Harper's Island

Posted by Francine Brokaw Jun 22, 2009

We're almost at the end of this short-run series. Am I the only one who finds it stupid yet mesmerizing? When the cast, producer and director first discussed the show with the members of the Television Critics Association in January, they said that if the series was a success they would consider a new season with a different cast and story.

They also said that if the show didn't perform to expectations and was cancelled, they would definitely run out the entire series so as not to leave the viewers hanging, unlike many of the dead characters on the gruesome show.

The Promise to Run the Storyline Out

At that TCA Press Tour in January, Jon Turtletaub said, "Thirteen weeks is enough time to not have to cancel it. You've got a full arc. You've got a full story. You get all of your answers. You are not going to be stuck for years and years like people are with Lost getting answers, and more than that, we are not stuck making shit up as we go along for fice years. We know before we start where we are going, and it's really a 13-hour movie is how we look at it. "

They have lived up to that. The show is almost over and once the murderer is discovered that will be the end of Harper's Island.

While the premise of a short-term series is not entirely new, it is not, at least in this case, something the viewers want. Or, at least with this type of show.

In the beginning I looked at it like one of those murder mystery weekends. Of course, there are a lot more grizzley visuals in this show than on an entertaining weekend. But even though the show is unrealistic (where are the other people who live on the island while all of these murders are happening?) and, in a word, wacky, there is something that keeps drawing me in week after week.

Keeping Up Week after Week

Is it because I like conclusions and everything tied with in a neat little bow? I want to know what is really going on and what the network (CBS) saw in this to green-light it in the first place.

Actually, with the advent of DVRs, it is so easy to set the machine to record it each week that it's not difficult to continually stay tuned, as they say.

So, with the end near, television audiences will bid adieu to Harper's Island. And some of us will find a way to fill the hour, probably with something less bloody.