Mermaids: The New Evidence

This deserves two stars for Ron Maestri giving the performance of a lifetime as "an expert on circuses and sideshows, historian and consultant to the Smithsonian." He delivers his lines like he rehearsed them a thousand times and really knows his stuff. The "oceanographer" who supposedly set the scientific community off into an uproar by revealing footage of mermaids cavorting doesn't do nearly as good a job in his part, although his name isn't in the credits here, he looks very, very familiar. In fact, all the "experts" and "officials" are actors we know we've seen before somewhere. Maestri, best known for the cell phone commercial where he plays "the McCann Twins", has such unique features and his visage is so effectively burned into our psyches by the constant repetition of that ad, that you will start wondering about the nonsense presented once he appears. And that is exactly what this so-called documentary is: complete nonsense and in no sense a serious piece deserving of being shown on Animal Planet. It's more on the level of Alien Autopsy.