I Give It Four Episodes

I just watched the premiere of Happy Town. Crazy cast: Sam Neill, Amy Acker, Steven Weber, Tom Friendly, the ex-member of the Canadian Ad Mafia who scored a sitcom, that guy who isn't Peter Krause, Parker Lewis' former nemesis... it's a heck of a cast.

Too bad they'll all be unemployed in about a month.

The show seems to be aiming for some kind of midpoint between Twin Peaks and Picket Fences, skewing a little bit more David Lynch's way than David E Kelley's, and based on the first episode it certainly seemed to have some possibilities. And I guess, with Lost winding down, now's as good a time as any to try and get that audience hooked on another cock-tease of a show that will never pay off its mysteries. But I just don't see Happy Town taking off.

For one thing, it's set in Minnesota, so the hotties on the show will be wearing parkas and not skimpy torn clothing and/or bikinis. For another, the writing is kind of silly, and not in a tongue-in-cheek way. It's hard to take a show seriously when the big bad is called The Magic Man. I kept waiting for a Wilson sister cameo.

I'll probably keep watching -- Neill's having fun being creepy, and Acker is still the cutest second-cutest woman (my apologies to Karen Gillan) on television, although hopefully they give her more to do down the road. But at this point, it doesn't look like the show will be anything special.