The 1970s was a period of television known for its “high concept” shows about characters with super powers. In the decade of super heroes which included the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, the Invisible Man, the Gemini Man, Spider-Man, Captain America, Wonder Woman and the Hulk, one of the most ambitious of these programs was the aquatic adventure show Man from Atlantis.
Man from Atlantis stars a pre-Dallas Patrick Duffy, in his first major role. Duffy plays an enigmatic, water-breathing man, with webbed fingers and dolphin-like sonar. Washed up on a beach after a nasty hurricane, our amphibian protagonist is taken to a local medical facility where, by a lucky coincidence, pretty marine biologist Dr. Elisabeth Merril (Belinda Montgomery) is present. When X-rays show gills where his lungs should be, Elisabeth realizes that the dying man doesn’t need oxygen, he needs water. She takes him to the ocean, where he revives. Since our hero has no memory of where he came from, Elisabeth decides to keep him. Her computer concludes that he is the last survivor of Atlantis, although what facts it uses to make this deduction are unclear. Elisabeth randomly names him Mark Harris and recruits him for her special department of the US Navy which performs undersea scientific research. Using a prototype submarine called the Cetacean, Mark and Elisabeth have various adventures beneath the sea.
Man from Atlantis began as a series of four made-for-TV movies during the summer of 1977. The first film introduces the two lead characters and also gives us the debut appearance of Mark’s nemesis Mr. Shubert (Victor Buono), who would become a recurring villain. Mark saves the world from Mr. Shubert’s scheme to destroy humanity and start again with a superior race in his undersea city.
In the second TV film, “The Death Scouts”, Mark and Elisabeth have left the Navy and are now working for a privately funded organization called the Foundation for Oceanic Research. When they are called in to investigate the disappearance of some scuba divers, they encounter water-breathing humanoids who Mark thinks may be survivors of his race. However, the strange beings have a hidden agenda that sets them on a collision course with the surface people.
The third TV film, “the Killer Spores”, has the Cetacean retrieving a crashed space probe which turns out to have intelligent, microscopic spores aboard. The spores invade human bodies to force people to return them to space.
In the final of the four TV movies, “The Disappearances,” Mark must rescue Elisabeth who has been taken to an island where kidnapped scientists are being brainwashed by mad-doctor Mary Smith.
The ratings success of the four films led to a weekly Man from Atlantis series in the fall of ’77. The series is done on a much smaller budget and less of the action takes place under water. Arch-enemy Mr. Shubert returns to vex Mark in five episodes (“Meltdown”, “Mud-Worm”, The Hawk of Mu”, “Man O’ War”, “Crystal Water/Sudden Death”) along with his inept sidekick Brent (Robert Lussier). The 77-78 season also features an appearance by basketball superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the episode “Giant”. Jabbar plays a 10-foot prospector from an alternate universe whose mining operation creates a dimensional hole which is draining Earth’s oceans. Mark’s adventures during the course of the season include time-travel, sea monsters, a mermaid, and Pat Morita as a magical imp named Moby.
Despite a good lead performance by Duffy, the ratings for the season did not earn a renewal of the series and Man from Atlantis was cancelled after only 13 episodes. The biggest flaw that contributed to the ratings decline was that the budget didn’t equal the ambition of the show’s executive producer Herb Solow. While doing the made-for-TV movies, Solow had a fairly high budget and was able to execute high-concept stories. The weekly series, however, was not well financed. Solow, who had previously worked on Star Trek, wanted Man from Atlantis to be a sea-going version of that show, exploring new civilizations at the bottom of the ocean. He even made the rather bizarre move of making Mark the commander of the Cetacean, so he could be more Captain Kirk-like. Since they couldn’t afford to create undersea cities, the plots frequently had mark finding magical portals under the sea that would transport him to another universe or into the past. In one episode, “Shoot-out at Land’s End”, he travels back to the old west and meets his double (Also played by Duffy.) In another, even odder story, called “The Naked Montague”, one of these portals leads him to 14th century Venice where he meets Romeo and Juliet.
Duffy makes for a good protagonist, mixing nativity and nobility. Montgomery is fine as Mark’s love interest Elisabeth, although as the season goes on, the romance angle between the two is pushed to the back-burner. Victor Buono, as arch-nemesis Shubert, is effective in the pilot film, mixing amiable charm with calculating evil. However, once the proper series begins, his performance begins to descend more-and-more into campy humor. He seems at times to be channeling his loony King Tut character from Batman.
The series has been released on two separate DVDs. Man from Atlantis: The Complete TV Movies Collection, and Man from Atlantis: The Complete TV Series.
DVD Bonus Features
There are no extra features on these DVDs.
[Editor's Note: The Amazon link under the image is valid, but the best place to buy the TV Series or Movies are from the Warner Brothers Online Shop.]
"Man from Atlantis: The Complete TV Series and TV Movies Collection" is on sale July 26, 2011 and is not rated. Adventure, Sci-Fi. Directed by David Moessinger, Virgil W Vogel. Written by Herb Solow, Larry Alexander, Luther Murdock. Starring Belinda Montgomery, Patrick Duffy, Victor Buono.
