TV Review: The River 1.3, "Los Ciegos"
The first post-pilot episode of ABC’s new series The River has left a very different taste in my mouth than the double episode premiere.
rating: 2.5
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The first post-pilot episode of ABCs new series The River has left a very different taste in my mouth than the double episode premiere. Maybe the novelty has worn off, maybe I just wasnt in the right mood, but whereas the first two episodes rapid pacing and first person point of view found footage conceits felt fresh and urgent, Los Ciegos came off as laughably outlandish and melodramatic, if not entirely without merit. What I think was missing from Los Ciegos that made me notice its flaws was the element of spiritual mysticism that played so heavily in the previous episodes. Without it this episode had a lack of focus, instead relying on the stand-alone premise related by the unfortunately one-dimensional Jahel that there are native warriors, the admittedly creepy eyeless Morcegos, whose nature was unclear as to being human or demonic, that guard the forest from selfish foreigners by blinding them with a powder then observing them to judge whether they are worthy enough to continue their journey. This isnt an inherently bad narrative foundation, but its execution felt off balance at first due to the constant camera angle transitions which occurred during the scene where the cast camped out in the jungle just before being visited by the Morcegos. By this point in the episode, about ten minutes in, so much information had been dumped and so much had happened so quickly (the opening scene of Emmett discussing fragicidal Australian sharks with Clark, the new lead on the mystery of what happened to Emmet of a mysterious cave, the Morcego legend, Emilio and AJs brief expositions, the organ-less missionary corpse, the bat swarm) that I felt like there wasnt enough time for the tone to set in and so what followed had to overcome the sensation that none of it felt authentic, instead it gave the impression of chaos among characters that are still finding their footing despite admirable establishment in the premiere episodes. We learned that Emilio, the mechanic, had once been a convict for some reason and that AJ, the camera operator, had survived a mine collapse and agreed to come on the expedition on the condition that hed never have to enter any narrow enclosures. Emilios revelation, if you could call it that, in no way played into the rest of the episode while AJs became relevant once the entire crew had lost their sight and he was the only one left to retrieve the herbal cure from a small hole underneath a giant tree. This was an interesting albeit unconvincing defining moment for AJ as he had resigned himself to abandon the cast until he accidentally found the cure and then suddenly decided to help. It was at this moment that I found myself cracking up at how ludicrous AJs exasperatingly long string of swears was as masked by censorship bleeps since what the audience is watching is technically the found footage of this crews expedition being aired on network television. This device, which was barely restrained yet believable during the premiere, was this time around far too overused, and in combination with the noticeable abundance of shots from random cameras set up in the jungle, made the whole format nearly collapse for me. Granted AJ immediately acknowledged this by chiding his crew mates for not giving him the credit he deserves for having to constantly set up and retrieve cameras thereby doubling his workload, it still came off as weak because it drew far too much attention to the authenticity of the show. Besides these flaws, however, the basic plot more or less worked once the conflict of blindness had time to sink in. The dire conditions revealed Clark, the sleazy producer whos in love with Emmets estranged wife, Tess, to be more admirable than previously depicted when he effectively saved everyone by sacrificing himself to the approaching Morcegos and confessing his selfishness. This triggered the miraculous recovery of AJ from the collapsed hole beneath the miracle tree thereby enabling the healing of everyones blindness. All in all though, Los Ciegos just felt rushed and without proper foundation or substantial implications. Im still interested in seeing out the rest of the remaining five episodes ABC has scheduled to air, but only because of how strong the pilot episodes were. The scene where Kurt, the mysterious and stoic mercenary hired on for protection yet in actuality is working for some unnamed party to locate The Source, called in an extraction from his benefactor did reel me in from the verge of wanting to write off what was a mostly questionable episode. However, if The River is to maintain any sense of cohesion its going to have to find a way to ground its format and achieve some balance between its realism and ridiculousness.