'Happy Town,'
not really worth the visit
New ABC paranormal series is a tangle of plotlines
By Tom Conroy
Apr 27, 2010
TV creators keep trying to come up with paranormal mystery series, even though the most significant examples of the genre have had a spotty record: “Twin Peaks” faded quickly once viewers learned who had killed Laura Palmer; “The X-Files” arguably never really resolved its central conspiracy theory; and “Lost” is currently stumbling toward the finish line while struggling to tie up its myriad loose ends.
ABC’s “Happy Town,” premiering this Wednesday at 10:01 p.m., probably won’t be remembered as falling short of its goals, but that’s because it probably won’t be around long enough to be remembered much at all. The big mystery fails to intrigue us early on, and the series lacks the originality that made the series mentioned above worth watching even when their plotlines weakened.
An amalgam of “Twin Peaks,” elements from Stephen King’s small-town horror novels and assorted scraps from various scary comedies and dramas, “Happy Town” takes place in the small town of Haplin, Minn., which has been virtually crime-free for five years. Before that, however, a serial abductor nicknamed the Magic Man had taken one victim a year for seven years.
The murder of a local who had been suspected of being the Magic Man disturbs the quiet life of Deputy Tommy Conroy (played by Geoff Stults and no relation to the present writer) and his father, Griffin, the town’s sheriff (M.C. Gainey, best known for playing Tom, the most annoying Other on “Lost”). As they launch their investigation, Griffin suddenly starts going into fugue states in which he keeps mentioning someone named Chloe.
This and other indications that something supernatural is going on will probably turn off fans of straight-ahead mysteries. After all, if anything is possible, what’s the point of paying attention to clues and trying to come up with a logical solution? Fans of the supernatural, meanwhile, will likely be turned off by the echoes of many similar series that have faded fast.
Like most mysteries, “Happy Town” provides us with a surfeit of suspects early on. The town is dominated by the Haplins, who own the bakery that is the biggest local employer. The family matriarch, Peggy (Frances Conroy, again no relation), is also the town’s mayor; her son, John (Steven Weber), lost a daughter to the Magic Man.
John’s son, Andrew (Ben Schnetzer), is secretly dating Tommy’s baby sitter, Georgia (Sarah Gadon), a drug dealer’s daughter. Although they joke about having a Romeo-and-Juliet relationship, that doesn’t excuse the cliché.
A family of lowlifes called the Stivilettos provide comic relief while constantly provoking Deputy Tommy. Meanwhile, a suave British gentleman named Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill) repeatedly explains his unexplainable presence in the town: He runs a vintage movie-memorabilia store that seems to harbor mysterious magical forces.
Deputy Tommy is a frustratingly vague central character. Sometimes he’s a slacker; sometimes he’s a straight arrow willing to defy the powers that be in the pursuit of justice; and sometimes he’s willing to break the law to help protect a guilty friend. Nothing in Stults’ performance suggests a breadth of character that could explain those disparate decisions.
ABC probably shouldn’t have made three episodes available for review, because the mystery simply becomes more complicated without deepening. New suspects keep popping up, but there’s little indication that they will interconnect in an interesting way.
The series could take two paths: It could solve its mystery in the first season, the way “Twin Peaks” and “Desperate Housewives” did, or it could drag it on forever, like “Lost.” “Desperate Housewives” managed to survive the revelation of why Mary Alice committed suicide (remember that?) because of its strong, relatable characters, something “Happy Town” mostly lacks.
“Lost” at least had an original, intriguing premise that seemed to build in its early seasons. And “Twin Peaks” found both comedy and creepiness in its ostensibly wholesome setting.
When Agent Dale Cooper rhapsodized over a slice of pie on “Twin Peaks,” it reflected the odd sensibility of that show’s creators. When a character on “Happy Town” utters a paean to pudding, one wonders whether the writers want us to notice the allusion or are hoping we won’t.
Maybe episode 4 will contain a twist that pulls the show together and colors everything that has happened so far. If something doesn’t happen soon, those seven victims of the Magic Man won’t be the only disappearances.
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