TV Review: The River

After missing in the Amazon for over six months world-renowned television host Emmett Cole (Bruce Greenwood) has been declared legally dead. The recent discovery that his personal beacon is still giving out a signal, however, convinces his wife, Tess (Leslie Hope) that he is still alive and she makes plans to rescue him.

The only drawback to this plan is that she doesn't have the money for the search, but if she can convince her son, Lincoln (Joe Anderson) to come along for the ride, the network that produced her husband's documentaries will pay for the trip.

...and so begins the journey for our merry band of misfits.

My first thought while watching The River last night was that I was happy the Smoke Monster from LOST had found work. What else could explain the odd similarities between The River's ghostly presence on The Magus (Emmett Cole's ship) and the black smoke that the gang from Lost kept running into?

There were other similarities (Lincoln is a doctor (Jack?) and the documentary producer, Clark Quietly (Paul Blackthorne) is surly (Sawyer?)), but as the night moved along this became less obvious. Well, not entirely...but I stopped comparing the two shows as much.

The River WANTS to be a classic horror thriller, but at times it seemed a bit campy. You know as soon as the group discovers tombstones in the middle of the Amazon that they are going to play into the story. Later, when they must rush back to the spot to dig up one of the graves, (Lincoln needs to reunite a ghostly daughter with her mother) it just seemed silly rather than creepy.

Still, the show did have some fun scary moments. Finding a tree full of hanging dolls is creepy and waiting for the dolls to move or look at someone was a nice spooky touch. It also gave us some questions to ponder about our cast of characters. Did Tess have an affair? Why was Emmett contacting Lena (Eloise Mumford) instead of his son or wife? What does the security guy know that no one else does?

Will I keep watching? At the moment, The River is sandwiched in between two of my favorite shows (NCIS, White Collar), so there's no reason not to unless the show does get really scary (which I doubt) or the network moves it against another one of my "must-see" shows.

For now - Sushiboofay gives it Two Fish with an order of sticky rice on the side!