I must have been around 12 or so when this show aired in Portugal on a cartoon channel and I accidentally caught the first episode (how many times does that happen?). The story is intelligent, with some very intriguing plot twists and it grows with you while approaching themes like ecology, respect for life, acceptance of one another's differences, courage, friendship and love. It makes you understand that you sometimes have to rebel and break the rules if and when that is the right thing to do. It was intriguing, believable for sci-fi and the perfect 12 to 15 yo show, one that parents wouldn't object but I still didn't find boring or childish, in fact both my (then 6 year old) brother and my (obviously adult) mother got glued to it eventually and both enjoyed it their own way. If I had a child or cousin of appropriate age I would gladly re-watch it with them as this is a great show.

I recently watched all four seasons of Ocean Girl on DVD and I loved it! This is a beautiful show which was filmed in two of Australia's great natural wonders the Daintree Rainforrest and the Great Barrier Reef. The heroine of the show Neri is a wonderful character. She's so peaceful, innocent and beautiful.Neri is a mysterious teenage girl who lives alone on an uninhabited tropical island off the coast of northern Queensland. Neri has lived alone on this island for as long as she can remember. Neri is no ordinary girl as she has incredible abilities. She can breathe underwater and can swim great depths and long distances underwater. She can also communicate telepathically with a humpback whale she calls "Charley". Off the coast of Port Douglas is an underwater research and environmental protection facility called ORCA (Ocean Research Centre of Australia). In the pilot episode of Ocean Girl a marine scientist and cetologist (i.e. whale scientist) named Dr. Diane Bates comes to ORCA along with her sons, teenage Jason and his younger brother Brett. The Bates brothers encounter Neri and befriend her and agree to keep Neri a secret. At the same time the Bates brother's mother Dr. Bates and is studying Neri's whale "Charley" and she eventually learns about Neri. Dr. Bates is able to gain Neri's trust and becomes a surrogate mother to her. She also attempts to keep Neri a secret while secretly doing experiments on Neri to try and understand her extraordinary physiology. At the same time a rival research organization called UBRI headed by the corrupt Dr. Hellegren is introduced. This organization performs a number of secret and unethical experiments many of which cause damage to the environment. In the last few episodes of the first season, a spy from UBRI steals a copy of recorded whale song and UBRI uses it to trap Charley. In the last episode of the first season the Bates Brothers reveal Neri to the other children living on ORCA, then the Bates brothers, the other ORCA children and Neri work together and successfully free Charley.Neri doesn't learn her origins until the second season when Neri with the help of the Bates brothers discover a spacecraft buried under the sand on Neri's island. In the spacecraft they find a holographic recording made by Neri's father explaining that he and Neri are "Ocean People" who come from the "OceanPlanet". Neri's father was a scientist who came to study and protect the Earth's oceans, but the spacecraft crash-landed on Earth. Neri's father also explained that there was another member of Neri's family on the spacecraft Neri's younger sister Mera who was a baby at the time and was placed in a capsule which landed somewhere off the coast of Northern Queensland. The Bates brothers and the other children are eventually able to locate Mera who is living in a foster home. UBRI also learns about Mera and her abilities but the ORCA children persuade Mera to flee with them before UBRI can take her. Mera is reunited with Neri and two sisters live together on Neri's island. But UBRI finds out about the two girls and endeavours to capture them. The Bates brothers and the other ORCA children are able to thwart UBRI's attempts. Then two Ocean People come to Earth to take the two girls home. Mera happily returns to her home planet but Neri decides to stay on Earth to finish her father's work.In the third season of the show Neri and the Bates brothers search further into the buried spacecraft and discover logs revealing that Neri's father had with him this powerful device called the "Syncronium", which has the power to revitalize the worlds oceans and thus save the Earth from destruction. When the spacecraft crashed all the pieces of the "Syncronium" landed in different areas on the ocean and land. The Bates brothers, along with several children living on ORCA help Neri locate the pieces of the "Syncronium". Unfortunately Dr. Hellegren of UBRI also learns about the "Syncronium and wants it for his own selfish reasons. So the ORCA children have to try and stay ahead of UBRI.For some reason the fourth season of the show wasn't shown in the U.S. I've no idea why as the fourth season is really enjoyable. Neri and the Bates brothers discover an underwater Pyramid located in the South Pacific built by the Ocean People thousands of years ago. In this Pyramid is a hologram of Neri's mother Queen Shalamorn of the "Ocean Planet" who informs Neri that her destiny is to become princess of her people. The Ocean Planet and the Ocean People are finally revealed in this season. There is great chaos on the Ocean Planet as a deadly plague known as the "Red Virus" has contaminated the planet. A group of rebel Ocean People led by Malakat (a deranged tyrant) and Shersheba (a depraved member of the Ocean People royal family trying to steal Neri's heritage) lead a coup and make plans to invade and conquer Earth, something the majority of the Ocean People are highly opposed to. The other antagonist in the fourth season is PRAXIS (Preventative Response And eXtraterritorial Intelligence Service) an intelligence agency which investigates extraterrestrial activity. PRAXIS learns about Neri and believes that her people are a problem for Earth. The two PRAXIS field agents are Jake Shelby (a callous and arrogant American agent) and his partner Ellie Hauser (a blonde haired Australian woman) who unlike Shelby follows her conscience. So the Bates brothers have to protect Neri from the both PRAXIS and the rebel Ocean People, save the Earth and help Neri achieve her destiny as princess of her people.So Ocean Girl is a wonderful show. It is also one of the few Australian shows to perform so well internationally. So I highly recommend this show to anyone.

