The River strives to be Heart of Darkness, but is more Blair Witch & Godot. Arrogant reality tv people who fancy themselves experts repeatedly get themselves & their children (any parent who repeatedly would guilt their kid into risking their kid’s life to rescue another person is the worst parent ever–talk about real life vampires) in unnecessary trouble, ignore obvious warning signs (loved ones keep telling them “don’t go any further,” “go home”), don’t bother to carry necessary supplies or to learn the language & keep messing around with “magic.” At some point, you wish that they would make a fatal error just so it can all end. Stop looking at recordings & get the hell out of there! After all the crap that they’ve been through, why would they want to find “the source” of that–sounds like an acronym for the hell mouth. Spielberg also still needs to get over his mommy issues– he is a million years old. At least there is a sexy, shady, secretive, smart German security dude & spooky, atmospheric monotony is better than just monotony. There was one hilarious piano moment in episode 7–more of those clever horror cliches in such a ridiculous situation would have made the show funnier.