Harper's Island

Last night CBS premiered a new 13 part "mini-series" called Harper's Island: think of it as a long murder mystery/slasher movie.

A group of people gather on Harper's Island (97 miles off the coast of Seattle) for the wedding of Henry (Christopher Gorham of Ugly Betty adorableness) and Trish (formerly Ruby of Supernatural.).

7 years ago on Harper's Island a man by the name of John Wakefield went crazy and murdered 7 people by burning, decapitation, and hanging. One of the people killed was the wife of the hometown Sheriff and mother of his daughter, Abby, who hasn't been back to the island since her mother's death.

Now the members of the wedding party and guests are being picked off one by one in gruesome ways; well, gruesome by network television standards.

Are the current murders related to the island's past horror? Only time will tell...

I liked the show, I intend to watch it and enjoy the ride. But then again, I love scary movies, even the cheesy slasher ones. The first hour had a lot of information to provide: the cast is pretty large (since there are need to be enough characters for one or two to die every episode) and we needed to know people's backstories, and the mythos of the island needed to be established.

Overall, the show was enjoyable and creepy. With just the right touch of slasher movie cheese!

The main reason I think I'll stick with it is to see who survives of the characters and actors I really like. Christopher Gorham and Katie Cassidy I already mentioned, but there was also Harry Hamlin (Aaron Echols!) and best of all, Jim Beaver as the Sheriff and father of Abby. If you've ever seen Supernatural or Deadwood you know Jim Beaver is the bomb and I really hope he doesn't get killed.

There are a bunch of secondary and tertiary characters, but come on, we know they're canon fodder, right? Here's hoping the annoying Chloe and Cal bite it pretty quick. Jesus, somebody shut them up.

To add to the fun, CBS has created an online game of sorts over at Harper's Globe, where viewers can get clues to the mystery from webisodes and participate in forum discussions. And Wiki has a pretty awesome death chart going where you can track who gets it, when, and in what way.

So many pretty potential corpses....but hands off Jim Beaver!