Australia is well known for its dangerous critters. Its crocodiles are big enough to swallow you whole. The box jellyfish that swim around its edges are deadlier and more painful than a Pauly Shore comedy. The island continent is home to 21 of the world’s 25 deadliest, most poisonous snakes. And even the humble platypus—the funny-looking animal that some consider nature’s raspberry to Darwin—can inject the unwary Aussie with an incredibly painful venom that makes being burned alive feel like tickle torture.
And then, of course, there are the sirens.
What? You’ve not heard of them? Little wonder. They don’t like to make a lot of waves, as it were.
First, it’s unfair to call them “sirens,” exactly. They’re not undiluted creatures straight out of Greek mythology. The beings in Netflix’s new show Tidelands (originally an Australian-based web series) are actually half-human, half-siren folks that you can’t really tell apart from you and me. Not on dry land, at any rate.
Once you get them underwater, though, they have a curious ability to stay alive. They have other powers, too—super-strength and super-seduction and, for some, the ability to see into the future—because breathing underwater just isn’t enough for them.
Second, they like to keep to themselves. These “Tidelanders,” as the local mortals call them, live in a gated commune and are often mistaken for being nothing more than especially attractive hippies.
Calypso McTeer, or Cal for short, is a Tidelander, though she only just discovered it after someone tied her up and chucked her off a boat. And while being superhuman is nice and all, she’s barely had time to reflect on her newfound identity. There’s her father’s unsolved murder to solve, her family’s illicit drug trade to consider. She’s got to figure out whether the town’s other Tidelanders are actively trying to kill her or, perhaps, just engaging in some curious initiation rituals. It’s all very confusing for her, especially since she just got out of prison after a 10-year-stint for killing a police officer.
And if that wasn’t enough to fill her Google calendar, there’s all the sex she’s got to have.
She’s hardly alone. Australia is full of dangerous things, including and perhaps especially the Tidelanders. But perhaps the greatest threat to the Tidelanders themselves is venereal diseases.
Think I’m exaggerating? Don’t take my word for it: Samantha Nelson, writing for the very un-Plugged In-like website The Verge, says Tidelands has so much sex and nudity in it that she thinks it’d make a fine drinking game. “If you take a sip whenever anyone removes an article of clothing or has sex,” she writes, “you’ll be drinking early and often—and you’ll probably enjoy the show more than if you’re watching sober.”
We do indeed see lots of skin, including some anatomical parts that we typically only see in R-rated movies. We see lots of sex, including a scene in one episode that turns disturbingly violent.
If the sexual content wasn’t enough to push this Netflix show into the equivalent of R-rated territory, the language certainly would be. And if everyone on Tidelands turned suddenly chaste and dumb, we’d still have to deal with the violence, blood and human organs we see.
And let’s delve a little deeper on that word dumb, shall we? While some content-riddled shows rake in scores of Emmy nominations or, at least, have something interesting to say, Tidelands is so vacuous that even discerning box jellyfish would scorn it and slowly float away.
Yes, Australia has spawned way more than its fair share of terrible, painful things. But this show just might be one of the worst.
Cal leaves prison after a 10-year stint and heads home, in part to claim the inheritance left to her by her dear, disappeared father. She soon learns that her brother, Augie, leads a mysterious drug cartel, and she decides she wants to join the family business. Meanwhile, Augie has problems of his own: One of his men was found, dead, with his eyes ripped out—and he suspects that the mysterious Tidelanders may have had something to do with it.
We also witness how said dead man reached his state of deadness: A mostly naked Tidelander (her breasts are visible) swam over to his boat, bashed him a couple of times and sunk her thumbs into his eye sockets, causing blood to gush out. Later, the bloody, eyeless and (we’re told) tongueless body is recovered. His eyeballs land in other hands (in a tasteful delivery case).
Cal’s brother, Augie, has sex with Tidelands leader Adrielle: They make out, which leads to a passionate, almost violent lovemaking session that includes explicit movements. “You’re crushing me!” Augie says. “I’m strong,” Adrielle answers (in the witty repartee the show will surely become known for).
Tidelanders make out with each other during some sort of revelry: Two women kiss passionately, and one reaches for a man and begins smooching him, too. Adrielle wears lots of flimsy, revealing garments. We see Cal shower in prison (though only from the back and the waist up). She dances sultrily with a guy at a bar, but when the guy follows her out of the bar with ill-intent, she gets mad and knees him. Augie strips off his shirt with some regularity, and we see Cal a couple of times in skimpy underwear. Two people are seen in bed, apparently naked after having spent some time together.
Cal gets into a fight in prison with two fellow inmates and incapacitates them both. (She may even break the arm of one person.) A corpse gets thrown into the ocean with a cinderblock tied to its feet. There’s a reference to someone being “crucified.” We see people make and pack drugs, and it’s clear that Augie heads a drug ring (as his and Cal’s father did before). Cal’s mother is called an alcoholic and owns a dive bar. Cat and others drink at said bar. We see someone consume shots. Guns are pointed. Someone’s abducted from her bathroom.
Characters say the f-word at least 15 times, the s-word about eight and also utter “h—” and “d–k.” Jesus’ name is misused about three times.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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