Meta: Why Atlantis Sunk (the show not the city)

The BBC's Atlantis came to a definitive close on the 16th May of this year, though you'll be excused for not noticing considering only a handful of people seemed to be watching it by that point. Cancelled at the end of its second season despite having plans for five in total, I'll admit to having a sort of Bile Fascination with the project in the wake of Merlin and the knowledge that most of the writers, producers, directors (and in a couple of cases, actors) had moved wholesale from one show to the other.

On this blog I enjoy cross-examining stories and attempting to discern what a writer was striving to convey with this or that creative decision, but at the same time I try not to put words into the mouths of other people. After all, no one really knows what's going on behind the scenes of any given project.

But in this case, it is oh so very tempting to look at Atlantis as an obvious attempt to recreate the success of Merlin. And having reached that conclusion, you can't help but feel that the show's own creators really hadn't the faintest idea whatsoever as to what made Merlin so popular.

If asked, I suspect they would have pinpointed three key elements that they were most eager to transfer from one show to the other: high production values, lowbrow comedy, and homoerotic bromances. Johnny Capps in particular always seems to emphasis the technical quality of his shows in interviews, whilst writer Howard Overman loves physical humour (if there's an episode of Merlin or Atlantis that involves a character getting badly injured and it being treated as the height of comedy, I guarantee it's an Overman script). And of course, they all had a field-day baiting the fanbase by filling scenes between any two white males with subtext that never went anywhere (shirtlessness optional).

Don't believe me? Here's how Jason and Pythagoras, participants of the central bromance of Atlantis, meet:

High production values, slapstick humour and male homoeroticism certainly don't hurt a show, but to say that these formed the tent poles of Merlin's success is a disservice to its original creativity and charm – and as the failure of Atlantis demonstrated, not the rock you want to build your entire show on. If I was to pick the three elements that made Merlin such a hit, they would be:

1. A great premise, not only as a prequel to Arthurian Legend, but in the original idea that because magic was banned throughout Camelot, Merlin would be forced to hide his innate power. Despite stretching this plot-point out way past its expiry date, it initially provided genuine suspense and conflict among the characters.

2. Plenty of innovative ideas in adapting the source material, such as making Merlin and Arthur approximately the same age (and thus forced to supplement each other's Character Development), reimagining Guinevere as a servant (giving her a Rags to Riches arc) and having Morgana start off as one of the show's heroes (tracking her Start of Darkness across the first two seasons).

That's just among the main cast. The writers also gifted themselves with interesting material by presenting Uther as alive and well, introducing Mordred as a child, and coming up with fresh origin stories for the likes of Excalibur and the Lady in the Lake.

3. A talented cast, which went above and beyond the call of duty in delivering the material and making their characters imminently likeable. Their post-Merlin careers are a testament to how much each actor brought to the project, and I note with interest that the casting director for Merlin (Jill Trevellick) was not the same as the one for Atlantis; a role that was instead shared between Andy Pryor and Toby Whale.

As it happens, Jill Trevellick instead went on to cast ... wait for it ... The Musketeers.

(I also think that good timing might have benefited Merlin's popularity. Not only were the Harry Potter books wrapping up, leaving room for a new contender in the not-yet-burned-out "youngsters with magic" subgenre, but the conclusion of Robin Hood had left room for a like-minded show to fill the gap left by Doctor Who's seasonal hiatus).

Needless to say, none of the above traits were apparent in Atlantis. All the superficial pieces were assembled (a shirtless lead, a beautiful locale, characters and plots cherry-picked from a recognizable body of myths and legends) but it had none of its predecessor's talent, originality or heart. By the final two seasons of Merlin, the show had gained enough momentum to survive the ceaseless recycling of its formula, but when Atlantis started up with precisely the same storylines and character beats, former fans and casual viewers alike had no incentive to invest in a show that was just repeating the same events all over again.  

In fairness, fandom does like to overstate its own importance and wilfully ignore the fact that it only ever makes up a fraction of the total viewing figures. But a ready-made fanbase does help when it comes to word of mouth and on-line promotion, and in this case most of the Merlin fandom's goodwill had dried up by the time Atlantis aired. After five seasons of a repetitive formula and a finale that thoroughly alienated viewers in its decision to render most of the character arcs completely pointless, there was hardly any fan crossover from one show to the other.

And that Atlantis so closely follows the template of Merlin could not have helped matters. Read the following summary and tell me which of the two shows I'm describing:

A young man arrives in a legendary city ruled over by a tyrannical monarch, where a mysterious prophet waits in an underground cavern to inform him of his great destiny as a future hero.

