Monday, August 01, 2011

Haven - Crazy Lives in Maine

I really like the show Haven. Last year it was a refreshing breath of strange, as opposed to recycled strange, passing strange, and strangely arranged, in that it took small town Americana on a ride to the heart of the twilight zone.


You'd expect no less from a product based on Stephen King storytelling (It's loosely based on a story called the Colorado Kid).Yet it delivers so much more.

It's certainly innovative, I think, but not pretentious, and unapologetic about how it lays things out and leaves things hanging, giving enough finish and enough open ended to keep you coming back for more. Stuff happens, weird stuff, and even beyond weird crazy psycho stuff too, and somehow life perseveres. People gossip and feud, run out family dramas, and commit petty crimes (and large crimes). Life as you know it continues amidst the cyclone of crazy. Plus, it's full of camp & quirk, the kind you can only get in a remote, seaside town shoved along the upper east coast. You have hanging threads that pick up and drop, not like Lost (where it was a cluster-fox trot), but with enough skill to tantalize and tease and make you think about things well after the episodes are over.


Central to it is an enigmatic female FBI agent with a murky past that turned positively pitch black with season two. She's what's missing in television heroines, strong, capable and not a raging bitch. Intelligent, but not too smart for her shirt.

The most recent episode, #3 of season two, called Love Machine, made me look twice at my dryer and all the other electronic devices in the house.

If you have not tried Haven, and want something different to freshen the viewing schedule, give it a try.

Here's the quickie wickie def on it, and it's quite good, but no where near complete.
Shrewd and confident FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) has a lost past and an openness to the possibility of the paranormal. When she arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine, on a routine case, she soon finds herself caught up with the return of The Troubles, a plague of supernatural afflictions that occurred in the town at least once before. If that was not enough to draw her in, she also finds a link that may lead her to the mother she has never known.

1 comment:

Stefeathers said...

I like Haven, too. I think it's a really good cast and that helps the quality of the writing.