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THE RIVER |
Tess Cole - Lesley Cole Lincoln Cole - Joe Anderson Clark Quietly - Paul Blackthorne Kurt Brynildson - Thomas Kretschmann Lena Landry - Eloise Mumford AJ Poulaine - Shaun Parkes Emilio Valenzuela - Daniel Zacapa Jahel Valenzuela - Paulina Gaitán Emmet Cole - Bruce Greenwood. 
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MagusEmmet Cole, beloved TV naturalist, goes missing on a trip to the Amazon. His wife and producer rope in his estranged son and some others to go looking for him, making a documentary along the way. The Amazon, though, is a spooky place. The found footage format has pretty much run its course in the cinema and so the arrival of this show may be too late to catch the zeitgeist. There is also the question of how long this format can be maintained without straining the audience's patience. It barely maintains its welcome through this first episode. The beginning is fine, the gimmick fresh and a good way to introduce the varied crewmembers, but it strains credibility to say the least when they discover that the entirety of Emmet's ship, the titular Magus, is covered by a whole system of hidden cameras, right down to the one in the medicine cabinet. The characters seem to all have problems with each other, this heightening the conflict, but it also comes across as being a bit artificial. There are some spooky moments here, but the supernatural danger seems to be invisible, or just camera shy, which undermines the threat that it is supposed to represent. THE RIVER has some possibilities, but it is questionable as to whether the found footage format will become too annoying before the potential is realised. MarberleyLeaving the Magus, the group find a tree that is strung about with dolls. A spirit attacks them and Jahel is taken over by a spirit in the shape of a dragonfly. Broken dolls are creepy. This is a known fact, so it is no surprise that they are used here to pretty good effect. Admittedly, you can predict the eyes opening and the heads turning by themselves, but just because you know that it's going to happen doesn't mean that it won't be effective. Jahel's possession is nicely different and that adds to the creep factor. Even the pov camerawork gimmick is less annoying, mainly because they are off the ship. Top Los CiegosAfter entering a cave they shouldn't have, the crew start to go blind. Only AJ can find the cure, but it means facing his own personal nightmare. Blindness is a sure way to make people vulnerable and up the threat level, but it is the moment that AJ the claustrophobic goes under the roots of a tree that really works. The sense of closed in spaces and terror is hugely effective. The silent warriors are also creepy, but the story doesn't do them justice. Top The Better ManA member of Emmet's previous crew is found hanging in the jungle. After he is released, the Magus comes under attack from vines and dead birds and insect swarms. Could it be the survivor that the jungle wants? The story here has some effective moments such as the living vines, the first appearance of the survivor the falling birds and the insect swarm. This and the central dilemma that the story builds up to (whether or not to leave the apparently cursed man behind) makes it more interesting and tense than others to this point. The fact that it all plays out fairly predictably is a problem and the insisistence on the found footage format continues to limit the real effectiveness of the show. Top PeachesA near collision with a mysterious ship leaves the Magus damaged and stranded. A ship comes to help, but is it more of a threat than a saviour? Before it morphs into an update of the Flying Dutchman myth, this episode appears to be dealing with simple slave traders and that would have been a welcome change from the norm. Then the supernatural rears its head and a ticking clock is added to the scenario in the hope of increasing the tension right up to the rather flat climax. Lena came along to find her father and this story puts the focus squarely on Eloise Mumford, who handles the emotional demands of the finale well. It does mean that we have to deal with a load of set up of the character in the early stages with the faux-documentary inteviews etc and the finale is pretty well predictable. Top Doctor Emmet ColeThe crew of the Magus find footage left behind from Emmet's expedition into the woods. They watch helplessly as the great man unravels. The entire crew take a back seat as the focus switches to Bruce Greenwood as Emmet Cole and the POV found footage gimmick is tested far beyond its limit as the natives that find the nearly-dead scientist carry on filming and editing for him, apparently by accident. It's nonsense and it completely undermines the performance from Greenwood as a man slowly losing his battle with the jungle and the forces that are within it. Yes, there's a cliffhanger, but by that point we're just glad the dog made it out alive. Top The ExperimentReaching Emmet's last known location, the Magus crew discover a secret research base where something very, very bad has happened. This is a zombie episode. For all the trappings, it comes down to a bunch of frightened people in a bunch of very dark corridors with a bunch of zombies. That's a very disappointing step backward in terms of originality because there is almost nothing here that is even remotely new. Even the light shining from the other wing of the hospital ... well, you've seen it all before. The insistence on the found footage format is less annoying here, mainly because the crew are off the boat and less effort is made to convince us that it's all actually being filmed. It also shows that this could have been a much better show had they just filmed it as normal and relied on the plot and the acting to carry it. Top Row, Row, Row Your BoatA member of the crew is murdered. Jahel thinks that she knows of a spirit that can bring him back from the dead, but what comes back might not be him. Picking up from the last episode with questions being asked of Emmet (though not as many as could have been and with people being remarkably casual about not pressing him for answers), but then the shocking turn of events leads to what is a fairly straightforward possession tale. Straightforward doesn't necessarily mean bad and the story plays out quite nicely with some extreme physical acting from the possessed crewmember and some nice effects moments. There is a cliffhanger, of course, to lead into a second season, but it's hard to see this continuing when other, better shows have failed to be renewed. Top |
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