'The River' Review and Season 1 Episode 1 Does Horror Belong on TV? Recap

As the pilot episode of "The River" begins, we see Dr. Emmet Cole in his element as host of his nature documentary show "The Undiscovered Country," telling us on repeat that "there's magic out there."

What we see for the next two hours might not be best described as "magic," but it's definitely a little strange and plenty creepy. Here's the story: Emmet Cole went missing a while back while on an expedition in the Amazon. The television crew behind his former show has agreed to fund a rescue expedition, but only if Cole's wife, Tess, and his son, Lincoln, agree to come along.

The group also includes producer Clark, cameramen AJ and Sammy, mechanic Emilio and his daughter Jahel, Captain Kurt Brynildson (not sure what he's a captain of, but it might be stoicism), and Lincoln's childhood friend/Emmet's tech support Lena.

When the group finds the wrecked ship, The Magus, they don't find any of the remaining crew. What they do find is a little wooden cocoon that releases a "Lost"-like monster that wrecks the boat and attacks the gang. The next episode (or the continuation of this one) brings the gang further inland toward the mountains in further search of the lost Cole, where they land at a colonial graveyard and an especially creepy tree strung up with the scariest dolls you've ever seen.

Without giving up too many spoilers, there's plenty of good horror fodder here. There are quiet, creepy moments that you would expect coming from Oren Peli (who created "Paranormal Activity" and executive produced this one with Steven Spielberg), as well as the scary shocking moments of people being thrown across the room or pulled under the water.

But there's a fundamental problem with the venue, here. When you watch "Paranormal Activity," you're watching the full thing uninterrupted, and there's an opportunity for the suspense to build. But when you watch "The River" on ABC, you're being interrupted every 12 minutes or so by an ad for JC Penney or for Honda. That's no way to hold an audience into a horror story.

That being said, "The River" still manages to do a decent job of pacing the whole thing, and structuring the scary moments so that they happen between commercial breaks, rather than being interrupted by them. There's also just enough room for character development that we have a good idea of who everyone is and why we should care about them (or not, in some cases).

There are two ways of looking at how these characters react to this new "magical" world that they're entering into. On one hand, they all seem just a little too accepting of what's going on around them. One folk tale about a spirit is told, and immediately everyone believes it and accepts that there's an evil demon spirit out there. Lincoln is supposed to be the skeptic/man of science, but even he is quick to jump on the "magic" bandwagon. He even has the somewhat forced line referencing his father's catchphrase: "There's magic out there... he was looking for real magic!"

On the other hand, Lincoln's own explanation of the phenomena is believable. "Everything I know tells me it's group hysteria," he says, trying to explain away the inhuman spirit released from the wooden trap. But he goes on to say that when you see something like that happen, explanations sort of go out the window. Perhaps that's right, and this crew is reacting the way any of us would: you see something crazy, and you say "holy s**t."

Speaking of which, the show gets some good mileage out of bleeping the cursing from its characters, particularly when they come across something especially weird (like hundreds of dolls hung from a tree). There are some other opportunities like that one that this "found footage" style offers, which thus far the show has taken advantage of... characters tend to reference the hidden cameras, some of which are thankfully not handheld and shaky.

The question with "The River" is this: what prospects will the show have past its initial eight-episode run? "Lost" took a pretty sharp turn at the end of its first season, so if the entire show is going to be about the search for Emmet Cole, "The River" might have to do the same in order to keep things interesting. Even in this two-hour premiere, the second hour packed considerably less punch than the first one did.

Did you watch the premiere? What did you think? Will you be tuning in next week?