H₂O: Just Add Water

Quite a few people wrote in to tell me about this fantasy teen drama Australian television show. At the series' start, it's about three regular teenaged girls named Rikki (Cariba Heine), Emma (Claire Holt) and Cleo (Phoebe Tonkin) who by chance are given the power to transform into mermaids upon contact with water. From there, the girls need to come to terms with their newfound abilities, and work together to ensure that their secret remains a secret.

In season one, Emma and Cleo are already friends, and Rikki joins them when the three gain abilities after a dip in Mako Island's moon pool during a full moon. Although being sensitive to water has its many drawbacks, it's balanced out by their water-based powers that help them keep hidden: Emma can create ice, Cleo manipulates water in gravity-defying shapes, and Rikki heats up water. Cleo's best friend Lewis helps them keep the secret, and they meet Ms. Chatham, an elderly woman who was once a mermaid herself but gave up her powers.

Season two introduces Charlotte (Brittany Byrnes), who competes with Cleo to gain and eventually win Lewis' romantic attention. Rikki, Emma and Cleo get weather-related power-ups to control lightning, snow and hurricane-like winds respectively, but keep these powers on the down-low, unlike Charlotte, who gains all three starter sets of powers when she also becomes a mermaid towards the end of the season. Emma leaves the show after the end of season two, so season three introduces Bella (Indiana Evans) as a newcomer who became a mermaid years earlier thanks to a moon pool in Ireland, and who has the ability to thicken water into a gel. Worth mentioning as well is season three's Will (Luke Mitchell), who befriends the season three trio and becomes an honorary mermaid of sorts: no tail, but with a love for the sea and swimming to rival the girls.

The show is mermaid shenanigans central, one of the gold standards with well-filmed and eventually casual underwater scenes of the trio of mermaids sprinkled throughout the show, making it look effortlessly easy for the actresses to swim underwater and act while they do it, though there's occasional CGI enhancement to show speed or specific tail movements. Looking back, this series might be the earliest (or one of the earliest) live-action mermaid media to wave off the complication of dealing with clothes due to transformation; it's magic, not science, and they get bikinis! Which does come into play a few times in the story when the girls switch forms. The tails are also comparatively unique, being long and muscular-chunky which give them a specific organic look in the water, and the swimming training the actresses underwent to manage to tails really pays off.

It's a light and charming show where every episode has a story where being a mermaid either helps or hinders, and the fun is in seeing which one it's going to be next. The stakes are personal for the most part, up until season three when the stakes include saving the world, because why not.

This show had two spin-offs: Mako Mermaids and H₂O: Mermaid Adventures.