• Episode 1
• Episode 2

Theodore Lytton is an offbeat scientist struggling to finance expeditions to prove his more outlandish theories, so when Alice Hastings asks him to take on a trip into the heart of the deepest caves in New Zealand, he jumps at the chance and takes his rather fearful nephew Jonas along for the ride. In New Zealand, they are joined by a shady bloke by the name of McNiff and by Mrs Hastings herself, much to Theodore's dismay. Making their way through the heart of the Maori uprising, they descend into the caves and find many strange and wonderful things, but none so strange as the tribe of humans who appear to speak English.

This mini series (the number of episodes depends on where you're seeing it) claims to be based on the novel by Jules Verne and goes on to change just about everthing in the novel. No academic from Edinburgh here, but a square-jawed american hero from the stable of Indiana Jones. The descent through Iceland's extinct volcano is switched to caves in New Zealand which means that there is a whole bunch of wandering around through the Maori uprising that is far more dull than it has any right to be and leans heavily on the use of real Maoris to create some sense of place and scale. Even the driving force of the novel, the journal of Arne Saknussen is reduced to a name check on a dismissed theory.

Eventually, the team get underground and things return to the source novel for a while including the rising heat, the lack of water and a giant underground sea. The fact that they are descending hundreds of feet on ropes that they have casually wrapped around their bodies that are clearly not even a tenth as long as they need to be is just one of the many problems with the plotting and direction.

It gets worse when the subterranean humans show up, in the incredibly attractive shape of Petra Yared, along with some lizard men who have walked straight out of old time US show LAND OF THE LOST. The lack of fidelity to the source wouldn't matter if what had replaced it was exciting and interesting, but it is plodding, dull and predictable and that's being generous.

The special effects are OK throughout, though the budget means that they aren't on screen for very long. The long shots of the underground sea are pretty good, but the rest of the subterranean world looks just like the world above having been liberally spray painted blue.

Episode 2