Yup, it's both of 'em. Jason's story is Merlin's story.

To make matters worse, along with a bevy of other plots and character types, the showrunners also try to recapture the "prequel" aspect of Merlin. It just doesn't work, for two obvious reasons. The first is that Arthurian Legend is fairly linear. It starts with Arthur pulling the sword from the stones, continues with him becoming king, marrying Guinevere and establishing the Round Table, and ends with him dying at the hands of his illegitimate son Mordred.

Obviously Merlin didn't follow this material to the letter, but each of the four leads had an obvious arc to follow, and the writers stuck close enough to the legend that they could play on the audience's expectations. The appeal of any prequel is to invite anticipation in the viewer, to fill them with the sense of gleeful satisfaction in knowing how things are going to pan out before the characters do. When Merlin throws the as-yet-unnamed sword into the lake, we know what it foreshadows. When Guinevere sardonically mutters: "who would want to marry Arthur?" it's funny because we know that she will. When Arthur instructs the village of Ealdor to form a circle around him, we understand its symbolic value. Merlin may have strayed from familiar story in some respects, but followed the legend in essentials.

To try and do something similar with the body of Greek myths is frankly impossible. Other than the recurring pantheon of gods there is nothing to connect these stories; they don't move toward a natural climax in the way Arthurian Legend does, and there's no singular theme or overarching plot. So Atlantis had no other choice but to treat the myths like soup, resulting in mish-mashed storylines such as Medusa falling in love with Hercules, gaining her snake hair when she opens Pandora's Box, and instructing Jason to cut off her head so as to provide him with a weapon against Pasiphae. That's five different myths shoehorned into one!

The showrunners of Atlantis also came up with the bizarre idea to make Jason a time-traveller from the 21st century, who accidentally washes up on the shores of Atlantis after journeying there via a submarine (which mysteriously vanishes on arrival). This means he has foreknowledge of certain aspects of Greek mythology and history – he recognizes the names Pythagoras and Medusa for example – though neither he nor the show proceeds to do anything with this.

When Mordred is introduced on Merlin, it's treated as a big deal, the episode having built up the foreboding atmosphere and potential danger the boy presents well before the familiar name is revealed. When he announces: "my name is Mordred", it's a slam-dunk. They try to pull off the exact same storyline in Atlantis, in which Jason is warned against rescuing a newborn baby due to an evil prophesy laid upon it. Eventually he returns it to its parents only to learn its name is Oedipus, destined to kill his father and marry his mother. But unlike in Merlin, the whole scenario means jack-squat – partly because it has no bearing on Jason's story, and partly because we never see any of these guest stars again.

And despite coming from the future, Jason acclimatizes to Atlantis pretty quickly. He doesn't confuse anyone with contemporary slang, he doesn't try to introduce modern innovations, he doesn't voice any frustration at the lack of technology, and we learn nothing about his life prior to arriving in Atlantis. He's a complete blank slate.

Merlin at least was given a clear goal, even if he never achieved it (to protect Arthur and guide him towards bringing about the Golden Age of Camelot) and magical powers to validate the destiny that made up the foundation of the show's plot. Jason is given a search for his father that we're given no real reason to care about, and some half-baked talk of a great destiny. Apparently he's "touched by the gods", which makes him special for reasons that are never fully explained.

In short, the whole thing tries to replicate the underlying template of Merlin, but with a profound lack of understanding as to how and why it worked with Merlin – and the fact that the same people are behind both shows is what makes this miscalculation truly bewildering.

***

But it occurred to me that maybe I was being unfair. Knowing what I did about the show's background and the people involved in its creation, there was a chance I was seeing similarities between the two shows that are actually just staple parts of the serial fantasy genre.

This one also has a shirtless lead. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

So to put my theory to the test, I tracked down a third point of comparison: 2012's Sinbad, the show that may well have been Sky1's attempt to fill the family-fantasy Saturday night slot that Merlin was about to leave empty. I watched all twelve episodes (in terrible quality, I might add) and here's what I discovered...

Naturally there were some similarities between all three shows: the anachronistic speech patterns, the "exotic" fantasy locale, the dodgy television special effects, a perpetually shirtless lead – but also some distinct differences. 

Sinbad's dilemma revolves around his own grandmother cursing him after a series of bad decisions culminates in his brother's death. He's cursed to remain at sea, with a twenty-four hour time limit put on his forays inland and a collar that will strangle him to death if he doesn't return to his ship before the sun rises.

