Episode Title: "Welcome To Haven"
Writers: Jim Dunn & Sam Ernst
Director: Adam Kane
Premise:
An FBI agent is drawn to a mysterious small town in Maine to hunt down a killer, where seemingly supernatural powers may hide the secrets to her own past.
Story:
Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) is awakened at her house by her boss at the FBI and assigned to track down an escaped killer named Jonas Lester. While driving towards the town of Haven, the road mysteriously gives way beneath her car, nearly sending her off a nearby cliff. She is rescued by Officer Nathan Wournos (Lucas Bryant) and after a brief confrontation with her savior, they discover that Lester is already dead.
Audrey confers with Nathan's father, Police Chief Wuornos (Nicholas Campbell) who seems convinced that Lester committed suicide, despite Audrey's assertion that the position of his body suggests that he was pushed off the cliff with great force. Nathan stays with her as she goes to question a man named Conrad Brower who had a previous grudge with Lester. Conrad denies killing Lester and attempts to flee. Suddenly the town is beset by bizarre weather and clouds which allow Conrad to slip away. They also question Conrad's childhood friend, Maryanne (Nicole de Boer), who insists that Conrad couldn't have killed anyone.
Nathan then suggests that they look into someone named Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour) as a possible suspect. Audrey is also approached by two local reporters that tell her about the legend of the "Colorado Kid" and note that Audrey looks exactly like a woman pictured in the newspaper from many years ago. Since Audrey is an orphan, she suspects that the woman may be her mother. Later, another freak storm strikes, sending Audrey into the ocean. She is saved by Duke, who refutes any connection to Lester and returns her safely.
Eventually realizing that Lester was conspiring with Audrey's boyfriend Ted to steal her inheritance, Audrey realizes that Maryanne killed Lester with her storm control powers. Maryanne confronts Ted as he tries to flee town with her money and nearly annihilates him with her abilities. Audrey is able to talk her down and doesn't even try to prosecute her for "accidentally" killing Lester. Afterwards, Conrad and Maryanne seem to realize their feelings for each other.
Feeling that the answers to her past are somewhere in Haven, Audrey calls her boss and tells him that she will be staying in town for a while. He agrees to let her stay and we see that he is watching her nearby without her knowledge. As he calls someone to report her new status and drives away, the cracks in the road appear behind his car.
Breakdown:
I have to say, this summer really had me snowed.
After a steady diet of solid entertainment like "Burn Notice," "Leverage" and even "Eureka," I thought that the cable networks weren't going to fire a dud this summer...
Until I saw "Haven."
This show went off the rails with incredible speed. Literally from the opening minute, we're hit by some of the most incredibly bad dialog and exposition that I've ever seen. I almost don't know where to begin explaining how it went so wrong. When a name like Stephen King's is attached to a property, you expect it to have at least some redeeming qualities.
Emily Rose might, MIGHT be able to carry this. She's attractive and some of her lines were delivered well, which is more than I can say for the rest of the actors.
Ultimately, the main problem of "Haven" was the writing. By trying to get so much exposition out of the way in the opening scene, it felt like the script was trying to rush us into the town. The fact that we only see the FBI represented by Audrey and her boss also worked against the story. Together, they just weren't convincing as FBI agents. It may have worked better if the story had simply started with Audrey driving into the town before the crash.
And then there's the leading men: Lucas Bryant, who shows all of the charisma of attic insulation and Eric Balfour. I don't know about you, but when I'm looking to cast a mysterious "bad boy" type, I immediately think to get the computer nerd from "24"!
Sure, that makes sense.
I didn't think any series this year would trump "Happy Town's" ill-conceived main characters, but here you go: "Haven" is the show that makes "Happy Town" look like "Twin Peaks."
A special call out has to go for the moment of false tension between Audrey and Nathan as they briefly pulled guns on each other, which was ludicrous. I did laugh when Audrey risked falling off the cliff to turn the radio off of an annoying song, but no real person would ever do that.
Even Nicole de Boer — who has been excellent on "The Dead Zone" and on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" — is horrible here. She's also the only reason I can give any of these actors the benefit of the doubt that it was the writing and directing that failed. Maybe the cast can rise above this material if the creative team can pull it together.
This show was an incredible disappointment. I was hoping it would be more of a "Dark Eureka," but I would have settled for it being good.
But this was not good, America.
Not by a long shot.
Crave Online Rating: 3.5 out of 10.
