Earlier this morning on "Sea Hunt"...

Well, after my tease last night, surely you're all wondering if in fact it WAS an octopus that killed a deep sea diver on this morning's episode of "Sea Hunt."

Here are two clues: 1) The name of the episode is "The Octopus Story." 2) Before the opening credits, we see a hapless diver succumbing to a vicious underwater assault...by an octopus! No suspense in this, then. Sure as water is wet, Mike Nelson has to deal with a killer octopus in this episode!

Mike is leading an underwater expedition when one of the group is felled by the 8-limbed beast, only nobody realizes it at first because the shutterbug of the foursome ditched the victim to get some good shots. Together, Mike and the two survivors figure out soon enough that while octopi don't normally cause any trouble--and murder counts as "trouble" in my book--there's something going on in this lagoon. So they all go back into the depths to get some octopus blood! Well, to get some answers, really, but the long shots of underwater swimming (this is "Sea Hunt," mind you) become more palatable if you think of Mike holding a longtime grudge against the animal and snarling, "The only good octopus is a DEAD octopus," before diving back into the waters.

In reality, Mike is more baffled than anything else by the development, and he doesn't take it personally even when another killer octopus attacks him. Now, "killer octopus" looks like a contradiction in terms, but "Sea Hunt" does a good job of making the usually lovable creature into a devious, bloodthirsty menace. There's the murder at the beginning of the episode, the menacing musical score, and the portentous narration by Lloyd Bridges as Nelson to put over the concept of the octopus as terror of the seas. Plus, of course, there is the cool underwater cinematography vivifying the battles between man and fish--uh, man and aquatic mammal--uh, man and thing, whatever it is.

We get two big battles before the end of the episode, and each looks destined to end with a real-life Doc Ock raising his 8 arms over his head, but...
[SPOILER ALERT]
Mike figures out a way to defeat the cephalopod (OK, I went to Wikipedia after writing the last paragraph). Stabbing it repeatedly fails, but after getting a brainstorm, Mike sticks his hand in its gill and cuts off its air supply. It's an effective technique, I'll admit, but a sleeperhold would have made for much better television.

The end result is all that matters, though. Mike saves the day and lives to track killer octopi all over the globe, the underwater photographer lives to take more pics of surprisingly dangerous aquatic life, and the other guy lives on to make playful jests to his fiancee about her taking pics. Meanwhile, I live on to go rent "Tentacles" and find out whether or not Shelley Winters can stick her hand in an octopus' gill. If so, I think it's safe to call this a 100% happy ending.