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Time and circumstance can often work against a project, but from the outside looking in, both seemed to be leaning heavily in favor of The River when it premiered on ABC back in February of 2012.
The found footage craze was at the apex of its popularity, so an episodic original following an expedition crew on a mission to search for an explorer to have gone missing somewhere along the Amazon encountering all sorts of eerie and haunting obstacles along the way had no shortage of potential.
That’s without even mentioning Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli’s status as co-creator, the involvement of hit factory Blumhouse as one of the production companies, never mind an esteemed roster of executive producers that also boasted Steven Spielberg and Jaume Collet-Serra among its number.
Unfortunately, despite a warm reception from critics and an encouraging response from the viewers to did watch, The River was axed after just eight episodes on account of low ratings. A month after being canceled, Netflix entered talks with ABC to potentially revive the series as a streaming exclusive, but ultimately opted against it.
There’s plenty of irony there given that Netflix has gone on to bring back several titles ditched by other networks and seen them enjoy global success, but at least The River hasn’t been completely forgotten. One of small screen horror’s true underrated gems, Redditors find themselves pouring one out for a show that deserved much better than it got, and it might even convince a few new converts to track it down and see it for themselves, something that comes highly recommended and actively encouraged.