"Happy Town" - the name doesn't fool me, it annoys me

I've been seeing promos for this for a while now since "Ugly Betty" left the 10:00 spot on ABC on Wednesday open, but I still have no idea what it's about. And the more promos I see, the more hilariously bad it looks. According to Wikipedia, "a period of peace following a series of unsolved kidnappings is cut short when a new crime has everyone talking in the small Minnesota town of Haplin." It's also classified as a drama, but the promos made me think it was a SciFi show somehow. I recognize a couple names attached, like Sam Neil, M.C. Gainey, Robert Wisdom, Amy Acker, and Steven Weber. On the basis of the promos alone, though, I already hate this show. I feel like they named it "Happy Town," just so they could make that stupid joke in the ads - "don't let the name fool you!" Cause it's not a happy town, get it? Get it? This was the first irritating promo I saw:


Other promos with more dialogue just made things worse, not better. "The Magic Man?" And he has some sort of ability? (I wasn't able to find that promo to post it here). I've seen some people comparing it to "Twin Peaks," a show I've never seen but have definitely heard about, so I can't really say either way if it resembles a show I know was really weird. I don't know about "Twin Peaks," but the promos are reminiscent of a million different movies/shows that make me feel like I've already seen this show before. It reminds me most of "Harper's Island," which was based on Agatha Christie so at least you knew you had seen that done before.

Entertainment Weekly columnist Michael Ausiello wrote on Twitter, "I can tell you what my LEAST favorite [show] is: HAPPY TOWN. Better title would be HEINOUS TOWN." Jessica Shaw, who writes the Tonight's Best TV feature said she "snickered through about half of the premiere" but said it got better towards the end and gave it a decent grade of B. My favorite, though, is when I went to tvguidemagazine.com and found Matt Roush's list of reasons to avoid the show. It seems to be a show that focuses on a small town with a small population where half the people get murdered and the other half are running small cutesy specialty stores that would never survive in small-town America these days. It looks like Stars Hollow on acid.

I love SciFi, I love dramas, I love quirkiness, but this show seems like an odd combination of things that just doesn't sit well with me. I'm not sure what to make of it, and it already looks like it's taking itself way too seriously. I'm still debating whether or not to watch. Maybe I'll just keep it on in the background after "Modern Family" and "Cougar Town" are over.