The Troubled Television Program

By Fearless Young Orphan Haven Season 2 SyFy Channel TV Series

WELL THANK GOODNESS the SyFy channel finally fixed all those terrible problems that Haven was having in the first season. If you’ll recall, last year I did a scathing review of that trash heap of a show and listed all the reasons why it just sucked so bad that it made Baby Jesus cry. Yes, it turns out that humorous, thoughtful and poignant television programs with fleshed-out characters and charm to spare must make Baby Jesus cry, so the creators of Haven quickly rethought their creative process to change all that, producing instead a dull, glum cliché of every X-Files wannabe since 1993, beating the life and charm out of all its characters until we have a show that makes Baby Jesus rethink his television choices altogether.

I’ve had a few shows break my heart, and it’s never easy. The X-Files was one such show; SyFy’s reboot of Battlestar Gallactica was another. Man, that puppy crashed like the ever-lovin’ Hindenburg. If you’d like to hear a case study of my reality-based problems, I’d be happy to dish, but you’ll have to email me because I won’t take the time here. Haven was not as beloved to me as those two shows. But it was a real pleasure back in Season 1, and I was truly looking forward to Season 2. Staring Season 2 sent up a lot of red flags, though. For a couple episodes, it seemed that the show was having trouble finding its footing. The cliffhanger at the end of Season 1 (two Audreys!) floundered in Season 2, when it turned out the writers didn’t know what to do with its second Audrey. Her existence was the important thing, now what the hell? It’s like they wanted her to go away and couldn’t figure out how to ask without seeming rude.

And Audrey No. 2 wasn’t the only problem – Season 2 has introduced three other major characters who serve a function and then are left to wander until the show figures out how to kill them or kick them away (I am speaking of Jason Priestley’s Chris Brody, who had a great start but a terrible finish, the irritating bitch wife that Duke sprouted, and the professional wrestler who is on the show to act as a sort of cleaner, although he cannot, in fact, act). This was a show that did not need any more characters. There were plenty of them, good ones, who were carrying the plot along nicely.

I’m not willing to go episode by episode about this; some episodes have been a little better than others, but the overall quality has been trending downward badly. I’d like instead to reference my happy discussion of Season 1 from last January (the stuff below, in bold), and then express my displeasure by bitching and whining where it’s all gone wrong.

From Season 1: Young FBI Agent Audrey Parker (dryly feisty Emily Rose) relocates herself to the quaint New England town of Haven because she believes this “troubled” place needs her, and because she believes her own past is connected there somehow. Every week she and Deputy Nathan Wuornos (Lucas Bryant) solve a different, wonky-assed case, because if there is anything that Haven provides, it’s nonstop wonkiness.

When I say “troubled,” I mean that quite literally, as the town of Haven even refers to its problems as “Troubles” with a capital T. This town is a breeding ground for supernatural problems, which almost invariably manifest themselves as psychokinetic powers of some sort in the town’s residents. Audrey and Nathan handle these situations with more common sense than one might expect on television, and with a fairness that will probably feel confusing at first, until you realize that this is not a show about hard justice so much as it is about New England neighborliness.

The Troubles continue in Season 2, but now the focus is on

a) far more idiotic Troubles, like angry trees, jealous machinery, cursed jigsaw puzzles or a society of country mer-folk; and b) ending the Troubles without much creativity or thoughtfulness at all.

And forget about the “New England neighborliness” because that’s not the issue any more. Oh no, now it’s all about the normal people against the Troubled people and, like now it’s going to be a “war.” How boring. They start batting around the word “war” and are sneaking Troubled people out of town like there’s an underground railroad. Now in theory, that might sound a little exciting, except that it flies in the face of the show’s original charm. Last time I looked, this was a show about learning to live with differences, even appreciate the advantages of differences. Now Scully and Mulder—I mean, Audrey and Nathan–chase the illusive source of the Troubles like just another damn conspiracy theory. I saw this show fifteen years ago and got pretty sick of it then, too.

