TV Recap: Atlantis, Series Premiere

Written by Laura Dengrove

In a world full of wonder and magic, it sure lacks the whimsy that was supposed to be attached to it.

In the new show by BBC America, Atlantis is the story of a man named Jason who washes up on the shores of a mystical world called Atlantis. Once he lands in Atlantis, Jason continues the search for his long lost father and gets more than he bargained for when magical entities and famous figures enter his life. Potential oozed at the idea of this show, but with cheesy CGI, music that feels better if it were in a comedy, and acting that is better for home movies than an actual show, it should have just stayed on the drawing board.

The first mistake with this show is the CGI. You would think on a network like BBC (or BBC America), which is famous for Doctor Who, Being Human, etc, it would have better graphics. This, sadly, was not the case. The CGI was so distractingly bad that it took the focus off of the shows main plot. When the focus is more on how bad the graphics are, it spells disaster for the show, which isn’t hard to foresee.

The next mistake was the music. In scenes with dramatic tension, music played as if the show took place in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Even when someone slipped slightly, falling music was attributed to that scene and made it hilarious, and not in a good way at all. The music felt out of place and did not help the atmosphere of the show. It made you feel like you were in a cartoon, not the great lost city of Atlantis.

Another huge mistake regarding this show was the acting. Every bad show at least has some sort of good acting in it, but this was short of even that. All the actors were unknowns, except if you would like to count Mark Addy as Hercules. Addy is known for playing Robert Baratheon on Game of Thrones, and his performance on that show was great. To play a character like Hercules and lack the strength in the performance that the character demanded is just bad. It is disappointing to see an actor like Addy fail so miserably like this in a role.

The main character Jason, played by Jack Donnelly, has some moments of potential but they are very slim. This is Donnelly’s first big leading role, and with a performance like this I fear it may be his last.

All in all the show is completely boring and lacks any originality in the slightest. Instead of watching a show full of great Greek mythology and such, it felt as if it was a Syfy Original Movie, not a BBC production. When shows feel as if they are an original movie on the Syfy channel, which are known for being hilariously bad on purpose, it is the start of something very bad.

Regarding this Atlantis, it would have been better if it stayed under the sea.