A Sad Farewell to Happy Town

So long, Happy Town.  We barely got a chance to know you.

This promising ABC drama--the most compelling work of American Gothic to air on television in years--was felled by the network axe earlier this summer.  ABC hardly gave the show a chance to grow, temporarily pulling it from the schedule after only three episodes, and then announcing shortly thereafter that it would not be picked up for the coming fall season.  The network burned off the remainder of the eight total episodes in June and July, but by that point Happy Town had lost much of its audience, as viewers understandably refrained from investing in a story they knew would not be completed.

Still, those who jumped ship after Happy Town first hit rocky ground did miss some highly entertaining programming (note: the final five episodes are available for online viewing on the show's website).  The inevitable comparisons have been to Twin Peaks, as a superficially idyllic community becomes the home of dark crimes (five years earlier, the town of Haplin, Minnesota, was plagued by a serial kidnapper dubbed the Magic Man [due to his seeming ability to cause his victims to vanish into thin air], and now he may have returned to resume his reign of terror).  But there's also a Salem's Lot vibe to Happy Town: the urbane foreigner (played magnificently by Sam Neill) who curiously chooses to set up shop in Haplin; the bread factory on the hill looming over the town a la King's Marsten House.  And like Salem's Lot, Happy Town features a broad cast of colorful characters with seemingly darker undersides.  There are false identities and secret machinations aplenty, and the storylines brim with mystery and misdirection--at different points you'll be convinced one character or another is the infamous Magic Man.  As if that weren't enough, Happy Town also includes Gothic maguffins (an ornate, Barnabas Collins-esque cane) and sinister creatures (the possibly-occult black bird called Cicero that haunts the Haplin scenery).

The identity of the Magic Man is revealed at the conclusion of the eighth episode, making for a whopper of a plot twist.  Many other mysteries, though, remain unsolved.  What were the reasons behind the so-called Magic Man's crimes?  Where are the kidnapping victims hidden, and are they still alive?  What's the significance of that creepy German black-and-white film (The Blue Door) that various characters obsess over?  And perhaps most centrally, what's the true nature of the town's ruling family, the Haplins--are they predators, or ultimately protectors?

Alas, we'll never have definitive answers, much like we'll never know just how long Happy Town could have kept unspooling its story.  But one thing I can state with certitude: the show's thread was cut much too soon.