Tidelands (series) on Netflix: It's trying to be "True Blood"

I'm seriously running out of things to watch on Netflix. It seems like I quickly give up on almost any series or movie that I start these days because in lieu of political or social indoctrination Netflix has kind of switched gears to just have a massive amount of things that aren't good. Sure there's a Netflix original every now and then but as the company does their restructuring since they are hemorrhaging subscribers they can't really seem to land on what it is that they are going to do now.

Tidelands is something that I probably wouldn't have ever watched if it weren't for the fact that it is very "slim pickins" over on Netflix right now but I watched 4 episodes of it last night and while it has a few pros, it's mostly a bunch of cons.

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I'm guessing this has been on Netflix for a while but I just never noticed it until recently. It was originally released in Australia sometime in 2018 and soon after arrive on Netflix for the global audience.

The production value / budget is actually pretty good and it is clear that they had enough money to make some pretty great effects and thus far I have only spotted a few people that are terrible actors / actresses.

For the most part this show is very similar to True Blood in that it is a very sexual show that has magical powers of sorts. Also, just like in True Blood not everyone is aware of the powers that they hold and this is particularly true in a couple of characters whose names I am not going to spoil in case you actually want to watch this.

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Mostly the characters are a bunch of very attractive people who are normally wearing as little in the way of clothes as possible. There is plenty of gratuitous nudity and sex in the scenes and I suppose this would appeal to some people out there. For me, the amount of unnecessary sex scenes got old pretty fast and now I just fast-forward though them. This started about the 10th time a scene of this sort appeared since I am yet to see a single one of them, save one, that actually advanced the story at all. This was a common tool used back in the 80's when nudity wasn't something we just had access to all the time, but in the day of the internet, I don't really see why it is that people do this. No one who has internet access is going to get their porno jollies from an action TV show.

So without revealing too much of the story, and it is spelled out for you pretty quickly if you watch it, is that there is a part of Australia on the coast where a group of ancient Sirens have lived for, forever and they don't age like normal humans and have increased strength and the ability to breathe underwater. They are all of course very attractive people and have spawned from coupling between the ancient creatures who fell in love with seafaring humans or something. I don't know for sure but it doesn't matter.

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Mostly it is just a bunch of dialogue with rather meaningless arguing while we wait for the next time somebody gets naked. After 4 episodes (of a total 8) I can't really make out what the major story is behind it all because the happenings seem to be a series of not-so-related mini-stories that maybe will all tie in at the end somehow. It's weak writing, that is for sure.

The major issue I have with this show is that they stuck to a 45-minute per episode format and it is quite clear that they didn't really have enough material for this. I didn't go to film school but I know what an "establishing shot" is: It is a shot that gives the audience an idea of where we are going to be in the next scene that happens and whoever was in charge of these for Tidelands might need to go back to film school because the shots are entirely too long. I had the remote in my hand because every time there is a new scene we normally have 30 seconds or so of some scenery showing that we are yet again, on the beach, or in this guy's house, or back at the factory. If you are actually paying attention to the disjointed story, this wouldn't be necessary.

Should I watch it?

While I wouldn't say this show is terrible, the pacing is pretty bad and it feels as though yet again that this story was intentionally stretched on to fill probably half of the episodes. Mostly, this is a show about waiting for the next sex scene and I can't believe anyone is using this method of attracting viewers anymore. There are some pretty interesting scenes, especially the ones that are done underwater that inspire a bit of awe because those had to have been very tricky to film safely. I wish I could tell you what the hell the overall story is but after finishing half of the episodes, I honestly don't have any idea what it is.

This is a show that might appeal to younger audiences or someone who, like me, has kind of run out of stuff to watch on Netflix. I say give it a chance with your remote in hand because I bet you end up using it.