Ariel and her fishy buddies have been floundering at the box office for some time, so we can’t say we’re completely surprised by today’s announcement that The Little Mermaid will be closing on August 30 after a respectable—but probably not profitable—run of 765 performances. We were never great fans of this particular show; the best that our David Cote could say of it in his 2008 review was that “as multimillion-dollar children’s theater, The Little Mermaid is passable.” Still, it’s always a little sad to see a theater go dark, and actors and crew out of work—even when you know that the Lunt-Fontanne will probably be reoccupied soon enough, and possibly by something better. Most of all, we feel mournful for the Little Mermaid that might have been: a show that, like The Lion King—Disney’s greatest stage hit, not coincidentally—dared to explore its darker elements, rather than grinding them into kiddie pabulum. (Neither Ursula, the sea witch, nor Triton, the angry father, was ever properly scary enough in this version to raise the stakes above penny-ante.) We have long admired the Disney Corporation’s willingness to take risks on its shows, by hiring ambitious directors and unconventional designers; and we hope that for its next project, the company trusts its child audience a little more in the story department. Its familiar tunes, name recognition and powerful basic plot should have positioned the show swimmingly. But this sea story’s lack of depth cost it in the end: Mermaid, it turns out, didn’t have legs.