it has the same arch faux period touches that haunt most cheap-looking TV productions the fine clothing, the British accents, the overly mannered civility of the characters - CBS’ “Leagues” can’t diminish the wonder of Verne’s strange, simple story, at least for an hour or so.

After a series of ships are rammed by an underwater “creature,” the U.S. Navy sends the Abraham Lincoln to investigate.

Among those on board the Lincoln are Professor Aronnax; his daughter, Sophie (Julie Cox); and Land.

It’s the late 1860s, so no one suspects that the creature is really a submarine, until its green-lit mass repels Land’s harpoon. The trio of protagonists are thrown overboard, only to be taken captive by the elegant, nutty Nemo.

For years, he has lived underwater in his self-sustaining sub, the Nautilus, shunning the world above the surface. He rams warships to avenge a wrong that is not named in Verne’s book and only briefly outlined in the CBS movie.

The uniforms worn by Nemo and his crew are one of the movie’s few inspired design elements: gray, shiny versions of the Star Trek look.

But from the beginning, the movie hints that it will turn into a romantic struggle, and soon the fight over Sophie takes center stage. Cox, who plays Sophie as a tough feminist, gets more and more bug-eyed as “Leagues” progresses, and you can’t blame her.

Nemo tries to seduce her with gold, fine dresses and his museum of art treasures gathered from sunken ships. Land uses his macho demeanor before evolving into Mr. Sensitive Guy with his own tragic past.

Even compared with the famous 1954 Disney version, in which Kirk Douglas’ Land played the accordion, CBS has struck a sour note.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” will air at 9 tonight on KREM-TV, Channel 2.