Spoilers Siren- Season 1

[JD]

Last night Freeform's new mermaid drama, Siren premiered.
The series focuses on Ben, a resident a small coastal Whashington town, who discovers a mermaid, Ryn, and decides to help her find her sister, who was recently taken captive by the government. The premiere also introduces several subplots that look like they will continue on through the rest of the season. Including Ben's friends' search for one of their fishing boat crewmates, Chris, who was attacked by the Ryn's sister, and then taken by the governement along with her, Ben's girlfriend's cop father's investigation into a murder commited by Ryn, and what the government is doing to Ryn's sister.
I enjoyed it and plan to keep watching. The characters a pretty interesting, with good performances and writing, and we got some interesting hints at a deeper history between Ben's family and the mermaids. It wasn't a big action show, but there was still enough interesting things going to keep things interesting.

The fact that the military appear to be the one's in charge of the experiement's on Ryn's sister make me think that there's more going there than just scientific curiosity. On top of that is the fact that they are keeping Chris captive and unconcious. The end seemed to hint that perhaps the scientist studying Ryn's sister isn't entirely unsympathetic.
I'm curious how exactly Helen was able to recognize Ryn as a mermaid.

 

[Greg Cox]

Sounds interesting. So there's only been one ep so far?

 

[Guy Gardener]

2 episodes came out on the first night.

I found it dry.

 

[Greg Cox]

2 episodes came out on the first night.
.

Thanks for the tip.

 

[JD]

So anybody else watching? There were some pretty big developments in tonight's new episode.

 

[May 20]

I am. We found the show just this week. My husband was interested enough by the first two episodes (that we watched On Demand) for us to set the recording. Bad timing - we won't watch ep 4 until after Sunday when ep 3 airs in rerun.

Anyway, so far I like the story. I really like the potential for the story and hope the writers can carry out what they are setting up. I am very curious about Helen's background and her affinity toward Ryn.

 

[Christopher]

I wasn't planning on watching this at first; it looked like just another version of the "sexy female fantasy creature/monster as superhero" genre, like Lost Girl for succubi and Bitten for werewolves, but with mermaids. But the reviews were encouraging, so I caught up with the first couple of episodes just now. It was definitely quite different from what I expected, more a borderline monster-movie sort of thing, with the featured mermaid being somewhat sympathetic but also quite alien and dangerous, so it's not entirely clear whether we should be rooting for her or afraid of her. That's an interesting departure. It's closer to The Creature from the Black Lagoon (or rather, its sequels) than Splash. Ryn is basically an intelligent wild animal encountering civilization -- and English -- for the first time and reacting accordingly. It's an unusual choice for a series co-lead, and Eline Powell has a strikingly "inhuman" look to her that works well.

I was also expecting that the male lead Ben would end up being the one guy who knew Ryn's secret and kept her true identity from his girlfriend and got into some kind of cliched romantic-triangle thing, so I was glad that instead he brought Maddie into the loop right away and they ended up working together on this. I get tired of stories about people lying to their loved ones to keep big important secrets about magic/aliens/superpowers/whatever.

The cast is impressively diverse, though still with white actors in the two lead roles. But it's interesting that the storyline involves the white male lead confronting his family's legacy of genocide against an indigenous population.

 

[Anwar]

When I heard this was an ABC Spark show I figured it wouldn't amount to much, but the production values looked nice so I watched the latest episode.

Wow, I was mistaken. This show is great and I'm going to find the first episodes to watch On Demand. I think it's on Youtube as well.

 

[JD]

Ok, now that I know I won't be wasting my time, I'll go into a bit more detail on my thoughts about the last episode.
I'm shocked how much they wrapped up what was set up so far, I figured "Donna" and Chris wouldn't escape the lab until at least the season finale, and definitely didn't expect Ryn and "Donna" to reunite for a long time.
I'm very curious to see where things will go from here. From the preview it sounds like the military is going after the mermaids food source as way to drive them back to the surface.
As for Helen, I think she's another mermaid.

 

[May 20]

As for Helen, I think she's another mermaid.

Yeah, I agree with you. I thought that was telegraphed pretty clearly in ep. 2.

