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.

Series description

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

International releases

Man from Atlantis was the first American television series to be shown in the People's Republic of China on March 1, 1980,[8] with the title translated to "The Man from the Bottom of the Atlantic". It was at the time when the "Gang of Four" lost power to Deng Xiaoping, and science research began to get attention, along with economic development. The impact of the series in China was so high that, around the time it started airing, the start time of a concert of a foreign pianist had to be changed. The series aired on Saturday nights; its novelty came at a time when much of television in China was dominated by propaganda.[9] In 2014 academic Nick Stember wrote that multiple people from China who had their childhoods and/or adolescences in the 1980s "still remember [the series] with fondness."[6]

In Brazil it was named O Homem do Fundo do Mar (The Man from the Bottom of the Sea in Portuguese). In Portugal, the title was a direct translation of the original, O Homem da Atlântida, being screened on RTP1 in 1981.[10] In Kuwait, it was released in the early 1980s in English with Arabic subtitles. In the Netherlands, the series was broadcast by TROS broadcasting association, from June 15, 1978, until September 5, 1980. In Germany, the series was broadcast by ARD from 1982 to 1983 and in 1988 by RTL plus with the title translated to Der Mann aus Atlantis. The show preserved its name in France as well, where it aired as L'Homme de l'Atlantide. In Turkey, the series also preserved its name and was broadcast as Atlantis'ten Gelen Adam. It was also shown on SABC in South Africa in 1979, with the original title.

In the United Kingdom, Man from Atlantis was shown, in most regions, in an early Saturday evening slot on ITV starting 24 September 1977. After airing the four television movies, the series was shown at an earlier time from 5 November 1977, opposite the BBC's long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who, which was then in its 15th season.[11] Although Man from Atlantis had not been a ratings/audience-share or demographic success in the US, the series actually beat Doctor Who during its transmission in the UK (this happened again in 1980–81 when ITV screened Buck Rogers in the 25th Century against Doctor Who). In Italy, the series was one of the early successes of the then interregional network Telemilano, future Canale 5, that began to air the series on February 11, 1980, under the name L'Uomo di Atlantide. The first TV-film, Man from Atlantis, was released on video in Norway in the 1980s. In Israel, HaIsh MeAtlantis (a literal translation of the English title) was shown on Channel 1, the only channel in Israel at that time. It first aired there in 1982 and was subsequently repeated.[12]

runtime	42–44 minutes per episode
director	Lee H. Katzin (pilot)
genre	Superhero
creator	Mayo Simon Herbert F. Solow
executive producer	Herbert F. Solow
composer	Fred Karlin
writer	Mayo Simon (pilot)
company	Solow Production Company
starring	Patrick Duffy Belinda Montgomery Alan Fudge
country	United States
language	English
network	NBC
first aired	March 4, 1977
last aired	June 6, 1978
num episodes	13, plus four television films

Series description

Cast

Production

Critical reaction

Episodes

Television movies

Series

Home media

International releases

Adaptations

See also

Explanatory notes

External links

References