'Haven' might even put Stephen King to sleep

THE SHOW "Haven"

WHEN | WHERE Friday night at 10 p.m. on Syfy

REASON TO WATCH For fans of Stephen King's "The Colorado Kid," upon which this is based.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT There's a knock on the door of FBI agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose), who is told to head to Maine to find an escaped convict. Bags packed into her rental car, away Parker goes only to discover that her destination of Haven, Maine, is not just another quaint seaside town where the residents are quaint, too. Weird stuff happens here, like weather changing from fog to sun to tornado to hurricane to gentle spring zephyr all in the space of about 4.3 seconds.

Parker doesn't know it, but Haven isn't just meteorologically colorful. The locals are, too. Haven is a place to which people with special powers are drawn. She hooks up with monosyllabic Maine cop Nathan Wuornos (Lucas Bryant) and meets town soignée layabout and possible bad guy (but probably not) Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour).

MY SAY Rarely a good sign, I fell into a deep sleep while watching "Haven," and in a brief fevered dream saw Stephen King standing on a mountain of TV scripts, bearing all sorts of names. There was a yellowed copy of "Salem's Lot," for example, and next to that fresher scripts with names like "Rose Red" and "Kingdom Hospital." King suddenly let out a maniacal laugh, and I awoke, startled, covered in sweat, while the meaning was instantly apparent: No matter what book King has put his name on - whether brilliant, compelling, merely OK, or a candidate for the remainder pile - it will eventually be made into a TV movie or series. He may be a genius, but his TV track record is mixed, and "Haven" falls on the far, far side of the "mixed" spectrum.

King didn't actually write "Haven" but "developed" it for the small screen, which is a form of plausible deniability if things go wrong. With "Haven" - as somnolent as a summer afternoon - they most likely will.

BOTTOM LINE Please wake me when it's over.

GRADE C-