Harpers Island (T.V. Shows You Should Watch)

Posted on the 27 November 2013 by Dale Cotton @kiriyama_23

For the second installment of T.V. shows you should watch I'm going for a little known gem and in my opinion a show that should have been more widely watched. Harper's Island.

  • Series Name: Harper's Island
  • No. of Seasons: 1
  • Creator: Ari Schlossberg
  • Original Network: CBS (U.S.) BBC 3 (U.K.)

Harper's Island was a stand alone mini series of 13 episodes, aired in 2009. It was a horror/mystery thriller. The show takes place on Harper's Island, where resident John Wakefield went on a killing spree and murdered a number of people before supposedly being killed by the island sheriff, Charlie Mills. One of the victims was the sheriff's wife. After her death, Sheriff Mills sent their daughter, Abby, to live with family in LA and there she stayed. After 7 years, Abby is finally returns to the island for her best friend Henry's wedding. The killing starts again and everyone is a suspect. The guests manage to unlock secrets of the island and of Wakefield as the series progresses.

At least one of the main characters is killed off in every episode and some times as many as five, the actors/actresses though were not told about their character's death until the day the script was given. The main titles also consisted of the sounds made by each character who dies in the series in the order they died. Basically a 13 hour who dunnit style slasher film, it kept me hooked for all 13 weeks and while it slightly tails off towards the end is still a very good piece of television writing, especially as it was one overall arc and being able to keep the identity of a the killer secret for the majority of the series also is a hard thing to do. The cast is full of relatively unknowns except for Christopher Gorham from Ugly Betty and Jake 2.0 fame and Adam Campbell from Date Movie and Epic Movie. This helps you as the audience to be able to relate the characters and not a specific star and helps to make the identity of the killer and who will die next not hindered by star names.

I seem to be the only person I know who has seen this show and I wish more people would give it a try, for anyone who likes a good horror or mystery, or just for something different. Look it up.