So Sinbad takes to the seas with a motley gang of misfits (the mercenary, the princess, the physician, the pickpocket, the bounty hunter) who are thrown into a range of the usual fantasy plots: there's the evil siren who magically entrances our hero, the heist episode in which they have to negotiate traps and snares to retrieve the treasure, the one with the Lotus Eater Machine (in this case, a casino) in which everyone's deepest dreams appear to come true, and the inevitable descent into the Underworld and back. There's lots of getting thrown into prison, plenty of sword fights, and repeated efforts to convince us that the lead character is irresistible to women.

As the lead, Elliot Knight's Sinbad doesn't quite have the appeal of Jonas Armstrong's Robin Hood (who despite his arrogance had deeply altruistic goals, while Sinbad is more directionless and self-serving), but the casting is to be commended for not only not choosing a white guy as the famous Middle Eastern hero, but making a concentrated effort at assembling a diverse cast (Atlantis on the other hand has an astoundingly white population for an island that Plato placed somewhere in the Mediterranean).

There are a few caveats – the show's sole woman of colour (Estella Daniel's Nala) is inexplicably Put on a Bus at the show's midway point and promptly replaced with a white woman; likewise Naveen Andrew's Lord Akbari is killed in the very same episode so that the sorceress Taryn (Orla Brady) can take his place as the main antagonist.

But a reasonable amount of talent from the British C-list turn up in guest roles (Lee Ingleby, Janet Suzman, Dougray Scott, Mathew Horne, Nikki Amuka-Bird – all the actors who do the rounds in these sort of things) as well as some more surprising faces: somehow they managed to book the likes of Evanna Lynch, Sophie Okonedo and Timothy Spall. There were even three Merlin crossovers, namely Georgia King (Princess Elena), Miranda Raison (Isolde) and Mark Lewis Jones (King Olaf). The main cast is made up of mostly newcomers, and other than Naveen Andrews, the most familiar face is probably Elliot Cowan as an exiled Viking, though for the most part he looks vaguely embarrassed to be involved.

The whole thing had high production values with some striking visuals (deep blue pools in the middle of white desert sands, a black ocean full of dead silvery fish, a temple filled with water and stepping stones) and it appeared the attempt was made to keep all shipping options open (by the end it seemed they were favouring Sinbad/Antwar, though there was plenty of teasing between Sinbad and late arrival Tiger in the four episodes she appeared after Nala was given the boot).

But as it happened, Sinbad had a shorter life-span than even Atlantis, clocking in only one season before its cancellation. Its mistakes are obvious in hindsight; specifically a confusing and patchy seasonal arc that isn't entirely sure what story it wants to tell. The show's original antagonist, the budding Sinbad/Nala romance and the premise of Sinbad's cursed collar are all abruptly brought to a close by the middle of the season, and the show's second half meanders through a range of seemingly meaningless one-shot adventures before a finale that sets things up for the non-existent second season.

Lord Akbari makes for a poor villain, one who becomes obsessed with revenge after his son accidentally dies at Sinbad's hands, but the lack of a personal history or connection between the two characters means that there's no real meat to their animosity. Taryn fares a little better after she steps up as the next Big Bad, with an air of mystery and a background that helps explain her actions and motivation (which is certainly more than Pasiphae's mindless lust for power on Atlantis) but the want of a decent villain means the show lacks a sense of urgency.

There are inconsistencies aplenty (in one episode Lord Akbari banishes Taryn from court, in the next she's present as though it never happened; Sinbad's catatonic mother is introduced in the first episode, when he returns to Basra she's neither seen nor mentioned) and an uneven sense of pacing. For example, the first half of the pilot episode spends a lot of time setting up Sinbad's life and circumstances in Basra, only for the second half to try and squeeze in introductions for the five characters that comprise his crew.

But whereas Merlin and Jason have their lives guided by prophets in cave that inform them of inescapable "destinies", Sinbad is the author of his own misfortunate and the product of his own choices. In short, though Sinbad was weird and random, it was its own creature.

