Watched the premier of Happy Town last night. It's the guys who ran the American version of Life On Mars (which was actually a pretty good show) and October Road (which I never saw) doing a sort of Stephen King TV movie / Twin Peaks mash-up. It takes place in a supposedly small Minnesota town, although it seemed like a pretty damn big town to me and it also felt more like New England than Minnesota. The main business is an amusingly absurd bread factory that must do most of the baking for the whole state. And about a decade ago there was murderer or kidnapper called The Magic Man because of his skill at making people disappear.

The story starts with a new murder, this time with a corpse, and a new resident, Henley, played by Lauren German, who is adorable but also harboring secrets! Her landlady has a mysterious room in her boarding house that she keeps both open and off limits from her tennants to protect her secrets! The Sheriff has a tendency to fly off into trances where he talks about someone named Chole, so clearly he's got secrets! And Sam Neil plays a stereotypical nice old British gentleman, but his sly ways suggest he also has secrets!

I can only assume there will be even more secrets alluded to each week. Basically, you're meant to keep hanging on to find out what all those secrets are about and the question is, will the show even stay on the air long enough to reveal them? It's a late mid-season replacement and that's pretty much a dumping ground for shows the networks feel like they wasted their money on. Overall, it ended up feeling a lot like Harper's Island to me, but somewhat less compelling. The dialogue is a bit over-the-top with silly faux poetry, but not quite to an annoying degree. I don't know, I'll probably give it at least one more chance.