ABC’s “The River” is a surprisingly solid, scary new hour-long drama

Jim Hill

13 years ago

Take ABC‘s long-running hit “Lost” with its elaborate back
story and mythology. Now fold that in with the found-footage gimmick which made
“The Blair Witch Project” and those “Paranormal Activity” films so successful. Then
drop those two elements into Joseph Conrad‘s “Heart of Darkness.”

What would you wind up with? “The River,” a
surprisingly solid & scary new hour-long horror series from ABC Studios, which debuts tonight
at 9 p.m. ET / PT with two
back-to-back episodes.

The premise of “The River” is quickly sketched out in this
show’s pilot. Dr. Emmet Cole (Bruce
Greenwood) – the host of the long-running nature documentary series, “The
Undiscovered Country” – has gone missing while filming in the Amazon. After six
months of combing the jungle with no results, it’s assumed that that this
world-famous adventurer is now dead. So the search is called off. Only to then Emmet’s
GPS locator starts sending out a distress
signal.

Believing that her long-estranged husband is still alive,
Cole’s wife, Tess (Leslie Hope) mounts a rescue mission. Which is underwritten
by a reality television production company which is represented by Clark Quietly (Paul
Blackthorne), who used to be the main producer of “The Undiscovered Country”
until he and Emmet had a falling out a few years back.

(L to R) Joe Anderson as Lincoln Cole, Leslie Hope as Tess Cole and Paul
Blackthorne as Clark Quietly aboard the Magus. Photo by Mario Perez.
Copyright American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Clark & Tess recruit a camera crew and then persuade Cole’s
son, Lincoln (Joe Anderson) – who’s harboring some pretty strong Daddy
abandonment issues – to come along. Rounding out the crew is a
father-and-daughter team of engineers as well as Lena
(Eloise Mumford), Lincoln’s
childhood friend who knows a whole lot more about what Emmet has been up to
these past few years than Lincoln & Tess do. Then – armed with all sorts of
state-of-the-art camera equipment – this would-be group of rescuers sails up a
previously unexplored tributary of the Amazon.

Eventually they find Emmet’s ship, the Magus. But Cole is
nowhere to be found on this vine-covered, abandoned boat. There are – however –
a secret cache of video tapes which suggests that this TV host was dabbling in
some pretty powerful magic before he then disappeared into the jungle. And Lena,
Lincoln, Tess and Clark
now use the clues that they find on these tapes as a way to help guide them in
their search for Emmet.

That’s the over arching back story for “The River.” But this
would-be team of rescuers immediately find themselves in need of rescue as – in
Hour No. 1 – they come up against a bloodsucking ghost known as the corpo seco.
While in Hour No. 2, Tess is pursued by a long-dead child who now wants to make
Lincoln’s mother her own.

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, “The River” has a great
look and some terrific production values. Of course, the real question here is can
this show’s producers (i.e Michael Green and Zack Estrin) actually come up with
enough stories & compelling characters to turn “The River” into a “Lost” -sized
success? Given that ABC has – to date, anyway — only ordered up 8 episodes of this
new hour-long horror drama … Well, that’s not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence.

But that said, given the genuinely creepy moments that I
experienced while watching the first two episodes of “The River” (Just wait ’til
you see what happens when Lincoln & Co. reach those doll-covered trees in
Hour No. 2), I’ll definitely be looking in again on this new ABC Studios
production again. If only to see if the producers actually do deliver on their
promise to bring “The River” ‘s overall storyline to a semi-satisfying close by
the end of Hour No. 8 while still leaving the door open for further adventures
up the Amazon should this show get renewed for the 2012 – 2013 season.