TV Verdict

I love these kinds of stories. This in many ways is a reinvention of the classic Agatha Christie story Ten Little Indians. I never read that book but I love the movie which was made in 1965. The premise for Harper’s Island is that two families are coming together through a wedding and everyone is returning home to an isolated island town for the wedding. Seven years ago a bunch of people were murdered on the island culminating in the killer committing suicide. The island, built on a quiet everybody knows everybody community has recovered and settled back into calm island living. The problem is that new murders have begun literally on the boat leaving Seattle to head to the island.This is a 13 episode murder mystery with at least one person getting murdered each episode. That is exciting and good fun. Whether you enjoy everything that happens between the murders depends on your interpretation of it. There’s a lot of really campy soap opera goings on in this series. It’s like Payton Place on steroids. The rich father doesn’t want his daughter marrying the poor boat cleaner so he’s called in her ex-boyfriend to try and foil the wedding. It’s a bit tedious and every scene built on this story arc can’t end quickly enough. Then there’s Abby, the groom’s best friend. She left the island because her mother was one of the victims of the original killing spree. She has returned to the island for the wedding and to deal with her loss and with her estranged father. This story is better executed until she gets into a bar fight while playing pool with an ex-boyfriend. If you look at these stories as typical soap opera you may change the channel but if you look at them as campy spoofs of soap opera you may find them amusing. I found the better executed subplots amusing and the worst ones to be as I said, tedious. So, there are elements of Ten Little Indians and of soap operas of any era, and even of 80’s horror films were an eclectic group of people are brought together to be killed one by one, similar to Black Christmas. Hopefully after the pilot the next episodes will execute these stories a bit better.

There are tons of red herrings in this first episode including the dark and tormented brother of the groom, the ex-boyfriend of the bride, and even Abby who could be just so troubled that she’s killing people herself. This week’s two murders prove two things: first the creators of the show are going to push the limits of TV with gore, and second even what seems like a main character can be killed. Harry Hamlin plays the groom’s uncle who takes it upon himself to protect his nephew from the evil father of the bride. The scene between the two of them is a bit of a fail, not due to the acting but due to weakly written dialogue. Not long after that meeting Hamlin gets to act out a pretty brutal death when he’s cut up literally. I didn’t expect him to get killed because he is somewhat of a name actor. So, hopefully this is a sign that any character can potentially get killed on this show. On the other hand, the other murder victim, a cousin that never even gets lines, may as well have been wearing a red shirt.

There are many problems with heavy handed music and plot threads but the murders are fairly gruesome and the mystery appears to be entertaining. The big question is what kind of series does Harper’s Island hope to be? Is it campy soap opera fun or a horror based mystery. If the creators are seeking to do a combination of the two hopefully they’ll lighten up some of the more tedious elements of some of the secondary stories.