Spoilers

“Siren”

“Deadly Carnival”

This brings to an end the rewatch (although I do not remember any of these specific episodes, so we could consider it a watch instead) of the late 1970s TV show Man from Atlantis starring Patrick Duffy, who left from this show after its cancelation and moved to Dallas where he had some huge success as the brother of J.R. Ewing, Bobby.

These were the two episodes that did not have Dr. Elizabeth Merrill, as played by Belinda J. Montgomery. In “Siren,” they did make a reference to her being gone because she was doing something with the Senate, giving a nice little touch to continuity. They did not mention her at all in “Deadly Carnival.”

There was a mermaid in the first of these two episode who could sing a song that could cause pain or mesmerize people. Billy Barty guest starred in the second episode as our main villain, a midget who, along with a man who can conduct electricity, were planning a heist and Mark wound up in the middle of it.

Both of these episodes are definitely watchable. Neither of them are great, but neither are bad either. That kind of describes Man from Atlantis’ entire run. It was fine. Nothing great, nothing offensive. I don’t know if I would ever go out of my way to watch any of the episodes again, but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing some of them if they just happened to be on.

I do like the fact that they had new villains in each of the last several episodes. Not that I disliked Mister Schubert. I did like him and I always liked Victor Buono, but he was just overused, particularly early in the season.

It is a shame that they never went into the secret of Mark Harris’ past more. They barely mentioned it. I would think that someone like Mark would be very driven to discover what was out there in his background, to see if he could trigger any memories of where he had come from. Maybe they had intended on doing this later on, but with the single season being all they got, it was not done.

Patrick Duffy actually wrote a book about the backstory and the history of Mark Harris and Atlantis. I just ordered it on Amazon because Mark Harris is a character that I really loved, despite some of the flaws of the series, this character was unlike many on TV, then or now.

I am pleased to have completed Man from Atlantis on Amazon Prime.