YMMV / Mermaids: The Body Found

• Broken Base: Some loved the documentary as a good work of fiction with a fun speculative science and mystery spin, others hated it for being aired like it was a documentary despite even professing to be a work of fiction.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: This series is mostly remembered for tricking thousands of viewers into believing that mermaids were real rather than any of its merits as a Speculative Documentary about how aquatic hominids might evolve. The only indication that it was a work of fiction was a very small disclaimer visible briefly during the opening, which many people watching it missed.
• Spiritual Successor: Being a Speculative Documentary that presents mythical creatures as real and delivers a Green Aesop, it's easy to see this as a kind of follow-up to Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real.
• Ugly Cute: While their large, perpetually-staring eyes and more fish-like, streamlined appearance can make the mermaids fall a bit into the Uncanny Valley, others have found them to be particularly charming and endearing in their own way. It helps they have a very sympathetic background and you can't help but want to give them a hug with all the problems they have endured.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The mermaids can be this, with their large, fish-like eyes placed on their more humanoid faces, not helped by the somewhat dodgy CGI. However, some find them Ugly Cute instead.
• Woobie Species: The mermaids, big time. Their lineage has been present on Earth for quite a handful of millions of years, making them a very successful species, yet their survival is now in jeopardy because of factors such as the increasing global warming and human activity making it harder for them to obtain their main sources of food. Mermaids are naturally peaceful, yet, unfortunately, humans make a rather lousy job at coexisting with them, not to mention the U.S Navy cares more about testing new weapons on the oceanic depths than finding a way to protect the merfolk from certain extinction. If that was't bad enough, it is implied the navy also wants to capture merfolk to perform atrocious experiments on them.