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Man from Atlantis
Man from Atlantis is an American superhero television series that ran on the NBC network from 1977 to 1978. It began as four TV movies that aired in Spring 1977. The movies achieved high ratings which led to the commissioning of a weekly series for the 1977–78 season, but it was cancelled after 13 episodes due to a declining audience and high production costs.
The series stars Patrick Duffy as an injured amnesiac man found on a beach after a storm. He possesses exceptional abilities, including the ability to breathe underwater and withstand extreme depth pressures, the ability to understand cetaceans, and superhuman strength. His hands and feet are webbed, his eyes are unusually sensitive to light, and he swims using his arms and legs in a fashion similar to a dolphin kick. Dr. Elizabeth Merrill, working at the Naval Undersea Center, a US Navy research facility, is the first to realize his nature and helps him return to health. She enters all known data into a computer, which speculates that he is the "last citizen of Atlantis ? ? ?" Elizabeth names him Mark Harris. The admiral at NUC recruits Mark to search for a lost Navy submersible. Mark discovers and foils a plot by Mister Schubert to destroy surface civilization in a nuclear war. After the pilot, Mark and Elizabeth leave the Navy to join the Foundation for Oceanic Research, a quasi-governmental agency that conducts secret research and operates a large, sophisticated submarine, the Cetacean, originally owned by Schubert.
The tone of the weekly series shifted away from the relatively serious science fiction tone of the TV movies and further into escapist fantasy, not too dissimilar to Star Trek with Mark as the adventurer captain of the Cetacean like Captain Kirk was of the USS Enterprise (Man from Atlantis producer and co-creator Herbert Solow was one of the people responsible for bringing Star Trek to the screen in the 1960s). In several episodes, Mark would swim through portals in the ocean that led to other places and even other times. In one episode, he crossed into a world set in the 19th century wild west where he met his twin, in another he entered a world inhabited by aliens, and he even travelled to 16th century Verona, Italy where he met the characters of Romeo and Juliet. No explanation was given to how these worlds existed via the ocean. As the scripts became increasingly "sillier" (Duffy himself later likened the series to the campy 60's TV series Batman), Montgomery's scientist character became more sidelined and the actress managed to get out of her contract with the help of lawyers after 11 episodes. In the 12th episode, a new female lead character, Dr. Jenny Reynolds (played by Lisa Blake Richards) briefly replaced Elizabeth Merrill. However, the last episode did not feature any female lead character.[citation needed] Producer Herbert Solow also cast his then-wife Pamela Peters Solow, who was twenty years his junior, in the show twice. She first appeared in the fourth TV movie "The Disappearances", and then again (as a different character) in the ninth episode of the series, "C.W. Hyde". On both occasions she was given the prestigious screen billing of "and Pamela Peters Solow as...." despite being a relative unknown.[citation needed]
The show was produced by Herbert Franklin Solow's studio Solow Production Company, a company spun off from the live-action arm of American animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Foundation for Oceanic Research headquarters building was represented by the Point Fermin lighthouse in San Pedro, California.
The Cetacean submarine's voyages were shown through miniature work by the special effects team of Gene Warren. While the TV movies reused Cetacean docking footage from the pilot, the series introduced new sequences with a Seabase featuring a moving cradle and an enclosed walkway for the submersible to avoid having to create diving and surfacing effects.
Critic Tom Shales, reviewing the show for the Washington Post, opined that "kids may be impressed" by the heroics and special effects, but the show lacked "adult appeal" and that the stories would "soon wear thinner than water".
The New York Times harshly criticized the campy aspects of the series, "The Man From Atlantis may be clever enough to realize that when project is launched on a foolish idea, one solution is merely to escalate the foolishness."
Academic Nick Stember wrote that in 2014 the series "is almost entirely forgotten in the US".
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Man from Atlantis
Man from Atlantis is an American superhero television series that ran on the NBC network from 1977 to 1978. It began as four TV movies that aired in Spring 1977. The movies achieved high ratings which led to the commissioning of a weekly series for the 1977–78 season, but it was cancelled after 13 episodes due to a declining audience and high production costs.
The series stars Patrick Duffy as an injured amnesiac man found on a beach after a storm. He possesses exceptional abilities, including the ability to breathe underwater and withstand extreme depth pressures, the ability to understand cetaceans, and superhuman strength. His hands and feet are webbed, his eyes are unusually sensitive to light, and he swims using his arms and legs in a fashion similar to a dolphin kick. Dr. Elizabeth Merrill, working at the Naval Undersea Center, a US Navy research facility, is the first to realize his nature and helps him return to health. She enters all known data into a computer, which speculates that he is the "last citizen of Atlantis ? ? ?" Elizabeth names him Mark Harris. The admiral at NUC recruits Mark to search for a lost Navy submersible. Mark discovers and foils a plot by Mister Schubert to destroy surface civilization in a nuclear war. After the pilot, Mark and Elizabeth leave the Navy to join the Foundation for Oceanic Research, a quasi-governmental agency that conducts secret research and operates a large, sophisticated submarine, the Cetacean, originally owned by Schubert.
The tone of the weekly series shifted away from the relatively serious science fiction tone of the TV movies and further into escapist fantasy, not too dissimilar to Star Trek with Mark as the adventurer captain of the Cetacean like Captain Kirk was of the USS Enterprise (Man from Atlantis producer and co-creator Herbert Solow was one of the people responsible for bringing Star Trek to the screen in the 1960s). In several episodes, Mark would swim through portals in the ocean that led to other places and even other times. In one episode, he crossed into a world set in the 19th century wild west where he met his twin, in another he entered a world inhabited by aliens, and he even travelled to 16th century Verona, Italy where he met the characters of Romeo and Juliet. No explanation was given to how these worlds existed via the ocean. As the scripts became increasingly "sillier" (Duffy himself later likened the series to the campy 60's TV series Batman), Montgomery's scientist character became more sidelined and the actress managed to get out of her contract with the help of lawyers after 11 episodes. In the 12th episode, a new female lead character, Dr. Jenny Reynolds (played by Lisa Blake Richards) briefly replaced Elizabeth Merrill. However, the last episode did not feature any female lead character.[citation needed] Producer Herbert Solow also cast his then-wife Pamela Peters Solow, who was twenty years his junior, in the show twice. She first appeared in the fourth TV movie "The Disappearances", and then again (as a different character) in the ninth episode of the series, "C.W. Hyde". On both occasions she was given the prestigious screen billing of "and Pamela Peters Solow as...." despite being a relative unknown.[citation needed]
The show was produced by Herbert Franklin Solow's studio Solow Production Company, a company spun off from the live-action arm of American animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Foundation for Oceanic Research headquarters building was represented by the Point Fermin lighthouse in San Pedro, California.
The Cetacean submarine's voyages were shown through miniature work by the special effects team of Gene Warren. While the TV movies reused Cetacean docking footage from the pilot, the series introduced new sequences with a Seabase featuring a moving cradle and an enclosed walkway for the submersible to avoid having to create diving and surfacing effects.
Critic Tom Shales, reviewing the show for the Washington Post, opined that "kids may be impressed" by the heroics and special effects, but the show lacked "adult appeal" and that the stories would "soon wear thinner than water".
The New York Times harshly criticized the campy aspects of the series, "The Man From Atlantis may be clever enough to realize that when project is launched on a foolish idea, one solution is merely to escalate the foolishness."
Academic Nick Stember wrote that in 2014 the series "is almost entirely forgotten in the US".