Siren - Advance Preview - The Unknown

"Slippery one, huh?."

"What if there was something sinister swimming beneath the sea’s surface? In Freeform’s next epic tale, “Siren,” the coastal town of Bristol Cove, known for its legend of once being home to mermaids, is turned upside down when a mysterious girl (Eline Powell) appears and begins wreaking havoc upon the small fishing town. Using their resources, marine biologists Ben (Alex Roe) and Maddie (Fola Evans-Akingbola) must work together to find out who and what drove this primal hunter of the deep sea to land, and are there more like her out there?"

I chose to go into this without watching a lot of promotional material, and the opening scene surprised me a lot, there’s a lot more violence and grittiness than I expected. And I have to say, in the Pilot, there are a lot of scenes that can even be described as disgusting, like something we could've seen in earlier seasons of Supernatural. Later on, this changes a bit to leave more space to the story and the characters, though it doesn't lose the gritty feel to it.

Eline Powel is our lead, she’s had some small appearances on "Game of Thrones" and "King Arthur: Legends of the sword", but this might just be her breakout role. She’s amazing here as Ryn, a mermaid who decides to delve into the unknown on a quest. Her character is a complex one, she can be delicate, she can be terrifying and a there is a sense of threat but also wonder as she begins to discover the land and its people, she's as mesmerized by the world as the world is by her, and this opens up the possibility for some very interesting interactions.



The main cast is actually filled with new actors, but they all seem to be the perfect choice, Alex Roe (The 5th Wave) is great as Ben, Ryn's first human friend, and Fola Evans-Akingbola is also great as Maddie, his girlfriend. Just like Eline, Fola might be looking at a breakout role here, especially with how the relationship between all of the characters evolves, there's just something so hypnotizing about it all. But they're not all relative newcomers, they're also joined by the amazing Gil Birmingham (Wind River, House of Cards, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Twilight) who will make an appearance later on, and Rena Owen (Star Wars, The Orville) as Helen Hawkins, who seems to be the town's crazy lady that maybe was never actually crazy.

If you've seen the first cast picture you were probably turned off a little, but thankfully they fixed that later on with some new photos and those awesome posters. This is a dark show, don't let any preconceived notion trick you into thinking this is a cheesy rom-com, it's nothing even close to that, it's a fearless supernatural thriller and a take on how we react to the unknown, on which is the right way to go when you don't know just how wonderful or dangerous something, or someone, can be.

The truth is we don't really know how a show is going to fair before it airs, and sometimes not even for the first few weeks after that, but this is a hypnotizing story that speaks to human nature and our own instincts, the balance between being jaded and naive, and how much are we willing to let go or how intolerant we can be as a species. The truth is you never know where the story is going, it surprises you at every turn, and in a TV landscape filled with procedurals, this is a serialized story that will keep you coming back for more.

Catch the special two-hour premiere of Siren on Tursday, March 29th at 8:00–10:00 p.m. EDT. Are you excited about this one? Let me know in the comments.