Man from Atlantis

I have fond memories of The Man From Atlantis. I remember wishing how I could swim like him when I saw this show and hearing some children wanting to emulate him as well.

Patrick Duffy was the last survivor of an underwater civilization. He was named Mark Harris by the human world and went to work for the Foundation for Oceanic Research. Soon after, he battled the usual array of villains and monsters, his archenemy being the almost likeable Mr Schubert.

There was a Marvel Comics character who had been around since 1939 called Namor the Sub-Mariner. He was from an underwater civilization and was similar to Mark Harris. I don't know how true this is but I believe Marvel were going to make a Namor the Sub-Mariner film but this series kind of made that idea redundant.

The show was certainly enjoyable-not taxing on the brain and entertaining enough whilst it lasted, which wasn't for many episodes.

I watched this show in P.R.China many years ago during a time when there was nothing else entertaining on Chinese TV. It was the first American TV show aired in China and everyone who had access to a TV set watched it. I have fond memories of the show, it was interesting and had enough action to be entertaining. Considering the alternatives at the time, which were communist propaganda films, it was quite a treat.

But even then, a portal at the bottom of the ocean that leads to a city where Romeo and Juliet lived still seemed to be quite a stretch. So I understand why it only lasted one season.

But this show will always have a special place in my heart for being the first American entertainment program that I have seen.

The Man From Atlantis was a decent show for the 1970s. And as I allude to in the summary, it is curiously similar to The Sub-Mariner. I really don't know if Marvel Comics had anything to do with this, but the project just smells of the half-hearted, live action tv takes of Marvel heroes televised during the time. Like Spider-Man, The Hulk, and Captain America movies, when you see the Man From Atlantis, you will think it is a more romantic, benevolent version of Prince Namor. The initial pilot was good, and the series could have been better. It failed because there were no challenging super villains for Mark to fight. In my opinion, if you are going to do a television series about a merman, go the superhero route, complete with colorful monsters and villains, or don't try it at all.

When I saw these TV series again on PinkTV a couple of weeks ago it only took me a fraction of a second to identify it and it revived very old memories in me. I was barely six when I first saw it in the very early eighties but I never forgot Mark, with his yellow swim suit, and distinctive swim, which I always tried to imitate in the pool and sea. Although I couldn't understand a word of what was said at that time, I nevertheless still remember many of the episodes, characters, and just complete scenes. I still didn't understand what was said in the run in PinkTV as it was dubbed in French, but I enjoyed it no less, and it was nice to find out that my friends have the same fund childhood memories. I'm glad I know the series name at last :-)

"The Man From Atlantis" (1977 - 17 episodes of 60 minutes), is a cult TV series created by Herbert F. Solow and Mayo Simon for NBC. The pilot episode begins when a man (the actor Patrick Duffy) is found unconscious on a beach after a storm. Taken to a hospital, the doctors discover that this man is not a simple victim of drowning. The Doctor and sea biologist Elizabeth Merril (the actress Belinda Montgomery) is called to investigate the case and find evidences that the mysterious man has characteristics of amphibians. Impressed by her discovery and with the desire of helping her new friend, she decides to take him to the scientific foundation of aquatic research for which she works and she decides to call him Mark Harris. The sea abilities of Mark attract the attention of everybody, including the Navy, and Doctor Merril thinks that he is probably one of the last survivors of the legendary Atlantis. From there, the man of Atlantis lives many adventures with Doctor Merril in a submarine, that travels into the great depths, always investigating the mysteries and the dangers related to the oceans. Mark had membranes in his hand fingers and his eyes was extremely sensitive to the light. The series made success in Brazil and Patrick Duffy became famous, years later, in "Dallas". As the series had more success in the foreign countries than in the U.S.A., "The Man From Atlantis" was canceled after only one year of exhibition.