Haven
Several months back, I discovered reruns of Haven were airing on one of the retro television stations. I'd already seen every episode, but I set a timer anyway, and found that they were in the middle of season four, which was fine by me. After a few episodes that I thought might've been edited a little too much, I checked Netflix, and it was there. I continued from where I was instead of restarting. I might still do that at some point.
Haven was a series on the Syfy channel, loosely based on the Stephen King novella, The Colorado Kid. You don't need to read the story first. In fact, I didn't read it until, probably, around the third season. It bears little resemblance to the show. The story has three characters in it, two of whom run the local newspaper, Vincent Teagues and Dave Bowie (not the singer). In the show, they are brothers, and Dave's last name is also Teagues. The newspaper's name is different. The town name is different. The intern never appears. (Thinking of it, they could have used the name Stephanie McCann for the character added in season 4, but they went with Jennifer instead.)
At its heart, Haven is a crime drama with a supernatural element. Many of the people in Haven, Maine have The Troubles, an unexplained condition that reoccurs every 27 years that causes individual to display unusual abilities. Sometimes, they don't even know that they are doing it, particularly if they're young. Many folks in town believe that the Troubles are just a bedtime story told to scare children.
But they're real, and they run in families. The rules for Troubles are a little loose. In some cases, a child inherits the Trouble when the parent passes, in others it emerges because of a stressful or emotional trigger. Some troubles need to be activated, like changing weather or causing fires, while others are always "on", such as not being able to feel (one of the lead characters), or being a bullet magnet (seriously, stick around for a couple seasons). Some of the odder ones just seem to develop on their own (e.g., a woman whose touch turns food into cake even since an emotional episode at yet another friend's wedding). And there's no cure, except one -- there's one family whose trouble is that if they kill a troubled person, the trouble dies with them without passing to the children. (And if a child already has it, it will go away, so a father might sacrifice himself for the sake of his child.)
Emily Rose is wonderful as Audrey, an FBI agent who comes to the town and ends up joining the local police department. There's something odd about Audrey: she doesn't know anything about her family history, and yet she sees a woman named Lucy in a 27-year-old news photo who looks like her. The story in the paper was the Death of the Colorado Kid. She stays to find out more about her past. (Warning: you won't learn anything about the Colorado Kid for the first two seasons, and that's okay.)
Moreover, Audrey seems to have a way with troubled people, solving their problems, or shutting down their troubles. It helps that for some reason, Audrey is immune to all the troubles (but not their physical manifestations -- she could get killed by, say, falling debris). This leads to Officer Nathan Wournos becoming close to Audrey because hers is the only touch he can feel. (When we first meet him, he gets his fingers slammed in a door.)
Each season after the first has their own season-long arcs, some better than others, but each individual episode still revolves about individual Troubles that need solving, which is something I appreciated. Sometimes series get bogged down in the season that they forget about the episode I'm watching.
The show could have wrapped up after three seasons, and they had an ending, which I assume (hope) would've changed a bit had the show been cancelled at that point. However, the show ran for two more seasons -- three, technically. The first five seasons were 13 episodes each, and the last one was 26, but split into two 13-episode arcs that aired a year apart, which seems like two separate seasons to me.
In the first three seasons, we are told that the Troubles are temporary. They will go away and not return for another 27 years. However, due to the actions of the main characters, the cycle doesn't end. People's troubles remain active, so they cannot continue with their lives. The focus shifts into ending the troubles, either for another cycle or forever, as well as learning their source and Audrey's origins. It might not be want you want, and the show might not go in directions you'd like, but it was satisfying.
The show does have a definite ending and their are clips that reward the long-term viewer. If there's one drawback to the final season, it's the unseen Big Bad, who starts to make his presence known, who finally reveals himself in corporeal form and it's ... odd. They tripped the Special Guest Star trope, which while enjoyable, doesn't seem to mesh with the build-up he got. Definitely not something that was planned years in advance. But it's a minor quibble, and it was still enjoyable.
In summation: Haven worth watching, particularly for three seasons. If it hooked you in, keep watching. There will be a payoff.
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