3 years ago

High Quality
Summer.  It is the time when many good teevee shows are taking a siesta, leaving me bereft of entertainment.  So bereft that in my searching for distraction I’ve just caught up with all the extant episodes of “Harper’s Island.”  And so should you!  The whycome follows: The set-up:  It’s basically “Agatha Christie’s Scream What You Did Last Summer.” (With a touch of late night soap sudsiness and a vague debt — as all weird, provincial mystery-slash-thriller shows, i.e. “Picket Fences” and “American Gothic,” must pay — to David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks.”) So, seven years ago there was a series of murders on Harper’s Island.  Cut to now, where a wedding party of attractive young things and their kin with ties to the past travel to the selfsame island for their nuptials.  More murders ensue. The plot:  It’s a mystery, but unlike so many of the “high-concept” shows that require lexicons and flowcharts and character bibles as guides, it is not (for now!) a Möbius Strip of time travel and magic and conspiracy.  To borrow a quote from the esteemed Kiki DuRane:  “People die, ladies and gentlemen.  That’s all you need to know.” The heart: As mawkish as it sounds, the love affair of the two betrothed characters is wholly believable.  Even in the face of some shenanigans to keep them apart, there is a realistic bond betwixt the two that grounds all the gory, revenge-laden murder stuff. The cast: They are pretty!  (Most of them.)  And as in Scream and that whole wave of “new horror” that followed that franchise, we like to see pretty people fuck, and in peril.  They do both.  Actress Elaine Cassidy, whose character’s mother was one of the victims of the murderous rampage seven years ago, plays a decent Sidney Prescott-type w/ daddy issues. The setting: Like “Twin Peaks” before, the lush Pacific Northwest provides a nice backdrop…for secrets and death. Granted:  It is total brain candy.  And one must suspend disbelief at times to the point of near-idiocy.  But then:  who wants to concentrate on deep shows with meaning and relevance and metaphors during the summer?  That’s for when I’m homebound during the winter months.  Entertain me, I say.  And keep me guessing.  There are still like six episodes left. Options:  You can watch the show on that Netflix Instant thing or on TV.com.

Summer.  It is the time when many good teevee shows are taking a siesta, leaving me bereft of entertainment.  So bereft that in my searching for distraction I’ve just caught up with all the extant episodes of “Harper’s Island.”  And so should you!  The whycome follows:

  • The set-up:  It’s basically “Agatha Christie’s Scream What You Did Last Summer.” (With a touch of late night soap sudsiness and a vague debt — as all weird, provincial mystery-slash-thriller shows, i.e. “Picket Fences” and “American Gothic,” must pay — to David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks.”) So, seven years ago there was a series of murders on Harper’s Island.  Cut to now, where a wedding party of attractive young things and their kin with ties to the past travel to the selfsame island for their nuptials.  More murders ensue.
  • The plot:  It’s a mystery, but unlike so many of the “high-concept” shows that require lexicons and flowcharts and character bibles as guides, it is not (for now!) a Möbius Strip of time travel and magic and conspiracy.  To borrow a quote from the esteemed Kiki DuRane:  “People die, ladies and gentlemen.  That’s all you need to know.”
  • The heart: As mawkish as it sounds, the love affair of the two betrothed characters is wholly believable.  Even in the face of some shenanigans to keep them apart, there is a realistic bond betwixt the two that grounds all the gory, revenge-laden murder stuff.
  • The cast: They are pretty!  (Most of them.)  And as in Scream and that whole wave of “new horror” that followed that franchise, we like to see pretty people fuck, and in peril.  They do both.  Actress Elaine Cassidy, whose character’s mother was one of the victims of the murderous rampage seven years ago, plays a decent Sidney Prescott-type w/ daddy issues.
  • The setting: Like “Twin Peaks” before, the lush Pacific Northwest provides a nice backdrop…for secrets and death.
  • Granted:  It is total brain candy.  And one must suspend disbelief at times to the point of near-idiocy.  But then:  who wants to concentrate on deep shows with meaning and relevance and metaphors during the summer?  That’s for when I’m homebound during the winter months.  Entertain me, I say.  And keep me guessing.  There are still like six episodes left.
  • Options:  You can watch the show on that Netflix Instant thing or on TV.com.