A funny thing happened on the way to the driftnet it seems for Aquaman. For months we heard talk about the casting and recasting involved in bringing the famed DC hero to the small screen in a series which went through numerous re-iterations before and after its pilot was shot.
Developed by "Smallville" creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the pilot had the likes of Justin Hartley in the title role along with well known actors like Ving Rhames and Lou Diamond Phillips in supporting parts. The show, which was originally developed at The WB before it merged with UPN, was expected to be a shoe-in for newly created The CW network - that was until last week.
When The CW announced its new Fall shows line-up on Thursday, no sign of the show (alternately titled "Mercy Reef" or simply "The Reef") existed - only one 'family on the run' drama entitled "Runaway" made it into the final line-up. A surprise but not unexpected, a high concept genre series like "Aquaman" is expensive to produce which is not a welcome idea for a smaller network.
Its also not the first time this has happened either, two years ago The WB developed much talked about pilots for contemporary updates of 60's vampire series "Dark Shadows" and sci-fi classic "Lost in Space" and yet when the Fall line-up was announced neither show made it, the network opting only for its disastrous family drama "The Mountain".
Those 'Shadows' and 'Lost' pilots may have been quietly buried (and having seen the awful 'Lost' one for good reason, have yet to see 'Shadows' though would love too), "Aquaman" isn't going so quietly into the good night. This weekend saw a 2.5 minute preview with scenes from the pilot emerge online - normally it could be taken down quickly but in these days or Bittorrenting and YouTube, that's a much harder trick to do. You can probably still find copies either at YouTube, Google Video or on P2P networks.
So is it any good? That's debatable - but there's potential for sure. The lead guy suits the role far more than expected, the cast looks fine and whilst many of the effects are shoddy, some of the underwater stuff looks quite good. Unfortunately it also suffers from early "Smallville" problems with awkward handling of mythology and some quite terrible looking villains (Atlanteans). Still, considering how lacklustre many of the new shows for next season looked, this would've been one of the few I and I think many others would happily take a chance on.
Unfortunately despite hype, hope is lost for the moment. Various newspapers and sites have reported of talk that the show may be a mid-season pick-up on The CW, but AquamanTV confirms that at present there are no plans for any mid-season start. The clip at YouTube has already seen well over 100,000 downloads in just two days.
