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Audrey Parker is an FBI Agent not at odds with the oddities of the world, so when things go off kilter during an assignment in Haven, Connecticut, she doesn’t lose her cool dealing with the local weirdos.  Heck, she even decides to hang around a little longer.

Review: SyFy has a couple of quality shows in the line-up already with the great Eureka and the good Warehouse 13, but they’re looking to add one more in Haven, a show that aims to be a little Twin Peaks and a little bit Eureka, with a sprinkle of Stephen King inspiration.

If that is really what the show wants to be, there’s a while left to go on that front.  Right off the bat, we meet Audrey Parker, who comes off as a bit of a Mulder in a Scully agency- she reads teenage vampire books and doesn’t discount the weird possibilities.  Within minutes she’s in the town of Haven facing life and death situations and making jokes about it. Her punchline buddy is Haven Cop Nathan, who is more than happy to make light of equally life threatening situations.

The Haven case finds the FBI Agent looking for a fleeing felon who just recently happened to fall a couple hundred feet off a mountain under suspicious circumstances.  Upon investigating the crime, our duo immediately find a few objects that, fortunately, our local cop knows exactly who they belong to.

The police work here is all too easy, but that’s borderline okay, because its obvious from the start we’re going to run through red herrings – in this episode there are like four alone.  When our heroes finally figure out is wielding the crazy mojo, both of these law enforcement agents decide not to arrest the person. Or even report the person.  Or to even get slightly freaked out by the fact that this person is controlling the god damn weather like she’s a member of COBRA.

At the end, as is necessary, Agent Parker decides to stick around this strange town, setting up the rest of the series.  While the first episode is decidedly underwhelming, there are a few things that show promise.  Okay, there is one big thing that shows promise – the town itself.

The visuals of the town are nice and unique – there aren’t really any shows set in the North East right now, at least not this far North. Or East.  Plus, just the idea of a sort of paranormal town is a good idea. Like Eureka but weirder and more dangerous.  That is where the show can differentiate itself.  SyFy already has a lot of cute, funny stuff in its two original series, now it needs the dark.  Some of the humor works (“What am I gonna do, pull out another gun?”) but most of it is just too light hearted.  There isn’t enough Twin Peaks in this mixture.

The final word on Haven is yet to be spoken.  I’m willing to give it one more episode to see which direction it takes, but as it stands now, this show is bordering on pass for being too lighthearted.