TV

I Think I Love Netflix’s ‘Tidelands’ But I Have No Idea Why?

This show is basically 'Ocean Girl' for adults and I'm obsessed.

by Patrick Lenton  17 December 2018
Tidelands Review

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Netflix has delivered us our first Australian original content in Tidelands, the tale of a small coastal town populated entirely by hot semi-nude mermaids and ab-packed smugglers, who just love sex, drugs and magic horns.

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We're Getting Super Excited For Netflix's New Gritty Mermaid Drama 'Tidelands'

Immediately I wanted to love this show — our TV industry desperately needs an infusion of money and risk-taking and the chance to reach audiences beyond the half-mummified ageing population of people who still watch Channel Nine. Netflix could provide all of that.

Plus I was just immediately impressed that we weren’t served the quintessential Australian narrative of sad Australian outback town filled with murders and mysteries. Instead, from the outside, we had mythical creatures and magic. Cool!

The story is about ex-con Cal McTeer, who returns to Orphelin Bay for nebulous reasons, only to be inexplicably drawn into a confusing web of smuggler and half-Siren, half-human drama. The Tidelanders are ruled by Adrielle, who has her own agenda separate to the various crimes and fucking that seems to take up most of everyone’s time. There’s also a bunch of smugglers and cops and sailors.

Cool!

*After this, there may be some minor spoilers.*

Tidelands Is Not Prestige TV

But after the first episode, I realised that Tidelands was unfortunately kinda painful to watch. It had all the gratuitous sex, muscled bodies and random violence of something like True Blood, but without the defined and committed aesthetics and actual sense of fun. The plot is half a dozen “mysteries” badly hinged around a baffling array of unfriendly hot characters, who spend their time turning up to one of the five locations (beach, hippy mansion, local morgue, pub, boat)

While Elsa Pataky manages to play a convincingly alluring and sinister queen of the Tidelanders, all flowing silks and nails so thick and sharp they could be claws, everyone else was mostly extremely wooden and unconvincing, especially our rather blank protagonist Cal.

As someone who has an incredible backlog of TV and film I should be watching for work, I was quick to unhappily write off Tidelands after the first episode, and go review the latest season of Important Drama.

But for some reason, without knowing exactly why, I clicked over to the second episode — and then the third, fourth and beyond. I began compulsively watching, literally binging in the way the word was originally meant to mean. I needed to know more about Adrielle’s insane quest, and I was willing to overlook Cal’s almost complete lack of personality and just cheer every time she hit somebody.

Before too long, there was no trace of irony or criticism in my enjoyment — I was absolutely and utterly hooked.

I think… I think I love Tidelands? But why?

The Grittiest Mermaid

I think the first and largest problem with Tidelands is that it takes itself too seriously — or that I was asked to take it too seriously.

I first had an inkling this would happen when I wrote a news announcement after the show was announced, with the headline ‘We’re Getting Super Excited For Netflix’s New Gritty Mermaid Drama Tidelands‘ and a PR person for Netflix got in touch asking if I could change the wording to “Siren Drama” instead of mermaid.

And like, obviously, on one hand, they are two separate mythological creatures, but on the other hand… they are both equally as dumb as each other. And if the show lacks the self-awareness to realise that, then tonally they set themselves up to fail.

And unfortunately, it does — it asks us to take Tidelanders seriously, who are all extremely hot catalogue models dressed like your aunt who moved to Byron Bay. It asks us to believe the stakes inherent in a conflict between a man wearing an eyepatch and a spooky prophetic child, without any hint that they understand this storyline to be ridiculous.

It also, unfortunately, expects us to take the violence seriously, but it’s too lo-fi to do so: there’s an eye-gouging scene in the first episode which is so poorly done that I felt embarrassed for everyone involved, including myself.

Plus, a lot of money was pumped into this — the premiere was beautifully set outside The Opera House, they advertised with a giant sign written on the bottom of the pool at swanky restaurant Icebergs, there were posters on every bus and train. Every sign said we should take this seriously.

Cultural Cringe

I have a feeling we’ve got another case of Australia feeling like the world’s little brother again — the more we want to seem grown up and adult, the more immature we seem.

This should really should have aimed for a bit more fun, a bit more self-awareness — and it would have been fine.

But I also have to acknowledge that cultural cringe works both ways — there’s an instinct to judge shows from Australia more harshly than they might deserve. Sometimes I would see the markers of Australiana — the street signs, the dusty white rural cars, the shots of the ocean at winter, and it made it all seem so… pedestrian. A weird thing to feel about a show featuring magic myth ladies.

But maybe that’s a local thing — maybe people watching in the US are seeing a glorious tropical utopia, rather than a humid school excursion.

Ocean Girl 2018

But, even after all critical analysis, I still found myself fucking loving this stupid nonsense show. And not in the way I’ve been enjoying bad Christmas movies — those KNOW they’re bad.

I didn’t CARE that the plot made no sense, that the characters were all barely motivated beyond a rampant desire for the world’s oldest horn, or for their magical mothers, or for ocean-drugs.

And I think it was because I took it too seriously. It’s just a dumb paranormal fuck-fest, like a True Blood b-plot, and that’s FINE. It’s fun.

In fact, once I started thinking about it, I realised it was almost beat-by-beat following the tropes of paranormal romance books, or even paranormal erotica. Books that launched such franchises as Twilight or Fifty Shades. Books that know they’re meant to be entertaining, fun and gorged upon.

The fault was mine — I was putting too much scrutiny on the shanty-town structure of plot and characters, and not focusing on the point of these books: magic people who enjoy boning and fighting.

Tidelands focus was always on creating a sexy nonsense world. And I should have just been enjoying that. Plus the fighting and the action and the magic — it’s just good fun.

Dumb Ocean Hotties

And once you realise what you’re meant to be taking from Tidelands — a fun ocean world to watch people fuck — then you realise this show is a fucking GIFT.

You could absolutely describe the tension between Cal and her two main squeezes as electric — in the sense that I dropped out of science in year 10, so I don’t know how electricity works. But that’s fine, I don’t need them to make sense. I just need them to bone. And bone they do.

Everyone in this show (except for a bunch of smugglers and drug dealers) are straight up hotties, and they all seem to be boning each other. And then when they’re not boning, they’re fighting. And when they’re not fighting, they’re scheming to bone or fight.

Or put together some crockery.

Adrielle can get it. Cal can get it. The hot Tidelander with a minor French accent can DEFINITELY get it. The brother can probably get it. The soft-eyed cop can get it. The unfriendly Tidelander who likes stabbing can get it. Everyone. In. This. Show. Can. Get. It.

I am just so into these spurious bisexual fish magicians.

I also think it’s a pretty real look at what modern dating is like for straight women, as the show puts forward the idea that there are only two types of men: cops or emotionally repressed hotties obsessed with their mothers.

Anyway, this is a horny show which is best described as Ocean Girl grown up and we should all be here for it. It’s pretty stupid, but so am I.

Tidelands is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Patrick Lenton is the Entertainment Editor at Junkee. He tweets @patricklenton.