Global explorer Emmett Cole, the host of a well-known nature adventure program has disappeared in the Amazon River basin. Cole and his crew are believed lost (presumed dead) but six months after their disappearance, his emergency beacon is detected. The television network approaches Cole’s wife Tess with an offer to fund an expedition to find him. She accepts their offer and assembles a crew including Cole’s reluctant son Lincoln. Together with Emmett’s former producer and a few other intrepid individuals, they embark on a journey into the deepest part of the rain forest.
There hasn’t been an interesting mystery adventure program on network television since lost ended in 2010. A few series have attempted to tap into the LOST vibe and ABC seems to be trying again. “The River” has promised to be one of the most interesting new television series.
Each episode in the series so far has chronicled the supernatural phenomenon encountered by the main cast members who have located and salvaged Dr. Cole’s ship: the Magus. Fortunately, the entire vessel is a mobile studio used in the production of Cole’s television program “The Undiscovered Country”. The ship’s numerous fictional cameras provide a plausible excuse for some The River’s interesting production techniques. ABC has been promoting the series as being from the producer of Paranormal Activity. His security camera/found footage production style is apparent in some of the unusual camera angles.
If you have been following the series you’ve probably seen enough to know that the search is nearly over and yes, they find Emmet Cole.
I don’t know if you’re ready for this but … He was inside some kind of gross cocoon at an abandoned research facility this whole time, hiding from zombies.
ZOMBIES? A COCOON! are you serious? Whatever. Do you know what to do when the audience is getting bored with your weak-ass plot? You add zombies. I guess nothing distracts an audience from a dead story faster than the undead.
Emmet spent months searching the rain forest for an ancient tribe who believed themselves to be angels. Do you know how ardently they believed this angel business? Members of the tribe have distinctive scars on their backs where they symbolically cut of their wings. You know… because they were angels.
Last episode we learned that after collapsing in the rain forest, Emmet was delivered to some kind of research facility by the very tribe he had been searching for. That’s Irony. Tess and the crew of the Magus followed clues on Emmet’s video diary to find the facility, but something had gone seriously there. The scientists thought they could isolate a gene sequence from the local tribe and turn it into a cure for cancer. Well as luck would have it, it doesn’t cure cancer. it turns people in zombies.
Throughout the season a mysterious member of the expedition, a German called Kurt has been seen using a laughably large satellite phone. It turns out he’s been dialing local. Kurt’s fiancé had been posing as a security consultant inside the research center. When the researchers find the gene sequence they’ve been searching for, she shoots up the laboratory because “she cannot allow their research to leave this place.” She assaults the scientists and inadvertently unleashes a localized zombie apocalypse.
The River is almost over and you should watch the finale, unless of course you’re busy hiding from zombies in a gross slimy cocoon.
