Overview: Paranormal thriller 'The River' follows the story of world famous wildlife expert and TV personality Dr. Emmet Cole (Bruce Greenwood), host of the beloved series The Undiscovered Country. After Cole goes missing deep in the Amazon, his family, friends, and crew set out on a treacherous adventure to find him.

DVD Verdict: As I've said before with regard these first (and sadly only) season ABC shows that are cancelled on TV and yet quickly find their way to DVD, whoever made the choice to do so made a HUGE mistake. They did it with 'Missing' = mistake, they did it with 'GCB' = mistake, and now with 'The River' = mistake!

The basic premise behind this creepy paranormal/action/horror/found-footage show is a great one. Bruce Greenwood plays a highly-popular TV naturist (Dr. Emmet Cole) whose TV show, The Undiscovered Country ran for 22 years. With a tag line of "There's magic out there," in episode one, 'Magnus' Cole disappears while on an expedition down the Amazon. After 6 months he and his crew are presumed dead, a funeral is had, but suddenly a beacon signal goes off in the Amazon and his wife Tess (Leslie Hope) and estranged son Lincoln (Joe Anderson) put together another documentary crew in an effort to find their beloved family member.

With their crew now having found the Magnus, Cole's boat, stranded on the Amazon, they board it and set to work to use it as their own. In this first episode though they quickly unleash a once-trapped demonic spirit! In the second episode, 'Marbeley,' Cole vists his wife via the young girl on board, and so they go in search of him deep into the jungle. Once there they come across a Spirit Tree where dolls are hung up. There they find Marbeley, the old toy bear of Lincoln Cole (Anderson), Dr. Cole's son and also run into an angry child's spirit.

In 'Los Ciegos,' they take another trip into the jungle and come across a cave, guarded by the spirit of the Morcegos. Suddenly the group are getting hunted by them, and there is an incredible tree scene NOT to be missed! In 'A Better Man,' old found footage shows how the vines surrounding Cole's boat are bewitched. Now on Day 16, the new crew is calm, relaxed, eating fish and fresh vegatables, until a former crew member is found hanging in a tree across the river. In 'Peaches,' Eloise Mumford as Lena Landry, daughter of Russ Landry, missing cameraman finally gets to find her father - trapped onboard a ghost boat named Exodus.

In this weird place in the rainforest where strange things happen, in 'Dr. Emmet Cole,' it's Day 29 and nearly the entire episode is devoted to flashback old footage of recorded clips of Cole telling his story - and follows his trip to the falls. In 'The Experiment,' the group find an Outreach Research Facility in the jungle, and as much as questions are answered, more are posed. Oh, and there are zombies involved too! Oh, and Cole IS found too, in a most incredible way!

In the final episode, 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat,' it's Day 35 and back on the Magnus, on their way home, suddenly someone wants Cole dead! But they shoot the wrong person and soon the Demon of the River is called upon to bring them back to life. The actual ending, with them not knowing at the time they wouldn't get a second season, is VERY satisfing, nontheless. A wonderful, subtle CGI final shot would have led perfectly into a second season, but not now. Although, Netflix was in talks with ABC Studios about possibly continuing the series on its video-on-demand digital distribution service, though they ultimately (sadly) passed.

Along for the journey (the mission filmed all the way documentary-style) are Dr. Cole's cagey ex-producer, Clark (Paul Blackthorne), Magus mechanic Emilio Valenzuela (Daniel Zacapa), his daughter Jahel Valenzuela (Paulina Gaitán), Andres Jude (A.J.) Poulain, lead cameraman (Shaun Parkes), and private security bodyguard Captain Kurt Brynildson (Thomas Kretschmann). These are all widescreen Presentations (1.78:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

2 Audio Commentaries
Behind-The-Scenes Featurette
Deleted Scenes