New TV Review -- Haven

Haven
Welcome to Haven
SyFy Fridays 10 p.m.

SyFy (or Sci-Fi, for anyone who remembers the days way back when before someone somewhere decided that SyFy was a good name for anything) has a very mixed record with their original programming. You have their original movies, such as Dinocroc vs. Superalligator - the title should speak to the quality of these, which seem to be designed specifically for the drunk/hungover. Then you have a (very few) serious science fiction shows that receive general critical praise, such as Caprica, Battlestar Galactica, and Doctor Who. And then you have the low-budget, popcorn series that it usually handles fairly well, such as Sanctuary, Warehouse 13, and Eureka. So I guess the thing that seems unusual to me about their new series, Haven, is that it is neither fun in a guilty pleasure sort of way, nor is it well written. Or good in any way, really.

Haven is a loose adaptation of the Stephen King novella, The Colorado Kid (I'd say about half of everything is a loose adaptation of some Stephen King story at this point) that stars Emily Rose as young FBI agent Audrey Parker, who is sent on a case to the Maine town of Haven, where unusual happenings and various shenanigans have a habit of occurring. The pilot's first misstep comes in it's first scene, where Parker's boss comes to her house to give her the assignment that leads her to Haven. Ok, for starters, why the hell is this guy coming to her house? Suspension of disbelief is a must for a show like this, but am I expected to believe that it is standard FBI procedure for your boss to show up to your house whenever a new case comes in, and then makes extremely creepy and awkward conversation with you? In addition, you would think that if this case was so important that he would go to his employee's house, he wouldn't spend a good minute talking about her previous cases and her backstory. Well, unless you were looking for really obvious bad writing. Also he steals her vampire book. What the fuck? That's not the main problem, however. The main problem is that the writing in this scene is (I can only assume) intended to be witty. It is not in the slightest. Parker comes off as a whiny, petulant, lazy, and slightly dumb person, which is not a good sign if this is supposed to be the protagonist of the series. And the writing in the opening, unfortunately, only grows worse throughout the pilot. Take, for instance the scene where Parker arrives in Haven - her car crashes after a mysterious hole in the road opens up, which is mildly intriguing. Well, don't worry, because Haven quickly makes you forget about this by having local detective Nathan Wournos (Lucas Bryant) enter into a horrendously corny standoff with Parker. The writing is so cheesy that it's appalling - it's clear that Parker is supposed to be spunky, likable, and a compelling lead, but the writing honestly makes her presence at the beginning nearly intolerable. Parker spends most of this episode complaining to everyone she talks to. Contrast this with the introduction of say, Agent Dunham in Fringe, or Mulder in the X-Files. If you want to make sure the audience is invested in your protagonist, just do exactly the opposite of what Haven does here.

It would probably help things a little if the plot was interesting enough to distract from the terrible, terrible writing. But Haven's pilot is inexplicably self-contained - a "freak of the week" story that's not very freaky or well-done. It's nothing that, again, shows like The X-Files or Fringe haven't done and done better. And the acting of the side characters here, combined with the awful dialogue, makes the pilot almost painful to watch - or hilarious, depending on your viewpoint. It's a bad sign when the funniest line in a show that's supposed to be light and entertaining is "He blew me all the way down the street" - and that unintentional bit is probably only funny to my juvenile mind. At least I assume the show is supposed to be in the vein of shows like Sanctuary and Eureka, and not a serious horror/mystery series, because I just can't see it being close to good with the current level of writing, acting, and humorously bad SyFy special effects.

Speaking of special effects - if you're driving through a small town in a truck for some reason, and all of a sudden there's fog everywhere that makes it impossible to see, would you really just keep driving around? Whatever. Things like that are small potatoes compared to the massive characterization and writing issues present in this pilot. Eric Balfour's character, Duke something, is possibly even more annoying than Agent Parker - and that's saying something. The whole experience for me was just an excruciating countdown towards the end. And the end did provide a little bit of a twist that might suggest some kind of interesting goings on, but it's just nothing compelling enough to make me slog through the atrocious dialogue. It's actually shocking what a poor job this pilot does at setting up the show and making viewers want to keep following it. Oh well. At least SyFy will always have Mansquito. Yes, that's a real SyFy original film.

Grade: D+

"I don't like lobster. I really like pancakes" - Yes, this is really the best line of dialogue I found in the pilot.