I haven't seen ep. 4 yet (maybe tonight), but I saw the previews for it after ep. 3. And I was surprised that Chris and the other mermaid were out of the military facility. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

 

[JD]

There's a moment with Helen in episode four that IMO at could be be read as confirmation she's a mermaid.... or it could just be a coincidence. I'm leaning towards the former, but I could see an argument for the later.

 

[Christopher]

I'm shocked how much they wrapped up what was set up so far, I figured "Donna" and Chris wouldn't escape the lab until at least the season finale, and definitely didn't expect Ryn and "Donna" to reunite for a long time.

Yeah, it's interesting how the first four episodes form pretty much a complete miniseries. You could end the story right there, though of course it leaves room for a "sequel."

I'm surprised that "Donna" didn't pick up more English during the time she was watching and listening. And it was pretty dangerous for Chris to keep driving while trying to call someone on the phone. Lucky the road they were on was so improbably empty.

And yeah, Helen's totally a mermaid. Although for a moment I was wondering if Ben's wheelchair-bound mother could be one. A number of mermaid stories in the past have put the mermaids in wheelchairs to conceal their tails, and while that's clearly not a consideration here, the connection occurred to me.

 

[Anwar]

The series is only 10 episodes long so far, so it's nearly half done. I'm sure they have something else planned though.

 

[Anwar]

New episode was just on. A 1 month timeskip where we find out that Military set up a fake fishing company to have the area over-fished in the hopes of starving the Mermaids out or catching them on another fishing boat. Rynn and her sister have returned to find help in stopping this, but the sister is less than pleased to have to be around humans again.

And yeah, Helen is a mermaid. She admits it to Donna at the end.

 

[Christopher]

It feels kind of appropriate that I only caught up with the first four episodes On Demand within the past week and started watching in real time with this one, since the first four were basically the prologue and now things are starting up again after a time jump.

What's odd to me is that Ryn had to wait until they were on land to explain her intentions to Donna, and that she wasn't able to explain to Donna about the deep-sea fish in the lab. Don't they have a mermaid language they can use to communicate these things? I suppose it might not work out of the water, which could explain the latter issue, but surely they must have their own language that can convey things as basic as "My friends on land can help us find food."

 

[JD]

Glad to get confirmation that Helen is a mermaid. I'm curious what is going on with her that she seems so determined to be get rid of Ryn and Donna. Is it just a mermaid territorial thing, or something more complicated?
Wow, it looks like the scientist (Decker?) has some pretty big plans.

 

[Greg Cox]

Finally binge-watched this last night. It was interesting and strangely addictive. "Okay, I'll just watch one more before going to bed . . .. "

About the mom: Yeah, I was convinced she was a mermaid at first. Why else put her in a wheelchair like Lori Lemaris in the old SUPERMAN comics? But it occurs to me that they've already established that mermaid DNA can be used to cure paralyzed rats, so . . .

Maybe Mom is the Big Bad behind the whole operation? Or maybe Ben will have to choose between the mermaids and curing his mom?

(Oh, the expatriate Washingtonian in me is also enjoying all the Pacific Northwest references: Bremerton, Post Angeles, the Huskies, etc.)

 

[Anwar]

I don't see how that would me much of a choice...Rynn can volunteer some blood or whatever they extracted from Donna before to cure the Mom and that's that. Unless she'd need constant injections.

 

[Greg Cox]

I don't see how that would me much of a choice...Rynn can volunteer some blood or whatever they extracted from Donna before to cure the Mom and that's that. Unless she'd need constant injections.

Yeah, they'd have to set it up as a life-or-death dilemma where Ben has to choose between letting Ryan escape back to the sea, possibly never to be seen again, or let her be captured by the authorities. And you just know that his dad is not going to settle for only one vial of blood when they could make millions marketing a cure for spinal injuries.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think Ben's mom is the Big Bad, since it's clearly a major government/military operation. It's more likely that there will be some dilemma involving the possibility of a cure for her. Like, maybe Decker will convince Ben's dad to help him trap Ryn and Donna by offering him a cure for his wife.