Gabrielle Stanton Should be Ashamed of Herself

After last week's episode, where bad editing was the only real low point, this week's Haven came along and obliterated our (well my) beliefs that this is a show that can only get better.

There have been some stinkers in this TV series and, absurdly, they are the episodes that make Haven such a cult classic. This one exceeded some of the worst story telling a television series has ever seen and left me laughing and wondering whether or not the cast are just collecting their pay cheques, because they obviously are either stupid or couldn't care less.

This latest stinker was about a group of amphibious men, an apparent suicide and two sides of Haven PD - the completely incompetent side of it and also it's ability to deduce a complicated crime with no explanation at all.

Essentially it all boiled down to this:

Audrey and Nathan have discovered the identity of the dead body washed up on one of Haven's beaches. Nathan says, "He's from this group of people who live out on a compound in a really isolated place. There are no roads out there."

[15 seconds later]

Nathan says, "My dad and I used to drive out there sometimes."

[10 seconds later, in the next scene]

Nathan and Audrey are driving to the compound...

All of this took place inside one of the 42 minutes...

Surely the actors playing the leads must have said something to the director or the show runner or even each other? Is Lucas Bryant as stupid in real life as he looks?

The other totally laughable element of the show, as I said earlier, is the complete and utter impotency of Haven PD. Two armed officers try to achieve something at the compound and are threatened off with guns; a namby-pamby threat of a warrant is made and Audrey and Nathan are driven off with intimidation. Now, this is supposed to be America; the supposed antagonists are behaving like David Koresh is their best friend. You'd think that the full force, plus state troopers would be descending on the place like flies round shit; but instead, less than a minute later, our heroes are chatting to the lead antagonist like he's the cousin of Jesus.

Later, Nathan and Audrey attempt to arrest the local reverend, believing him to be responsible for a crime. Two of the local vicar's henchmen attack the two Haven PD officers and only stop because the Rev tells them to. When the antagonist comes along to kill the Rev, he protests his innocence and every one accepts it. For all the power they wield, they might as well be the local ice cream salesmen.

Later when Nathan confronts the antagonist and tells him that he killed the person who washed up on the beach, he's told that he can't arrest him, so he doesn't. (I almost wanted to watch it again to find out just how the forensics lab came up with this deduction; it was a kind of deus ex machina explanation...)

The big problem with this episode is that while Haven is complete and utter poo; it's fun poo. This was simply badly plotted, badly scripted, badly acted and badly thought out. In other words - bad stinky poo.

The show just reached its nadir, surely?