To paraphrase the old copycat perfume ad: If you loved “Twin Peaks,” you’ll love ‘Happy Town.’ ”
Or that’s what ABC would like you to believe about its new mystery series from the producers of “Alias” and “Life on Mars.”
The reality is more like, “If you loved ‘Harper’s Island,’ you’ll love “Happy Town.”
In case you were granted the privilege of missing it, “Harper’s Island” was a clichéd summer series in which a mysterious killer’s only good deed was killing off Harry Hamlin right away.
Not so happily, “Happy Town,” is even more clichéd — like “Scream” for TV.
The premiere even opens with a giant scary-movie cliché: Pretty girl walks through the woods in the dead of night. While she’s running, a man gets a hammer-and-chisel in the head. Are you kidding me?
In case you were wondering, who the girl (played by Sarah Gadon) is and why she’s walking alone in the woods, it’s all cleared up within five minutes through tremendously embarrassing expository dialogue.
The town, we learn, is Haplin, (AKA “Happy”– get it?), Minnesota, and the family we are supposed to care about is named Conroy.
The dad, Tommy (Geoff Stults), a deputy, is the not-so-daring son of the town’s sheriff, Griffin Conroy (M.C. Gainey). Dad is a legend. Why he’s a legend I don’t know since about a dozen people have disappeared since he’s been on duty. Why he isn’t history is the real mystery.
Anyway, there’s a boarding house (“Don’t go to the third floor!”) whose residents include Henley (Lauren German), the new girl in town with mysteries to solve, all the town’s widows and, finally, the mysterious Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill), another new arrival who owns a creepy movie memorabilia shop.
Grieves also is hiding secrets — the biggest one being what the hell the great Sam Neill is doing is this train wreck?
Speaking of great and near-great, Frances Conroy (no relation to the Conroys of Haplin) — who beautifully let down the screen in the genuinely strange “Six Feet Under” — plays Peggy Haplin, the town matriarch in a truly terrible hat. As you can see, everyone has a mystery or a secret. This has to be the only small town in the world where no one knows anything about anybody!
What, then, is good about “Happy Town?”
Well, after you sit through a few episodes, it does get better, and the first-rate cast is a pleasure to watch.
I also like the ridiculous setting with the (natch) mysterious baking factory looming over the town. It’s straight out of “The Simpsons.”
I’m hoping for a glimpse of (the mysterious) Monty Burns.