The River in HD on ABC

Yeah, I'm in!

From Spielberg and the director of Paranormal Activity. Sounds promising. I'll have the ol' DVR set to record for the 2-hour premiere on Feb. 7th.

Official website

Super impressed with the pilot. This was one of the best pilots I've seen in years. I will absolutely be watching.

I cut out after the first hour. Subject matter is right in my wheelhouse, but I'm not digging it. Watching it only makes me appreciate all the more the brilliance that was "Lost."

big glaring mistake right at the start?

a 16x9 graphic for the tv show in 1988...

On very short notice, the "Pilot" got renamed "Magus."

Made worse by the fact that the show was 4:3. I caught that as well.

I liked all the scenes of soaking wet women! I hope this show continues to have the women getting wet frequently!

Picking nits aside I really loved the format of the show. Quite different for TV and very engaging. I loved it.

I'll watch it again. My wife had to leave after the first two minutes, she can't handle all the hand held shaky cam shots.

The name of the boat is not a coincidence. The Magus, by John Fowles, is one of my all-time favorite books - I've read it 3 times. (Let's not talk about the movie version - ugh.) It describes the journey of a narcissistic and selfish schoolteacher into a strange and bizarre world on a Greek Island estate where a mysterious man seems to either be showing the teacher the error of his ways, or simply toying with him for his own amusement.

I'll be watching the premiere tonight. Have high hopes for this one.

Big, huge yawn!

I skipped through much of it and quickly deleted it.

I don't know. The first hour was not that gripping. Had fun naming the character types, like "Liam Neeson guy".

The second hour had some good creepy moments though. It will have me tuning back in next week. I'll admit I'm a sucker for scary dolls.

I'll give it a few more episodes. Gotta give them credit for a uniqueness not usually shown on network TV. Felt like a Lost/Ghost Hunters/Anaconda mash-up...which isn't necessarily bad but none of the actors stood out (expecting more from Paul Blackthorne) except for the mechanic and his daughter. I felt they 'jumped the shark' into the supernatural already losing the tension of the mysterious and opportunity of developing the doubters.

For 2nd episode the plotline seemed...borrowed...well couldn't help but think of Syfy's Destination Truth episode (the legend of the island of the dolls) http://www.syfy.com/destinationtruth..._dolls_lusca_2

I have to say, I enjoyed this. All those dolls hanging in the jungle done creeped me out.

Thought of the book too, but I'll go even farther-its by far my favorite novel of all time.Didn't care much for his rewrite of the ending though, when he "clarified" it...guess I'm too sentimental but I prefered the ambiguity of the original.

Okay, back to the show

Have to agree the doll episode was too much too soon, but I was caught up in it while watching.

Oh, I dunno. The "revised" ending was pretty ambiguous too.

I was kicking myself for missing the first episode and planned to catch it on Hulu before I watched next week. Then I saw the overnights and figure that 8.2 million for the first hour is going to sink to about 5 or 6 next week and those numbers don't last long on ABC.

The second hour only hit 6.8 million viewers. It dropped almost 1.5 million in between episodes.

My memory might be foggy, but it seems he was pretty clear on how he wanted it to be taken in his explaination for the change. I still saw it the other way but I always thought that was because I preferred it going the other way I was twenty when I first read it and admittingly identified strongly with the "hero" and wanted him and Alison to end up together for purely personal reasons... And yes, I know this doesn't belong on this forum, but I did say its my favorite book

Not enough Shaky Cam...

Got one of those metal tube chairs that move in every direction while you sit and then had my little brother grab the back and push pull left right up and down as violently as he could as the action heated up. This really made it seem real. I don't see how anyone can watch this type of show without doing that.


* Just kidding!

I was only able to stomach the horrible (shaky) camera work for about a half hour before baling out on this show.

According to this review, the show only has eight episodes. The reviewer watched the first five hours before writing the review.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mauree...b_1259082.html

I'm one of the ones who deleted it after the first hour. It's awful. Too many cheesy/unrealistic moments, and not the least bit scary. I lol'ed two minutes in when they walked into a bar with these two giant-ass cameras, and not a single person acknowledged them. Then I was confused when they threw up English subtitles for characters speaking English during scenes where you could hear them perfectly well. Then I lol'ed when they had the predictable character giving them vague information about what's really going on. Then I lol'ed at the two idiotic camera cameramen near the end. All the while I was lol'ing at the acting by a few of the cast members.

I don't know why, but it gave me a bit of an Event Horizon feeling when they were looking at the lost footage. Except Event Horizon didn't suck.

Just stick any new show and stick Spielberg's name on it.

I think I'm out.

Cool, more and more people on this forum don't like it. Everytime that happens I like it.
Thanks

I think I'll give it a couple more episodes. Does have an interesting twist on the supernatural/evil spirits theme. Scenery is nice However, it is predictable. You just knew that with all those Chucky dolls hanging in the trees that one of them was going to turn it's head or open/close it's eyes. Why wasn't anyone surprised then the mom turned up crawling out of the grave instead of popping up in the water and what does the cinematographer know about the "source"? I'll give it a C grade so far.

ill tune in next week just to see if it improves

1/2 hour...and out.

Been there, done that.

EDIT: In spite of the fact it takes place in the "Amazon," NO ONE spoke Portuguese during the entire 2 hours; according to my bilingual wife, it was always spanish...