As a full grown adult at the time I used to watch this series on The Disney Channel on long, boring Sunday mornings when there was nothing else on TV. Occasionally I would tape episodes when there was a good discussion on the Sunday morning political shows and watch the episode later. To all of you who were children at the time and remember it, I wish to reassure you that there were many different references in the stories to things that really were more on an adult level. It wasn't all in your head. The series pretty much held up at an adult level. Unfortunately, the show was made in Australia so it didn't attract much attention in the United States. There was an underlying message of environmentalism and taking care of our planet in addition to the references to mermaids and the general remaking E.T.:The Extra Terrestrial story lines that were common in the 15 years after Steven Spielberg's groundbreaking film.The series only lasted three years. In year one we were introduced to the Ocean Girl Character. In year two, it was discovered that she had a sister who had been adopted by a human family and was then taken back to the island by the Ocean Girl. In year three, it is discovered that there is a spaceship buried under the island, inside of which is a boy who knows nothing about how things work on Earth. The boy is the key to turning on the spaceship, which sends a distress signal, that brings a ship from the Ocean Girl's home planet and takes the ocean dwelling aliens back home. As far as I know, this is how it came to an end. If there was anything more, only someone from Australia would know.

While it's been too long since I've seen this show (I was a mere 7th grader when it was on the Disney channel), I remember this show being very intellectual for a children's primetime series. Neri was a mysterious girl who lived in the ocean (and a nearby island) could communicate with the whale. Meanwhile there was a group of scientists, complete with an underwater city that boasted a school for the teenage children. Neri befriended two of the teenage boys of the ocean city, and together they tried to help save "Charlie" - the whale that Neri was friends with. The show had it's villains - a group of scientists that were competing against the Ocean city for whale research. This is pretty much all I remember about the series - aside from the fact that i was completely in love with the complicated stories - but it was canceled shortly before it's mysteries and loose ends were finished (Neri's island was a spaceship of sorts, suggesting she was an alien; and she had a sister - and a brother if I'm not mistaken). If you get a chance to see this show in syndication sometime, trust me, it's worth your time. Then again, maybe I just remember it being my only alternative to the looooong half-hour before Melrose Place on Monday nights.