Daring to Dream

Other Mermaids

Ocean Girl


Neri is the main character of the 1990s sci-fi/adventure TV show Ocean Girl, and although she doesn't have a tail, she's still pretty much a mermaid thanks to her high affinity for water and various superhuman skills of swimming, diving, and non-verbal communication with her humpbacked whale friend, Charley.

At the beginning of the show, Neri lives alone on an island off the coast of Australia with only Charley for company, but she then meeets Jason and Brett Bates, a pair of brothers who live with their single mother Dr. Dianne Bates in ORCA, an underwater research facility. Over the course of the series, Jason and Brett help and protect Neri from people who would do her harm, and Neri learns more about the human world as well as her own mysterious origins.

There were four seasons in all, with each one expanding the scope of Neri, Jason and Brett's adventures, and building up on Neri's story. There are some amazing underwater scenes, thanks to Marzena Godecki's phenomenal performance as Neri, who makes swimming and emoting underwater look effortless, alongside her depiction of Neri as a distinctly otherworldly non-human. In season two Neri gets swimming company in the form of her younger sister Mera (Lauren Hewett), season three introduces another non-human Kal (Jeremy Angerson), and season 4 features enemies from Neri's homeworld, in particular Shersheba (Tharini Mudaliar), who does some great albeit brief swim-acting as well.


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