To be honest, The River isn't terrible, in fact it even has some good moments, just not enough to make it a rival for any of the numerous other shows on TV. Today the best television shows are driven by strong character developments and personal drama, something sorely lacking in The River. The show centres around Emmet Cole, a sort of less-entertaining Crocodile Hunter who dragged his wife and son and television crew all over the world in search of exotic locales. For his latest expedition he went to the Amazon in search of real magic when he suddenly went missing. Now, six months later his wife, estranged son and a television crew of their own head out to find him and along the way encounter various ghosts, spirits, demons and other magical beings. The problem is that each episode wraps up so nicely there's never any real danger. Furthermore everything gets a neat explanation from the Jahel,daughter of the ships mechanic, a teenager who only seaks Spanish and seemingly knows everything there is to know about the magical Boíuna and though she was terrified of it, wasn't too terrified to come along on the trek anyway. Her ominous expository scenes, translated by Lincoln (Emmet's son) are a bit ridiculous. Certainly a part of horror films is the fact that the characters are doubtful of the existence of spirits, demons and general other-worldly beings and that's why they rush headlong into scenarios that eventually lead to their demise. However The River's cast seems to have no trouble believing all the things they are confronted with which makes the fact that they march right into various death traps all the more appalling. Never mind the fact that Emmet himself seems like such a pain-in-the-arse, it's a wonder all these characters willingly risk their lives to save him. Emmet barely bats and eye when a camera man is skinned alive and hung up from a tree, "it's the demon's test' he claims jauntily. Yet when another character, unfortunately named "Rabbit", decides to save herself rather than continue on Emmet's ridiculous demon filled hike of death, she is berated by Tess (Emmet's wife) who claims she 'deserves what she gets' just minutes before being brutally dismembered. Emmet isn't a great man, he'll gladly throw any of his crew to the, metaphorical, wolves yet we're meant to forgive him for all this because he doesn't kill his dog. Then there's a halfhearted love triangle between Lincoln, Lena, the daughter of the previous camera man, and another camera man called Jonas. They all don't seem to like each other very much at all.
Nonetheless there are some chills, even though each hour feels like a condensed horror movie -ghost ships, angry demons, irritated tribesmen, even zombies make an guest appearance. In the finale Lincoln is killed, then brought back to life by Jahel. Unfortunately a demon hitched a ride and soon is enacting his revenge by killing Jonas, making out with Lena and roughing up Kurt, the German muscle, it turns out Kurt knows a lot about the Boíuna and had his own mission to kill Emmet (I kind of don't blame him). Since the show has been canceled we won't get to find out many of the show's secrets, like who the heck is Kurt. After the demon has been successfully removed everyone is glad to be headed home when....the river changes, blocking the exit to the amazon. It's quite a frightening cliff hanger which would have been great if this show had been renewed, which it has not. However, I can understand why it hasn't been. The overall mystery wasn't intriguing enough to grab the viewers attention and the characters seemed more like tools for shock and gore rather than people we should care about.
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