I loved this show, the story, visuals and setting, all of the mer people were fantastic especially Eliza Levi and candy. I enjoyed the Asian lady to and sarge was awesome. I'd seen ryn as a GOT extra, she's stunning and her unique features made her ideal for this role, her mannerisms and comic timing plus actually seeming intimidating for a girl who's 5 foot 3ish was incredible her acting was flawless and being from Europe she could be a star in many languages as Belgians can often speak English Dutch German and french, she's a real talent and could see her even in the marvel universe films or other tv shows, I won't mark this down for being cancelled as COVID has taken too many good shows.
Most of the cast were passable or grew to be way better like ted Helen zander etc, bar Nicole the military people were dreadful as was the reporter and the main villain in series three. In water great as human she was an awful actress. I'll get on to the worst in a bit.
On the whole story was good except the break up feeling forced and stupid, the eco guy was a forced character and the one man army like stealing the embryo was unbelievable and idiotic, acting like ben and others could break into houses, trick the whole military amongst other things was lazy writing. The treatment of family was poor and the Chris plot was silly to. They just forget him for portions.the priorities were messed up. Some bits although being a fantasy show were badly written.
The dialogue was poor in places, too much avoiding direct questions, escaping conversations and the really annoying I'm fine rubbish all the time, I hate when there's no honesty or questions ignored but it did it time and time again. This was mainly maddie and ben who I found infuriating by the end. Most was great but these moments stopped me believing they were top people in control and more petulant children.
Ok so my main problem was the couple, maddy was good until the song, her angry episodes were embarrassing and her new fella was cringe and forced, she was one dimensional, extremely evasive in conversations and didn't appear mature. She was a hypocrite and to be honest had very minimal acting range. Monotonous delivery and really bar smiling was weak.
Ben was the absolute worse, definitely no alpha like portrayed, seemed a petulant, childish guy with poor judgement. He was one man army vs the military or single handed lay rescuing people to coincidentally having every bit of medical kit needed he was just bad. Mr perfect he was not. He can't act, even when his mom was dying he could muster a tear, he had one face and no emotion, no range no nothing. Even if they were portraying him as alpha and efficient he just felt miss cast and really killed scenes throughout when emotion was needed, bar volume in voice he had nothing, every moment was the same thinking face but no actual human emotion. If anyone said he's good then I'm baffled, five people I knew watched it all said the same, in situations even the toughest would cry he was just dead between the eyes.
The less said about the ranch the better.
Although I found those two annoying I loved the show was clever and enjoyable if you overlook weak cast and poor script in places. Ryn and Eline made this show phenomenal, without her I doubt I'd have enjoyed it, you just can't help finding her adorable and rooting for her.
Shame it's cancelled and things left unanswered but maybe if certain people had of carried certain scenes better with the emotion and gravitas they deserved this show would've been huge.