ABC's new horror series, Happy Town premieres Wednesday, April 28th. How will the series rank with ladies and gents? To answer that question, The Plot Hole presents a He Said/She Said advance review of Happy Town's first episode. Zombie Boy and Angela Mac pull back the curtain and let opinions fly. Read on! 

He Said: 

 We don't do much television reviewing 'round these parts, and I can't say I was champing at the bit to take a gander at Happy Town (hell, I don't even have cable) but a chance to preview ABC's new hour-long horror series before it airs to the general public fell into my lap, and we all know what a sucker I am for that kind of thing. Just assembling some images for the review, before watching the show, kind of got me a little excited I'll admit, and we all know that freaky small town stories are usually pretty satisfying, so all things looked to be a go. So how does Happy Town stack up? I gotta tell you, it ain't pretty.

Haplin, Minnesota, is supposed to be a bucolic town free of crime, a dream suburb for people to raise their picture perfect nuclear families in...but only on the surface. Except you don't need to scratch the surface that hard. The effing show begins with a heinous murder, then segues to a riot in the town square, talks about the local meth lab, and then shows us a group of possibly inbred brothers who live on the edge of town and have unhidden animosity for everyone in town. So where is the free of crime stuff we heard about earlier? Don't put out so easily, Happy Town. It's more enjoyable to make me work for it a little.

Then there are the characters. In addition to the Mr. Mustache-type villains, there is the dopey son of the sheriff, the total cliched prodigal son, who lays on a saccharine boyish charm while his apparently brain-damaged wife (Amy Acker, better known as Fred from Angel) simply cocks her head and smiles at him like a vacant yellow Labrador. Prodigal's dad, the sheriff, is played by the wonderful character actor MC Gainey (Mr. Smiley from the earlier seasons of Lost) who desperately needed the director to reel him in from his hammy cliff. Lauren German plays "Henley", the new girl in town with maybe a secret? Sam Neill plays a Mephistophelean antique cinema curio shop proprietor, and he is always a treat, even when he's in a bad project slamming his character down your throat. Abraham Benrubi, as Big Dave, makes my day every time I see him in something. No matter how long he was on ER, he always remained Kubiak to me.

Whoa! Is that motherfucking Sam Neill? It sure is, baby.

Then there's this Magic Man crap. There were a series of seven disappearances over seven years, and now five years later there's a murder and the whole town acts like its been shaken to its core. It simply doesn't stand up to logic. Neither does the smart, attractive, well put together teenage girl, whose father runs the meth lab, and her equally attractive friend being brutally picked on at school. Thank you, Happy Town, for pulling the specter of pretty girls being bullied at school by boys out into the light. The whole episode is tell don't show, and nothing it is telling is anything I need to hear. I don't give a shit if I ever find out what's on the third floor.

 

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Angela Mac  - Oops   |67.142.161.xxx |2010-04-25 08:38:23 The Sayid pic should have had the caption: "Instead of watching more of Happy Town, I'll just stare at this picture for an hour." Or something like that. I hadn't quite decided. But glad we're on the same page!

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