***

So the more I look at Atlantis, the more obvious the resemblances to Merlin become. The devil is in the details, and there are all sorts of familiar echoes and resemblances – even if the particulars are inverted. Some of these include:

A central romance that exists between a ruler and a commoner, though in this case it's the male character who is the poor suitor and the female character who is the heir to a kingdom

Two central female characters, one a servant and one a member of royalty

A woman as the show's central villain, who works to topple the monarchy from within the palace before she's exiled, after which she becomes obsessed with taking the throne

At one point this villain either is or has a female sidekick; their bond based on the elder helping the younger learn to control her magical abilities

An oracle figure spouting destiny in a subterranean chamber

People with magical powers casting spells by speaking an incantation, after which their eyes briefly glow

The same network of caves; the same stretch of forest

A hapless sidekick being beaten up in sword-fighting practice by the hero

A secret parentage that a central character cannot know about for fear it would corrupt them

A city siege that takes place at night time during a season premiere; though instead of a female villain going to the vaults to place something there; the female villain instead goes to the vaults to remove something that will tip the balance of the battle

The undead attacking the living thanks to a magical spell cast by the female villain

The exact same sound-effect used for malevolent spirits (the Dorocha on Merlin and the Furies on Atlantis)

The hero meeting their long-last father who dies almost immediately after learning of their relationship

A female villain who is mortally wounded and returns with an inexplicable facial deformity

The line: "it seems we have a traitor in our midst"

The hero using magic to remove a female villain's magic, thus giving them the edge in their confrontation

The inevitable love triangle

The hero being constantly told "only you can save Atlantis/Camelot" (though in Jason's case there's even less of an understanding as to why only he can do this – Merlin at least had incredible magical powers)

A magical character performing a spell in which a circle of approaching soldiers are flung backwards through the air by magic

And of course: utterly useless guards

***

But the truth is, even when the two shows part ways and Atlantis attempts to break new ground, it never finds itself with anything particularly interesting to say. The cast seems to spend most of their time wandering around the same underground tunnels and stretches of forest (though on a couple of occasions they find a desert to cross) or fighting in the arena pit for reasons that are equally obscure.

Binge watching only makes its repetitiveness more pronounced, for the cast is essentially on an endless rota basis of Pasiphae attacking the kingdom, the heroes getting thrown into prison or sneaking out of the city, and Pasiphae getting overthrown once more. And arena games. So many arena games. Over and over again. You may think I'm exaggerating, but this pattern occurs three times over the course of the two seasons, and the whole thing ends with Jason on the run AGAIN when Pasiphae is resurrected from death and promptly takes over Atlantis for the third time.

If anything, Atlantis taught me that the creative minds behind Merlin have only a set number of stories to tell which are constantly rehashed, recycled and repeated. They struck gold with Merlin thanks to its three aforementioned strengths (premise, ideas, cast) that kept viewers engaged despite the fact that across the entirety of its five seasons only three meaningful developments ever took place (Morgana's poisoning, Uther's death, Arthur/Guinevere's marriage) but Atlantis didn't even have the hook of "when will Merlin's magic become public?" to keep viewers dangling.

There was no meat to the story of Atlantis nor any significant character development, just pure plot: one thing happening after another with no forward momentum (at least none that wasn't immediately reversed). In any successful show there needs to be room for the imagination to explore the untold parts of the story: intrigues, character beats, backstories, world-building – even in this Merlin succeeded with lingering questions such as the death of Arthur's mother or the ambiguity of the dragon's prophecies. Though they never went anywhere interesting, their existence suggested a depth and colour to the world the show presented. In Atlantis there's no sense that any character has a life outside what the immediate scene demands of them.

And there's the usual sloppiness. People talk about all the suffering in the city under Pasiphae's rule, but no one ever bothers to depict this suffering on-screen. After Jason gains Medusa's head, a weapon that allows him to turn Pasiphae's armies to stone, it simply vanishes at the end of the episode with no further mention made of it – even when its usefulness was by no means complete. Ariadne has a brother introduced in the first season who (despite being heir to the throne) is never seen or heard of in the second.

There's a lot of emphasis on the gods and hubris, but no indication that they're actually real or what this would mean to Jason (you'd think he'd either be a monotheist or an atheist, but he remains as uninterested in the subject as he does the fact he's travelled through time and space) and Medea seems perpetually on the brink of tears and/or terrified out of her wits. It's an odd creative choice for a woman who's meant to be the stone-cold lieutenant of an evil queen (as well as the woman who will eventually kill her own children out of spite).

This is her singular facial expression

As the Official Couple Jason and Ariadne are entirely bland, and although Arthur/Guinevere got a lot of flak during Merlin's run due to the perceived lack of chemistry, I at least was sold on the couple due to the fact that Bradley James and Angel Coulby could actually act. If nothing else, no one could claim that they weren't capable of conveying obvious concern and affection for each other, whereas Jack Donnelly and Aiysha Hart are rather wooden actors (at least in these roles) forced to build an entire love story on a few meaningful looks.

