Great Short Lived Series: Harper's Island

Harper's Island

Aired on CBS in 2009
13 Episode SeasonCan now be viewed on Netflix Instant Queue

Plot

Harper's Island was once the scene of a gruesome series of murders. Now, seven years later, family and friends gather on the island for a wedding, but one by one they begin to die.

Harper's Island was a show that ran 13 episodes on CBS back in 2009. It was always intended to a one season event (or so they tell us). However this concept could have been a great start to a multi season show. I mean, shows like ABC's Revenge (My review here: Revenge) and FX's "American Horror Story" are doing different stories each season so why couldn't Harper's Island?? I guess I'm just bitter that such a cool show lasted only 13 episodes.

It took place on a little island off the coast of Seattle called, of course, Harper's Island. Seven years prior to the current story, a bloody massacre occured when a man named John Wakefield went on a killing spree. His victims including the mother of our main character, Abby. 7 years later Abby returns to Harper's Island to celebrate the wedding of her childhood best friend Henry and his fiance Trish. The first few episodes provide some detailed back story and we get to know all our major players. A few minor characters get wacked off but it isn't until episode 5 where we get our first major death and all hell breaks loose. It's from this moment on where this show become down right awesome!

I'm a sucker for a good murder mystery, and this is exactly what that is. From episode 5 and up more and more people die per episode and you as the audience try to piece together all the clues and figure out who of our main cast can be the killer. If you haven't see it, I won't spoil the killer, but I can assure you it IS a major member of the cast. It has such a huge cast and all of them play a large role so it becomes really difficult to pinpoint who it might be. When you start to suspect someone...they get murdered! The show does not hold back either, it wasn't afraid to kill any member of the cast. It starts with maybe 25-30 cast members and only 4 people survive in the end. It's pretty epic.

It also benefitted from some beautiful and dark atmosphere. Once the chaos truly begins, the show becomes darker. We get a good amount of night scenes where a lot of fog rolls in and a lot of shadows play tricks on everyone. It gets to a point where everyone knows whats going on, and they find themselves trapped on the island and are fighting to survive and fighting each other. They hide out in one of the biggest sets, which is the islands resort. This set, amongst others creates a sense of forboding and gloom by placing the cast in such large open spaces where you never know where one will get picked off. It just looks like the production team took great care to create a world where no one, including the audiecne felt safe.

This is just one of the single best myster shows/movies I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. I've watched the whole thing twice now and loved it even more the second time. Even though I knew the killer that time around. When the killer is finally revealed I was genuinely surprised, even though I suspected him/her the episode beforehand. I'm glad the didn't cop out and make the killer some random person we didn't know the entire time. The final act is pretty disturbing too. When the killer reveals themselves and their reasoning for doing all of this. It's creepy, but again, they didn't hold back on making it some PG rated story.

If you ever have the chance, if you ever have some time to kill, check out Harper's Island. It's only 13 episodes and it on the Netflix instant queue. It was some great and thrilling TV!