Developed by Sam Ernst,
Jim Dunn
Distributor: eOne
Duration: 13 episodes, 42 minutes each
Haven: Season 4 (DVD) – Series Review
Imagine a town where people have unexplainable superpowers. This sounds like a pretty awesome place, if it wasn’t for the fact that nobody can actually control their peculiar gift. A town where people randomly freeze others to death, where people get incinerated because they spilled coffee on someone, or where a giant meteor storm comes crashing down like it was rain. Welcome back to the little town of Haven, Maine.
Let’s recap how the third season of Haven ended. In a desperate attempt to stop the Troubles (the name for the occurrences where people mysteriously get uncontrollable supernatural powers), Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) is ready to sacrifice herself by entering “the Barn”, a wooden shed that will erase her memories and stop the Troubles. Just when she’s entering it, Nathan Wuornos (Lucas Bryant) shoots agent Howard, in an attempt to save her life. This backfires and the barn starts to self-destruct, with Audrey still in it. Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour) jumps in after Audrey, but they both disappear together with the barn. If that wasn’t enough, a meteor storm now falls down on Haven.
Six months later, Duke falls down to earth in Boston, but is quickly apprehended by the police for sounding like a crazy person. Luckily for him, Jennifer Mason (Emma Lahana), a Troubled person living in Boston, has had dreams about him. She goes to meet him in the hopes of explaining her dreams and ends up aiding Duke in escaping the loony bin. They then find a washed up Nathan, who’s suffering under the loss of Audrey and they manage to convince him that she’s still alive (thanks to the Trouble of Jennifer – who can hear everything that’s going on in the Barn – in which Audrey is apparently alive, but trapped). The three of them return to Haven, in order to stop the Troubles once and for all.
However, not everybody is pleased with the return of Nathan. A lot of people believe he betrayed them and don’t want him back. The new police captain, Dwight Hendrickson (Adam Copeland), quickly realizes that Nathan’s experience is needed in battling the Troubles and offers him his a place on the squad. Reluctantly, Nathan agrees, while awaiting the possible return of Audrey.
You might be thinking that all of the above sounds pretty complicated. This is quite true, but the show manages to make the plot appear pretty simple and straight forward. Even without watching the previous seasons, the story makes sense and after the first episode you can easily follow the difficult sounding plot. This is mostly thanks to the introduction of the Jennifer character. As a new habitant of Haven, she asks all the right questions, which allows the creators to do a little recap for every character we are (re)introduced to. For regular watchers, this might not be necessary and some could even find this annoying, for others it is a nice way of getting familiar with the whole cast.
Story wise, Haven can be divided in two components. First we have the “villain of the week”, where the team must solve a Trouble gone bad. The recurring theme is that a person’s Trouble is somehow activated without his knowledge and he starts to unconsciously kill (or hurt, but mostly kill) others. The activation is tied to a deep personal trauma, for example, one of the Troubles kidnaps kids, because the Troubled person can’t conceive children. Luckily for our heroes, such heavy burdens can be easily solved by talking to the victim for about five minutes. One wonders how psychiatrists are getting clientèle, when all problems can be solved so quickly and effortlessly.
The real juice of Haven comes with the overarching storyline. There is a constant pressure to end the Troubles, which is tangible in every episode. The creators are also smart enough to realize that battling an unseen condition is pretty hard to show on television, so they added a villain for this seasons. In order to keep the suspense, we won’t go deeper as to who it is, but the person does a great job in being all sinister and scheming.
Haven really only has one (large) downside, which it shares with a lot of TV’s current shows. It sets up an interesting world, only to resort to the same boring relationship troubles. The forced drama really pulls this show down, with characters withholding truths for no apparent reason. Of course, if you like your daily dose of the Bold and the Beautiful, you’ll really enjoy this aspect.
In closing, do watch out for the performances of newcomers Christian Camargo, Colin Ferguson and Jayne Eastwood, who all give a certain extra to the scenes that they are in.
Conclusion
Haven is an interesting show, but needs seven episodes to really get into the groove. When a season lasts 13 episodes, that’s a lot of junk mixed in. The acting is pretty solid, but the relationship sub-plots get pretty worn out near the end. With original paranormal powers and a superb villain, it manages to save itself from being just a soap opera.
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