Not-quaman

The creators of Smallville tried to off-shoot a new series based on a popular episode of that show. The result: Aquaman.

You'll be forgiven for not having heard of this before, as the series never went further than a pilot. In some ways, I am surprised. In other ways, not at all.

The set up here is that Aqua's mother was lost years ago when he was a kid, in a plane crash in the sea, so he now lives with his adoptive father. He's basically an eco-friendly young man, out to help the ocean life, and although he has abilities, he has no idea of his destiny as a member of the royalty of Atlantis. The pilot explains some of this, and has him fight a siren, but it is a decent enough set up that a series could easily have been spun off from this.

On the positive: actually has Aquaman as a rather credible person, as opposed to merely "the last guy attached to the Justice League". And a lot of mystery is set up around others having been to Atlantis, giving tantalizing hints of a greater mythology to explore.

On the negative: Aqua could easily end up being emo about the ocean, and does tread near those waters (sic). Also, if you read his powers in the wiki description, you could be thinking "hang on, that's Man From Atlantis!" And some of the characters are fairly flat, although I could see them being developed over a series.

There are worst series that could have been made (and other worse series have been made), and given the name power of the creators, it is odd that this wasn't made... on the other hand, it didn't have a chance to devolve into a Smallville clone, so close escape there.

[END]