In its defence, the show on the whole does better than Merlin when it comes to its female characters, if not simply because there are more of them. Granted, two end up dead and two are evil, but at least Ariadne is given skills with a bow and arrow and allowed to use them efficiently. (Though I can't let it go unmentioned that at the start of season two a black female warrior is introduced, only to be duly killed off halfway through the episode in service of the male characters).

A WOC realizing her inevitable fate

And then of course, there's Pythagoras/Icarus. These days queerbaiting is about as useful a term as Mary Sue or manpain – it used to be a genuinely helpful tool in defining problematic writing patterns, now it's just as often used in shipping wars to indiscriminately accuse writers of being purposefully misleading (if you're a shipper) or of pandering (if you're a non-shipper) whenever they pay especial attention to any given fandom ship on their show.

But real queerbaiting is built on plausible deniability – if homoerotic tension is deliberately inserted into a show to attract a subset of viewers, creators have the wriggle-room to tell their fanbase "you're just imagining things" so as not to alienate general audiences. On the other hand, queerbaiting can be a two-way street, as often the sight of two attractive white males simply standing next to each other is cause enough for fandom to insist on the existence of subtext that writers and actors alike remain genuinely ignorant of.

So it remains difficult to recognize queerbaiting when it's actually occurring. Personally, I definitely think it was happening in the later seasons of Merlin (if nothing else, Julian Murphy's puerile DVD commentary for the final episode indicated as much) and I was expecting the same deal to play out between Jason and Pythagoras in Atlantis.

So imagine my great surprise when it turns out that Pythagoras is not only canonically gay, but given a legitimate love interest in the form of Icarus. They share an on-screen kiss and everything! And it's at this point we reach the greatest heights of irony in realizing that the showrunners went ahead with portraying a gay couple in a family show with little fanfare or fuss – only for barely anyone to actually be watching at that point.  

They're star-gazing (hey I said it was gay, not that it was actually good)

***

So that was the rise and fall of Atlantis, and what have we learned? Interviews with Johnny Capps on the show's cancellation demonstrate he's either a bit clueless or just saving face when it comes to explaining why the BBC pulled the plug on the show, blaming pretty much everything (on-demand television, viewing figures, competition with other shows, marketing, the time-slot) except the lack of decent storytelling.

When asked what he would have done differently, Capps echoes the familiar refrain of making things "darker and edgier", the phrase that had the Merlin fandom pulling out its collective hair in frustration due to how often it was regurgitated in every pre-season Merlin interview, and goes on to state that season three would have involved "Jack taking his top off more", which – given the propensity for Bradley James and the rest of the male cast to be stripped half-naked over the course of Merlin –  might actually be considered a legitimate marketing technique to this production team.

There is literally no reason for him to be naked in this shot.
I'll just leave this this here though.

So if you're going to try and replicate a success, make sure you know exactly what was appealing to viewers the first time around. The cancellation of Atlantis proved that it wasn't the visual quality, shirtless men, endless pratfalls or slash-bait (upgraded here to the actual depiction of a gay couple) that made Merlin a hit. It was story and character, even if both had been squandered by the show's end.

And Merlin having ended with almost every character dead and its lead reduced to eternal homeless wandering, what else was to be expected from Atlantis but that the city would eventually sink and everyone perish? Most of the response I witnessed to the show was irritation followed by abject disinterest.

The assorted JJs (as they were called during the run of Merlin) are probably very good at their job, which is to come up with a high concept premise and gather the tools necessary to get it up and running. Their strengths are in high production values and making their ship of assorted cast and crew members sail smoothly – but as storytellers they're bloody awful. Worse, they're misinformed as to what makes a good story, as the repetition of Merlin's mistakes throughout Atlantis makes abundantly clear.

That more than anything is what inspired this post, for it amazes me that the very creators of a show brimming with charm and potential could be so obtuse as to its own merits, and instead seek to replicate its success by regurgitating the very worst aspects of its sixty-five episodes. How does that happen? How could a group of (presumably) well paid and highly qualified people come up with the ideas and originality and casting that lay behind Merlin's success, and honestly seem to believe that it was all down to the comedic physical abuse and array of shirtless dudes and big special effects that audiences kept coming back for five years?

But of course, as I said at the beginning of this post – this can only ever be speculation. I don't know these people or the thought processes behind the work they do. All that really remains are the facts of the situation: that Atlantis had many striking resemblances to Merlin, and yet failed to garner the audiences it needed to ensure its survival. The former show had something that the latter didn't, and (judging by the above interview) the creators remain bewildered as to what that was.