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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Mercy Reef Pilot Script - 2006

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With Aquaman's final (as far as I know) appearance on Smallville just a few days away, I thought now would be a good time to take a look at the original script for the Mercy Reef/Aquaman pilot, starring Justin Harley as young Arthur Curry.

If memory serves, I picked this up on eBay, curious to see how different it was from the finished show. Turns out, not all that much--most of the scenes you see in the script are in the show, if their order is moved around a bit.
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Watching the pilot, you can see how Smallville creators (and writers of this script) Alfred Gough and Miles Millar really tried to front-load this show with elements that would make it as commercial as possible.

I don't mean that as a slight, at all: rather, its a realistic approach, in terms of getting a network to greenlight an expensive, effects-heavy hour-long TV show. The setting is on the Florida coastline, giving the show the reason to fill the background with young men and women in bathing suits and bikinis (less clothes=more ratings).

Also, they rejigger the Aquaman mythos to make it more like Buffy The Vampire Slayer; a show with (presumably) a similar target audience and that one that could generate many seasons' worth of stories. There's a scene later on in the show where Arthur takes up with a cute blond girl, only to learn she's not what she seems:
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This scary chick gets an arrow in the chest, courtesy McCaffery (played by Ving Rhames), who ends up being the Giles to Arthur's Buffy.

The final scene of the show ends with Arthur and McCaffery as the proverbial light house, where Arthur is nervous but excited about the new life that stretches out in front of him.
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Of course, that was never to be--right around the time this pilot was produced, the WB and the CW merged, resulting in fewer spots for two networks' worth of shows, plus all the new series' pilots, and Mercy Reef/Aquaman got rejected, another instance of weird, external circumstances conspiring to deal a blow to the Sea King.

And while this show was certainly very different from the Aquaman most comics fans are familiar with, I really would have loved to have seen where Gough and Millar went with this--to say nothing of what it would have done for Aquaman's popularity, in and out of comic books.


Remember to watch Smallville this Friday, November 19 @8pm EST!

6 comments:

Wings1295 said...

Yeah, what could have been. Would have been different, but that would have been fine with me. Ah well...

Wings1295 said...

Great post, BTW.

Nick C. said...

Great Peice!- Sad we never got the series. I am always happy to see (most) attempts to merge comics to TV,movies,etc. and this could have worked. Funny how AC is now and most likely will always be Green Arrow in my mind now.

aquaman said...

Bad script, bad story telling, bad bad bad, glad it didn't get made.

David J. Cutler said...

I have to admit the script and pilot were a bit lacking (mostly the dialogue was just bland and flat) but I couldn't help but feel like it could have been something worth coming back to with a little tweaking.

Dalton A. Malcolm said...

I just wish they had chosen Alan Ritchson for the pilot.

As much as I loved the episode, I can't help but think that Justin Hartley plays better rich spoiled brats than characters like Arthur Curry who are somewhat the opposite.