Years ago hubby and I heard about the impending Nautilus tv series from Disney. Then Disney “cancelled” it in 2023 although it appeared finished. They sold it. AMC made it available this year on Stan. When the distributor offered a review screener, I jumped at it.
Nautilus is based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
The original Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea novel by Jules Verne (a French author) is probably familiar to most people, although many haven’t read the original. Personally, I do NOT recommend the original. The novel broke new ground in the nineteenth century. Like many books of its era, it is a description of the world around the central character without a plot and without character development. When I read the original, I kept reading and hoping for SOMETHING. Where was Atlantis? At least give me the attack by the giant squid! Nope. I finished, disappointed. (At least I didn’t want to hurl it against the wall, which was my reaction to Larks Rise to Candleford and every Bronte book I ever read.)
However, more recent retellings and stories “based on” the original are often fun and interesting. I grew up with movies about the Nautilus visiting Atlantis and battling the giant squid, hence my expectations of the novel. Many esteemed authors have developed Jules Verne’s ideas, including Adam Roberts (my review of his Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is here).
A diverse cast and how that can influence IMDB’s rating
Before Disney “cancelled” the series, a poster circulated online showing a diverse cast. Nemo is an Indian national, for starters! And the crew includes women and other minorities. I was excited.
IMDB and other review sites tend to show low ratings for stories featuring minorities. I am not surprised at their “meh” 6.6 rating for Nautilus. Generally 7 stars is a reasonable score. Nautilus has no ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Although the series is flawed, for reasons I will shortly discuss, the ratings are unfair, especially when compared with similar stories and similar quality of storytelling.
“Review bombing” often occurs when reviewers object to a diverse cast. There are few white men who aren’t stockholders at best or villains at worst. One of the white men is French (Thierry Frémont who played Gustave Benoit), which may also offend the US-centric reviewer. Some of the dialogue is not in English but there are subtitles. I watched a review screener about a month ago so now I can’t remember if there was audiodescription or if the audiodescription read out the other languages’ dialogue (good audiodescription always does). Even if the version I viewed didn’t have those features, it’s likely that the publicly available streamed version does (Stan is streaming it in Australia and Stan is one of the “good ones” for disability access.)
The pilot
The pilot episode sets the framework well. The Nautilus is a glorious steampunk submarine in experimental stages. Gustave Benoit, a Frenchman, designed the Nautilus. His nationality and ideology is a lovely nod to the original author’s nationality. He wants the Nautilus for scientific purposes. However, the East India Mercantile Company and the British Empire each want control for nefarious and unscientific purposes.
Our heroes are slave laborers building the submarine in a concentration camp in India, which is, in the nineteenth century, still controlled by the British and the East India company. The laborers escape with the Nautilus. Cue a season of pursuit and evasion with a ragtag crew, not unlike Farscape and Blakes 7.
Nemo’s backstory needed work
The early season episodes are generally well-written although there are some serious plot holes. For example, Nemo’s father sent him to school in Britain as a boy. And, while he was in Britain studying, Nemo’s wife and child who were in India were murdered by the East India company to seize his lands. I guess he returned to India, got married, had a child, then returned to Britain to study (what exactly? why?) as an adult and left them behind. Then Nemo himself was seized and imprisoned in the concentration camp in India.
I generally enjoyed the early season sufficiently to overlook that spaghetti strainer of a backstory but it kept coming up. If there had been a second season instead of a cancellation, I’m pretty sure the wife would pop up alive and well, probably villainous, right after Nemo and his love interest on the ship got past the “will they or won’t they” stage.
Plot arc and potholes under the sea
Another episode had holes (epic, legendary holes) and with enough foreshadowing for viewers to expect a specific Michael Crichton type horror scene and was not disappointed. Later in the season, that story thread received an added “twist” that Crichton, to my knowledge, did not include in his novels. However, by the time this “twist” was revealed, I was not surprised. It set up a quest for the (cancelled) second season.
The season finale brought the British Empire, the East India company and the crew of the Nautilus into direct conflict to resolve the primary season one plot arc. The result was mixed: not entirely successful but the hooks for season 2 were interesting. It was interesting to see the East India company and the British Empire portrayed in a less-than-positive light, unlike in the Parasol Protectorate and its nineteenth century spin off stories. I love those stories but a little more historical accuracy would have been nice, especially when the Spotted Custard was in India!
Writers are like cooks: talent AND skill is needed. Skill requires training!
Later in the first season, some entire episodes were so disjointed and illogical that I wondered if they were written by AI. Episodes credited to James Dormer without collaborators were generally better written. The other writers are Sian Martin, Sonya Desai and Matthew Parkhill.
Sian Martin, is an actor whose writing for the tv series Ellis (a police procedural) gets higher IMDB ratings than her efforts on Nautilus. Gary Oldman is against athletes who become actors. I’m generally against actors who become writers for the same reasons.
Sonya Desai’s IMDB profile says Nautilus is her first screenwriting gig and lists only one other writing credit for her, which is coming soon. There are no ratings available for that other project at this time.
Matthew Parkhill has a more substantial writing resume but it appears his previous foray into the speculative fiction genre is limited to one episode of Primeval.
None of Dormer’s writing partners appear sufficiently experienced with speculative fiction. If he’d roped in Simon Pegg as a writer, I’m sure Nautilus would have been a legendary success and a cult icon. That man knows and loves this genre, and it shows in everything I’ve seen from him.
The Verdict
Nautilus has excellent production value and an interesting collection of engaging characters whose relationships develop through the series. I would like to see the series continue, but with a more selective writers’ room. Season one wrapped up the major plot arc while setting up a quest-based storyline for a subsequent season. While the writing fluctuates in quality, I recommend the series overall. Early episodes are consistently four out of five stars. Some later episodes fall to 2 or 3 stars. I was attached to the characters by then so I was happy to continue watching to the very end.
