• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 8 hours ago

The new AMC series “Nautilus” brings the steam-punk era of Jules Verne to life in a retelling of Verne’s submarine adventure novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

As in the novel and the 1954 movie version starring James Mason, the central character in “Nautilus” is Nemo. 

In the TV show, he is an oppressed Indian laborer-slave in the time of Queen Victoria and the British Empire’s control of India.

The villain of the show is a powerful British global import-export company called the East India Mercantile Company which is described as a corporation even more powerful than the empire itself.

The EIMC is meant to be a fictional version of the real-life East India Company, although in the novel, the “villain” is an unnamed imperialist country, says Wikipedia.

It is reasonable to assume that 19th-century readers knew or at least could guess that the book was about Great Britain.

In “Nautilus,” the time frame can be determined to be the mid-19th century. Verne’s novel was first published as a magazine serial in 1869-70 and published as a book in 1871.

In the TV show, Nemo is one of a group of laborers who find themselves in position to take over the Nautilus, which is a first-of-its-kind futuristic submarine built secretly by the EIMC to further its imperialistic conquest of the world’s economy.

And so, Nemo -- whose name means “no one” in Latin -- makes himself captain of the stolen Nautilus and he and his crew set sail for adventure.

As in the novel, we learn in Episode One of “Nautilus” that Nemo nurses a grievance against the imperialist trading company stemming from the apparently violent deaths of his wife and daughter at the hands of the EIMC. 

Being held captive by this evil corporate giant who he blames for their deaths did not sit well with him either.

Having never read the book, but having seen the 1954 movie, I remember Nemo was depicted as a genius who at times was unstrung, unpredictable and stubbornly resolute.

In “Nautilus,” he is played with admirable intensity by British actor Shazad Latif (above photo). 

But the character that draws our attention the most is the Nautilus itself -- from the great hissing piston-driven steam engines to the ornate, oak-paneled captain’s suite.

The first episode of the series that was provided for preview by AMC contained a number of “slots” where a scene would fade quickly to black and then return. The slots are evidently set up for commercial breaks.  

“Nautilus” premieres Sunday, June 29, at 9 p.m. Eastern on AMC and streaming on AMC+.