Contributor: J.M.
If ever an episode suffered from ‘pilot-it is,’ this would be it. Mired in neck-breaking pace changes, terrible decisions by the characters and some sub-par writing, this episode has all the hallmarks of an episode that has no business being as good or as entertaining as it turned out to be. The ‘found footage’ isn’t nearly or as invasive as it could be, instead being set up more as the rough copy of a documentary rather than as true found footage. Despite some of the very questionable choices made by the writers of the show, the pilot still manages to satisfactorily communicate all of the essentials.
Given the heritage of the production team with the found footage genre (Oren Peli and Michael R. Perry are veterans of the “Paranormal Activity” franchise), it’s not the most shocking, but it is the most intriguing element of the pilot. Given the fundamental set-up as a documentary covering the hunt for the lost Emmet Cole, it makes more sense than some of the other entries into the found footage genre. It still doesn’t make the dialog any less uneven, with some of the lines simply not being anything anyone would say around a camera.
The characters aren’t much to write home about, but they all fill their roles well enough, if a bit too perfunctorily for my tastes. I really don’t think Leslie Hope ever grew out of the Teri Bauer role, because it seems like she’s playing the same emotional character making the same questionable decisions, yelling out the name of the person she’s chasing (Emmet, in this case, rather than Kim) and causing all sorts of trouble. Tess, her character, and Lincoln, also have wild swings of motivation; Tess wanting to search for her husband and Lincoln simply accepting the fact that he is dead. They end the episode in opposite places they started, but not for any discernible reason, they just do.
The pacing of the show is also hugely uneven. The plot will advance at a breakneck pace, and then halt as orientation to the various plot points occurs. As a result, all of the characters accept what is going on around them far too easily. When Jahel, the spiritually inclined daughter of the ship’s mechanic Emilio, declares that they can’t go there because it’s haunted, they ignore her. But when she turns out to be right, they accept everything she says as gospel truth. It goes along with the complete lack of subtlety of the pilot.
The show opens with a montage of Emmet declaring the catchphrase of his show, “There’s magic out there.” There seems to be some sort of naturalist/spiritualist theme between Lincoln and Emmet, but the blatant reveal of the nature of the titular river renders a potentially compelling theme moot. In my mind, this is an unforced error on the part of the writers.
The characters also demonstrate some remarkable stupidity when they try and open the panic room which had been sealed from the outside, believing that Emmet was inside. Repeatedly they did things that just didn’t make any logical sense, and acted so to meet the needs of the plot. It was just a great deal of lazy writing.
Despite all those flaws, the pilot still manages to be rather enthralling. The production values are relatively good and the atmosphere of the jungle highlights the claustrophobia and fear that the crew of the Magus is subjected to. The premise is still intriguing, even if poorly executed. The show manages to convey the fear of the wild, something very fundamental and primeval. There isn’t so much fright and horror, rather an unsettling sense that there is something wrong with what is going on up “The River”.
Rating: 6/10