Genre: Sci-Fi | Drama
Air Date/Time: July 15th at 10/9c
Network: Syfy
Summary:
Last season, when FBI agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) arrived in the town of Haven, Maine on a routine case, her knack for unraveling mysteries proved an asset when she discovered that the seemingly sleepy town was, in fact, a longtime refuge for people with supernatural afflictions.
Now, in season two, Audrey must not only stay on top of Haven’s many afflictions – which continue to be revealed in every episode – but also solve her most challenging case yet: the secret of her own lost past and its ties to Haven.
With the help of Nathan Wournos (Lucas Bryant), a handsome local cop with his own trouble, and Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour) a local smuggler and reluctant aide in solving Haven’s troubles, Audrey digs deeper into uncovering her identity. Guest stars Jason Priestley (who will also direct an episode) and Vinessa Antoine join the cast for season two, which is currently in production on 13 episodes in Nova Scotia.
The creative team behind the second season of Haven includes Executive Producers John Morayniss (Hung, Goodnight for Justice) and Noreen Halpern (Call me Fitz, Rookie Blue) from eOne and David MacLeod (Legends of the Fall, The Ray Bradbury Theater) of Big Motion Pictures, who are joined by Lloyd Segan, Shawn Piller, Scott Shepherd (Stephen King’s The Dead Zone) and Matt McGuiness (Journeyman) as well as Sam Ernst & Jim Dunn (Stephen King’s The Dead Zone) who also developed the series.
I LOVE THIS SHOW. I have loved it since the pilot. I love the setting and the characters and the mysteries and the mythology. I just finished watching the season one DVDs (which I of course LOVED) before watching this first episode of the second season, which starts at the exact moment where season one ended.
Of course my first recommendation to you if you haven’t seen season one is to get the DVDs immediately and watch them while recording this episode so you can dive right in. If you’d rather try out the show first by watching this episode, they do give a recap via many clips at the beginning of the episode (which you may want to watch more than once) which helps.
I have missed my friends Audrey, Nathan, and Duke, and their quirky, creepy little town where quirky, creepy things – and sometimes giant scary things – happen, and are often caused by really nice people – and sometimes really scary people. This first episode of the new season had all of the things I love about the show, and the addition of some new people didn’t feel weird like it can with some shows. There was a good monster-of-the-week-type story, some great developments with the underlying mythology, and the start of a secondary story with Duke and someone else which I won’t spoil.
One of the new people is the person we saw at the end of the last season. You know, the one with the familiar name? Part of me wants to quibble about a few things, but they are either a) just not that important, or b) will be explained in later episodes. I can be patient.
If you love this show like I do, you’ll likely not be disappointed with this episode. If you don’t know the show, give it a try if you like original Twilight Zone-type sci-fi, the kind that is quiet and mostly psychological but with some cool effects periodically. This show is a sort of mashup of Twilight Zone, Fringe, and some of the quieter Stephen King books, with a little dash of Northern Exposure tossed in.
I do have one caveat to this glowing review. Some of the lines seemed… choppy. Stilted. Maybe even wrong for the character or the situation. I gave the episode the benefit of the doubt in that regard because I was watching a rough cut, which sometimes included a black screen with the visual effects listed in typeface. That can really interrupt the flow of watching, and can certainly make the writing seem choppy. If this doesn’t change in the final broadcast, my apologies, and please reduce the score of this episode by one star.
Given the above caveat, I give Haven episode 2.1 “A Tale of Two Audreys” Five Out of Five Stars.
