Durham County review

Created by Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik and Adrienne Mitchell, DURHAM COUNTY tells the story of police officer Mike Sweeney (Hugh Dillon - HARD CORE LOGO, GINGER SNAPS 3) who has recently returned to Durham County, where he grew up. Recovering from the loss of his partner and dealing with his wife’s recovery from what was expected to be a terminal case of breast cancer, Sweeney’s move back to familiar territory as an attempt to help his family deal with things somewhat backfires as he is faced with a serial killer who has been murdering local woman by beating them to death.

The series has a similar vibe to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s TWIN PEAKS but it lacks the more involved storyline and the type of characters that made TWIN PEAKS engaging, and strangely enough, quite humorous. DURHAM COUNTY takes itself seriously, which is perhaps understandable due to its subject matter, but most of the extreme and disturbing moments feel overly melodramatic and the attempts at visual poetry come off as overzealous. Justin Louis’ Ray Prager is the only element with any real dimension, but that is mostly due to the fact that he is despicable and great at somehow hiding it in certain situations. He toys with everyone around him and suffers from the fact that his son has the potential to actually become something bigger and better than he ever could. It’s a shame that nothing else in DURHAM COUNTY attains the depth and development of this one character.

Originally airing on the Movie Network and Movie Central in May 2007, the six episodes of the first season will be released on DVD by Anchor Bay on September 9th and a second season should be starting production shortly.

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