H2O - Just Add Water

H2O: Just Add Water is an Australian television programme for children, pre-teens and teenagers, that is filmed on location at Sea World and other locations on the Gold Coast. It first screened on Australia's Network Ten in 2006 and later on Disney Channel Australia, and currently runs on channels in over 120 countries and has a worldwide audience of more than 250 million. The show's premise revolves around three teenage girls facing everyday teen problems with an added twist: they're mermaids with powers over water. The theme song "No Ordinary Girl" is performed by Ellie Henderson in series one and by Kate Alexa in series two.

Originally, there were only two series with a total of 52 episodes, but due to popular demand, a third series began filming in late 2008 and will screen in late 2009. Jonathan M. Shiff, executive producer, said that, "there is lots of potential for a third season with normal teenagers who have super powers," and that open water filming may be an option in addition to the filming done at Sea World and Broadwater. Indiana Evans will have a major role in the third series as Bella.

A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a human head and torso and the tail of an aquatic animal such as a fish or dolphin. The word is a compound of mere, the Old English word for "sea," and maid, a woman. The male equivalent is a merman, however the term mermaid is sometimes used for males. Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures, typically depicted without clothing.

Much like sirens, mermaids would sometimes sing to people and gods and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk off the deck or run their ships aground. Other stories have them squeezing the life out of drowning men while attempting to rescue them. They are also said to take humans down to their underwater kingdoms. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid it is said that they forget that humans cannot breathe underwater, while others say they drown men out of spite.

The sirens of Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later folklore as mermaid-like; in fact, some languages use the same word for both bird and fish creatures, such as the Maltese word 'sirena'. Other related types of mythical or legendary creature are water fairies (e.g. various water nymphs) and selkies, animals that can transform themselves from seals to humans.