With summer now in full stride, we’re all inevitably thinking about the beach — or, at the very least, about the ocean, for those of us who either spent too much time at the aquarium as a child or hate sand in their shorts. (If you’re like me, you’re both.) That vast expanse of undiscovered potential, filled with everything from the tiniest of plankton to whale sharks the size of football fields, draws our eye year after year, as the temperatures warm up, and it’s finally the right time to take a dip. It’s appropriate, then, that AMC+ has chosen the end of June to premiere Nautilus, a prequel series based on Jules Verne’s quintessential adventure novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Rescued from Disney+ and set years before Ned Land and Pierre Arronax ever board the titular submarine, Nautilus shows us the early life of Captain Nemo, as played by Star Trek veteran Shazad Latif, and how exactly he managed to earn his title in the first place.
What Is ‘Nautilus’ About?

We meet Nemo not as the seafaring genius he is in Verne’s novel, but as a prisoner of Britain’s East India Company, stuck building the Nautilus in a subterranean labor camp and surrounded by men just like him — that is to say, people of color the Company wants silenced. He’s secretly working with the Nautilus’ creator, the soft-spoken Frenchman Benoit (Thierry Frémont), to escape the camp and earn their freedom — but when they do, things don’t go to plan, and he’s stuck not with a crew of trained shipmates, but a mishmash of fellow prisoners who couldn’t tell a scope from a hole in the ground. Add to that their collision with a Company ship and taking aspiring engineer Humility Lucas (Georgia Flood) as a captive, and Nemo’s got the chaotic adventure of a lifetime on his hands. The series plays fast and loose with his princely origins — something not revealed by Verne until 20,000 Leagues’ sequel, The Mysterious Island — and it plays into his motivation to destroy the Company, sending him and his merry band of misfits around the world, in an adventure that puts them in the path of everything from guest stars like Richard E. Grant and Noah Taylor to giant squids and nightmarish, hiveminded crab creatures.
‘Nautilus’ Biggest Strength Is Its Charming Cast

Image via AMC+

If I’d had more time (or, more accurately, more space) to write this, you’d be stuck reading individual paragraphs about every character that appears in Nautilus, because no matter what I do, I don’t think I can pick a favorite. Each of the ragtag former prisoners who help Nemo captain the ship has a unique kind of charm, from Pacharo Mzembe’s first mate Boniface to Céline Menville as Humility’s escort Loti, who makes such a turn halfway through the series that I ended up genuinely obsessed with her. (Give a woman a knife, and I’m bound to get overexcited about it.) Even the company men sent to capture the Nautilus get a chance to shine, with Jacob Collins-Levy and Black Sails’ Luke Arnold infusing what could have been bog-standard villains with a heartwrenching humanity. We’ve seen plenty of stories about the East India Company before — Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone? — but this is the first time I’ve found myself just as compelled by their side of the game as the heroes’. There’s even a certain charm in Cameron Cuffe’s juvenile, petty Lord Pitt, Humility’s rich fiancé who takes up the mantle of the series’ signature bumbling idiot, replete in his gaudy cricket whites. But, favorites aside, it’s impossible to deny how much work Latif and the writing team have done to expand Nemo’s inner life, from a (however unintentionally) Orientalist portrait in Verne’s novel to a deeply troubled and grieving widower. As one of very few South Asian actors to have played the part, Latif brings a complexity to Nemo that makes him equally fascinating and unfathomably frustrating, a man so blinded by rage and his own stubbornness that he fails to see he’s building his own guillotine. He’s the sun around which the show’s entire universe revolves, even for as much as it tends to abandon him in certain episodes — one of very few complaints to be had about the series as a whole.