From Season 1: Audrey and Nathan . . . have a very interesting chemistry between them. She is a tough little cookie who seems unaware that she’s actually very beautiful. He is a brooder who has an affliction of his own: he is unable to experience any touch sensations and he cannot feel pain. This makes him somewhat handicapped in the romance department. Also, in addition to brooding, he has a fondness for decoupage and baking – just one example of the ways that the characters are more than stereotypes. Audrey is in the meantime having her head turned by bad-boy Duke (Eric Balfour), a smuggler with a heart of gold. The sexual chemistry is rather nice, not overstated, never the focus of the whole show.

Yeah, you can just kiss all that goodbye. Audrey, Nathan and Duke have become amazingly dull people who rarely crack smiles and often behave inexplicably. For example, a lot of guns are being waved around. Where I come from, we don’t point guns at our friends. Duke is being set up as the show’s bad-guy, under the mistaken belief that this will make for dramatic counterpoint. It doesn’t. It makes him seem stupid and bipolar. Then, just when all their individuality has been I call this Audrey’s “bitch-face.” stripped away and the sense of humor has died a Get used to it. painful death, that’s when the show decides to really focus on who Audrey wants to boink. I believe Nathan will be her only choice, as they have both become intolerable and won’t be able to get anyone else. But there’s nothing as much fun (except anything fun) as watching three or four boring-ass people trip around each other awkwardly like sex is not a foregone conclusion. From Season 1: Another great pleasure of Haven is a cast of supporting characters who are believable townspeople and not merely props to fill in scenes of Audrey’s life. My favorites, probably everybody’s favorites, are the two older gentlemen (Dave and Vince) who run the town’s homey newspaper.

Dave and Vince, the only characters who survived the paradigm shift, don’t show up as much as before, and when they do, they’re just as glum, weird and portentous as everyone else. So they’re no fun and add nothing of value to the story. Since the story has so little value to begin with, that’s a terrible thing to say.

From Season 1: It’s no secret that the Haven series is based on Stephen King’s novella The Colorado Kid. . . if you watch Haven, you will catch numerous fun references to King’s works, like the mention of Shawshank Prison, villainous Randall Flagg, or the series of Misery books written by that author who got kidnapped by his biggest fan.

Season 2 opened with a tribute to a chilling scene from my favorite King book, It. For a brief, shining (no pun intended) moment I thought I was in for a great season. Alas, that tribute ended, and except for one scary clown thrown in briefly a couple episodes later, I haven’t spied any other references—unless it’s the occasional flash of the “Colorado Kid” headline, which didn’t really count before and doesn’t count now. Not only is this far removed from Stephen King’s work, it’s far removed from its own first season.

I’m glad now that I didn’t have the (probably unhealthy) passion for this show that I’ve formed for others shows in the past, because if I’d had it, my heart would be breaking. As it is, I’m just confused at how the tone of the show managed to change so dramatically, and quite disappointed with the result. Now, when Haven does manage to rise above clichés for a moment and remind us of the charm it formerly possessed, it’s not a “good moment,” but a “sad reminder.”

This is never more apparent than in the season’s “thirteenth” episode, which is a Christmas special that was purposely outside the show’s continuity, sort of a stand-alone, just-for-fun bit added on at the end of the season following the silly finale. The episode entitled “Silent Night” is the finest episode of the entire season, so well-done and reminiscent of everything I loved about the show that I would be willing to bet it was at Duke apparently heard my Christmas wish. least written, and maybe even filmed, back in Season 1 and they just didn’t get to air it. My three adored characters are back to their delightful selves, the show is humorous and unpredictable, none of the pointless “new” characters are anywhere to be seen, and there are Stephen King references all over the place (from The Dark Tower and Under the Dome in particular). Placing this excellent episode, which has nothing to do with Season 2, at the very end of Season 2 was probably the worst mistake they could have made. Nothing else could have served so well to emphasize to us that we are watching a vastly different show.