Grade: A
ABC has been having a somewhat adventurous television year with not only tackling a show centered around fairy tales, brought to them by the team behind
LOST & trying to mimic
Mad Men’s retro 60’s success but they haven’t stopped there with their latest debut
The River a paranormal found-footage style show brought together by the master of found footage, Oren Peli. The series centers around the recent disappearance of Jack Hanna style adventurer Emmet Cole & his families search to find him. Our found-footage element is brought about by their funder & documentarian for the amazonian adventure, character Clark Quietly the former producer of Cole’s show
The Undiscovered Country. While found footage is continually being done in movies,
The River brings a bit of fresh air to its television debuts with the fact that this found footage is that of documentarians who not only have experience behind a camera but are also able to afford better cameras than the shaky cam footage of
Paranormal Activity.
The debut episode,
”Magus”, gives us our backstory fast & clean like a good documentary in the first 5 or so minutes & immediately throws us on our adventure as we find out that though it has been months since Cole’s disappearance, the recent activation of his search beacon gives hope to his family & friends. This search is brought together by former friend & producer of Cole, Clark Quietly, who can not only fund the search but will document it no matter the outcome for gain. As the team forms we find are introduced to Cole’s wife who has teamed with Clark, Cole’s estranged son Lincoln, Lena Landry, daughter of disappeared camera man Russ Landry, search Captain Kurt Bryndilson, & father/daughter team & former mechanic of Cole’s ship, the Magus, Emilio Valenzuela & daughter Jahel. Soon into their journey they discover the Magus which has been abandoned after getting caught in debris. As they begin the search of the ship it is obvious that something terrible has happened & not everyone on the crew has revealed their true intentions like Lena who goes in search of a secret compartment in Cole’s quarters.
During their search they begin to hear a knocking coming from the panic room of the ship & find that it has been welded shut from the outside. They soon begin the job of opening up the door against the wishes of some & upon opening & finding it seemingly empty it is obvious that some type of hoodoo has taken place inside. As they spot some sort of husk it soon burst open & it is obvious that whatever was inside was the reason the room was welded shut. The episode continues on with the attempts to stop whatever got out & its attempts to kill the search party.
”Magus” is able to offer a high tension episode filled with paranormal mystery in a very fresh & at times incredibly frightening fashion. Here is where the found footage aspect lends itself so well unlike most major produced films. Yes, there is shaky cam but it is never a constant. We get an array of stationary cameras that also show us just what is going on. The production value is at times high enough that one forgets its just found footage since it isn’t the norm of found footage.
In the end we are left with an incredibly fresh show unlike any other seen on television. Flipping the documentary & found footage styles on their heads & breathing new life into them by combining the two in a very smart way. It became obvious that the styles were becoming old especially with ABC produced series,
Modern Family which begged the question of why the series was a documentary & why there was never much interaction with the cameras outside of the interviews.
The River also sets itself apart by being only 8 episodes making it a much tighter schedule than those seen on premium cable & much more akin to UK series. As the search continues for Emmet Cole it is obvious that the series will be a delight in showing us other paranormal horrors the amazon river holds for our party.
