TV Review: ‘Harper’s Island’ Season 1 – “Whap”

Oh, to have a weekly show where, each week, another, preppy, annoying character is killed off.   Think “OC”   as written by Agatha Christie.   That would be something.   That’s the idea Ari Schlossberg had when he came up with “Harper’s Island,” a weekly, murder mystery where we get another victim at the end of each episode.

The premise is simple.   A whole bunch of people are on an island off the coast of Washington state for a week-long wedding.   There’s mystery and intrigue amongst the guests even before they start getting picked off one by one.   All of this intrigue and soap opera stylings make for quite the cast of suspects.

There’s Abby (Elaine Cassidy), the best friend of the groom whose mother may or may not have had something to do with a mass killing spree that occurred on the island years before.   There’s Thomas (Richard Burgi), the wealthy father of the bride who will do anything to keep his daughter from marrying her fiance.   There’s the groom’s uncle Marty (Harry Hamlin) who seems as snaky as he is likeable.

What “Harper’s Island” does well is build up its list of suspects.   Everyone seems to have a motive, and no one is without opportunity.   Of course, over the running of the entire show, I’m sure more and more background on these characters will reveal even more motives that haven’t even been hinted at yet.   By the time most everyone is killed off and the killer is finally revealed, I’m sure it will be anything but seen from a mile away.

Of course, there are some serious issues with “Harper’s Island.”   There are a few characters who really stand out as the leads, but, for the most part, everyone in the cast is annoying, and you just can’t wait for them to get offed.   I know that’s the case with most slasher films today, but we have 13 episodes to spend with a lot of these characters.   Making them a little more likeable than your average horror fare would have gone a long way in wanting us to come back for more.

Having only seen one episode, I can’t say much for the kills.   There are two kills in the first episode of “Harper’s Island.”   The first one, at the very beginning of the episode, is quite creative.   It helps grease the wheels that the remainder of the episode runs on.   However, the second kill, the one that occurs at the very end of the epsiode is slightly idiotic.   Who gets killed is surprising, but the way in which the kill plays out is ridiculous.

Basically, the person is killed with their body halfway off screen.   Then the camera pulls back, and we see what the killer did to them.   It’s suppossed to be shocking.   It’s just silly, especially when you consider this is network television and you can’t show too much blood.

“Harper’s Island” could have gone a long way with making itself scarier, as well.   As is, we get a lot of your typical jump-out scares, people turning around and running into someone while the music crashes loudly.   Those kinds of scares.   The kind of stuff that makes films like ‘Prom Night’ such snorefests.

Future episodes may prove otherwise, but, as it is, “Harper’s Island” is a decent concept with a wholly lackluster execution.