‏William Welch‏

Little is known about how William Welch started in Hollywood. This under-rated and totally misunderstood style-over-logic writer is mainly known, to some, as the guy who scripted many highly entertaining, and totally way out, color episodes of Irwin Allen's adventure series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (1964-68).

Welch invaded the submarine Seaview with ghosts (The Phantom Strikes, The Return Of The Phantom, The Haunted Submarine, Cave Of The Dead) and a surprisingly amusing time traveler named Mr Pem (A Time To Die, No Way Back). Welch was able to keep these crazy situations semi-real by giving Admiral Nelson (Richard Basehart) realistic reactions to these Seaview invaders. Welch and Basehart actually made some viewers, more male viewers than female viewers, think that a mermaid, a mummy, ghosts and a time traveler could exist at the bottom of the sea. Logic was sometimes missing in these scripts but the highly entertaining style came in truck loads. Welch always made Richard Basehart sound so good, like no other Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea writer could. But many others would say the Welch-less black and white episode scripts were the best. Take your pick.

William Welch also did some highly regarded script work for the Irwin Allen's Lost in Space (1965) (1965-68) episode The Hungry Sea. Welch made the Robinson family, Don West, Dr Smith, and The Robot all seem so interesting.

Welch wrote one of the best episodes of Irwin Allen's time travel series -- The Time Tunnel (1966) -- episode title End Of The World. Welch gave General Kirk (Whit Bissell) attention grabbing lines that stole the hour. Once The Time Tunnel (1966) was axed in 1967, Welch simply shifted the time travel premise into three well scripted episodes of Irwin Allen's Land of the Giants (1968) (1968-70) series.

According to the IMDb, about 99% of Welch's lifetime work was for Irwin Allen and nobody else. Welch died of health problems a year or so after getting his name in the production credits of Irwin Allen's The Towering Inferno (1974). Rest in peace, William Welch.