Patrick Duffy emerges from the Pacific with webbed hands, gill slits and no memory, able to breathe underwater and dive seven miles without protection. Naval biologist Belinda Montgomery names him Mark Harris, feeds his data into a computer and watches the printout identify him as the last citizen of Atlantis. Four TV movies in spring 1977 delivered ratings high enough for NBC to order thirteen weekly episodes, each following Harris and the crew of the high-tech submarine Cetacean as they foil megalomaniac Victor Buono's schemes to melt the polar caps or weaponise jellyfish.
The weekly series quickly abandons serious science fiction for time-travel escapades: Harris swims through oceanic portals to 19th-century Wild West towns, alien worlds and 16th-century Verona where he interrupts Romeo and Juliet. Montgomery exits after episode eleven, replaced briefly by Lisa Blake Richards before the show dispenses with a female lead altogether. Critics dismiss the results as "sillier" than the campy 1960s Batman, and NBC cancels the production in June 1978 when costs outrun the dwindling audience.
Abroad the series finds stranger afterlives. Chinese state television screens it in 1980 as science propaganda, forcing a foreign pianist to reschedule a concert because the nation is watching. In Britain ITV slots it against Doctor Who on Saturday evenings and unexpectedly wins the ratings war. Dell paperbacks, Marvel comics and a Look-In strip keep the character afloat, while Kenner prototypes action figures that never reach toy shops. Nearly forty years later Duffy publishes his own novel finally explaining where Atlantis went.
Production Details
NBC / 1 Season / 13 Episodes / 1977 - Present
Created by: Mayo Simon
Writer(s): Stephen Kandel, Michael I. Wagner, Larry Alexander
Producer(s): Herbert F. Solow
Music: Fred Karlin
Main Cast
Patrick Duffy as Mark Harris
Belinda Montgomery as Dr. Elizabeth Merrill
Alan Fudge as Dr. Crawford
Robert Lussier as Brent
J. Víctor López as Cetacean crew (as J. Victor Lopez)
Jean Marie Hon as Cetacean crew
Anson Downes as Cetacean crew
Victor Buono as Mr. Schubert
Ted Neeley as Jack Muldoon
Gary Owens as Blaise Mullen
Pernell Roberts as Clint Hollister
