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In 2005 NBC premiered the first episode of “Surface.” Starring Lake Bell of “Boston Legal” fame, “Surface” was a mystery sci-fi show about apparent monsters emerging from the ocean. It’s a show with a lot of beach-related mysteries, so it found itself on the wrong side of countless “Lost” comparisons.\u00a0James Poniewozik at TIME Magazine<\/a> dismissively referred to it\u00a0as “the wettest of the ‘Lost’ wannabes,” although he argued that the show’s attempts to capture director Steven Spielberg’s magic is where it floundered most of all:<\/p>\n “It does aim, clumsily, at a sense of wonder, with so much faux Spielberg \u2014 a boy hiding a creature in his house,\u00a0\u00e0 la ‘E.T.’; an average guy who becomes obsessed with the secret,\u00a0\u00e0 la ‘Close Encounters’ \u2014 that NBC might as well have called this ‘Jaws: The Series.’ Instead it was called ‘Fathom,’ then renamed the equally limp ‘Surface.’ Now people can’t say, ‘I cannot fathom how this mishmash got on the air.'”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Ten episodes into the first season NBC put “Surface” on a temporary hiatus, which is never a good sign. The show returned in January for five more episodes, then was put on another hiatus due to the 2006 Winter Olympics. It never returned again, and was officially canceled a few months later.<\/p>\n It was a sad end for the show, although at least “Surface” is now easier to find than other canceled series from its era. Today you can watch the show for free on Fandango at Home<\/a>. If you want to watch it without ads, you can pay $1.99 an episode or $19.99 for the whole season. That might not sound like the greatest deal but, as someone who still can’t find a copy of the 1996 series “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”<\/a> anywhere, I’ll take what I can get.<\/p>\n\n