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Shazad Latif & Georgia Flood Create a Perfect Ship for ‘Nautilus’

Image via AMC+

It’s Nemo’s relationship with Humility, however, that mercifully offsets that imbalance. As much as the first half of the series tends to leave Nemo hanging in favor of letting the newly invented character have her moment, it’s Latif and Flood’s dynamic that ultimately makes the series feel as engaging as it does. Their characters are two sides of a battered coin, each trying to make their way in a world that’s wholly rejected them. I very nearly dismissed Humility as the show’s Token Feminist White Woman — a moment spurred on by too much exposition dumping in the pilot — but once it finds its feet, Nautilus lets her explore her flaws just as much as it makes Nemo confront his. Even being able to spot the underlying intention in throwing the two of them together, personifying his second chance at life in her is exactly the right decision, taking two disparate halves and pulling them together to make a feisty, stubborn, swoonworthy whole. While I wish the series had done a bit more to expand on their relationship prior to the halfway point, I’d be a damn liar if I said I wasn’t kicking my feet every time they were together. It’s a ship made for the Pride & Prejudice girlies, a proper one full of the kind of yearning that’s fallen by the wayside with the recent surge in spicy romance novels. It wouldn’t be a pulpy Victorian adventure without a little bit of romance, and Nautilus wears its heart and its influences on its sleeve, just as it should. That said, despite the show’s move to AMC, it’s impossible to deny the Disney fingerprints that remain, especially during the exceptionally shaky pilot. Certain emotional moments feel a bit Disney Channel in their overt sincerity, and the CGI during any given dive sequence makes the Bioshock games look revolutionary. While it’s still an affront that they’d produce the entire thing only to dump it – a disturbing new trend with major studios — there’s no shaking Nautilus’ origins, even with it scattered across numerous streamers worldwide.
‘Nautilus’ Takes the Classic Action-Adventure Story and Amps It Up a Notch

Image via AMC+

Having been tasked with carrying on the legacy of one of the greatest adventure novels of all time, it’s hard to say that Nautilus failed in its objective. In some ways, it’s an improvement on the formula attempted by the David Tennant-led Around the World in 80 Days adaptation — to the point that Phileas Fogg even gets a namedrop in one episode. While what makes for high-concept, Emmy-winning television changes seemingly by the minute, it’s almost a relief to return to such a classic adventure of the week structure, which has almost been abandoned by the industry’s current attitude toward producing shorter seasons of television. Taking a leap back to a classic Victorian adventure feels like a return to form, to a time when exploration and freedom were the name of the game, and TV didn’t have to change your life every time you watched it. Even tinged with the realities of what life in that time was actually like (something the series actually uses to improve Verne’s world for a modern audience), Nautilus has a hopeful magic to it, an old-fashioned kind of optimism that’s willing to let its characters have a beach episode, so to speak. The only real downside is knowing that none of the seeds planted will likely ever get to flourish. There’s plenty set up for future seasons, even as the finale also serves as a transition into the original story of 20,000 Leagues; knowing that, unless AMC or another streamer comes to its rescue, they’ll be nothing but loose ends is frustrating. It’s a feeling symptomatic of the pitiful landscape of TV as it stands right now, with shows never getting any room to breathe unless they’re Stranger Things or something equally massive. It’s a damn shame for a show whose essence is so solidly perfect for television. With a leading man you can’t take your eyes off of and an adventure that’ll leave you hovering on the edge of your seat, Nautilus is comfort food at its finest and classic in the making, one you should force everyone you know to sit down and watch it. Nautilus premieres tonight at 9 PM ET on AMC and AMC+ with two episodes, followed by new episodes weekly.

Nautilus

While Nautilus isn’t a perfect show, its action-adventure sensibilities and charming lead result in a terrific summer watch.

Release Date

2024 – 2023

Network

Prime Video

Directors

Michael Matthews, Ben C. Lucas

Writers

Matthew Parkhill, Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre

Pros & Cons

Nautilus’ cast is superb, playing a range of colorful, lovable characters.
Shazad Latif is perfect casting for Nemo, especially in his chemistry with Georgia Flood.
The series feels like a worthy successor to Jules Verne’s original adventure stories.

Disney left its fingerprints all over the series, especially in its messy CGI.
Some thematic elements end up overly saccharine, and leave Nemo himself hanging.