Xephyer

Back in early March, I had a posting about Harper's Island - a short-run TV series which premiers on CBS tonight at 10pm (Eastern). It is a short-run series, so it will only air a total of 13 episodes - so essentially what you have is a 13-hour murder mystery (with lots of murders).

From what I understand, the show begins almost immediately with a rather gruesome death. Unbeknownst to the happy passengers on the yacht ferrying the wedding party to the island, one of the wedding guests has been strapped underwater to the yacht's propeller. As the yacht gets underway, we have the first death of the series.

Harper's Island has been called Scream meets 10 Little Indians or Agatha Christie vs Jason. What we have is an elaborate horror movie with 13 weeks worth of twists and turns.

The premise of Harper's Island, set in the Puget Sound area, is simple. Patricia "Trish" Wellington (Played by Katie Cassidy), daughter of Thomas Wellington (played by Richard Burgi) a real estate tycoon, is marrying Henry Dunn (Played by Christopher Gorham), a likeable blue-collar kid.

The Wellingtons and their friends make up most of the wedding party. Henry's Uncle Marty (Played by Harry Hamlin) and Henery's best friend, Abby Mills (played by Elaine Cassidy) are also along. Adding to the mystery, Abby grew up on the island, but hasn't returned since the gruesome time seven years ago when her mother and five others were murdered on that very island. Abby's father, the local sheriff, shot the killer, but he and Abby are now estranged.

We also have the mandatory rich guy, Hunter Jennings (Played by Victor Webster) who believes that Trish should really be marrying him and not the blue-collar Henry.

Harper's Island has the requisite dark woods, spooky waters, and chilling atmosphere. Since it has a finite life-span (13 episodes) it offers a number of possibilities (every character is fair game as victim or killer). I'm very intrigued about the viability of short-run series - and this looks like it will be a very good test of this format.

I'll have my thoughts after tonight's episode.

Plus - a special blog post over the weekend with a summary of the recent pirate attacks and some background on the last pirate attacks against US flagged vessels.