this editorial is based on the first season of the series.
Disney Channel live action programming is often … not good.
This is a bit of an unfair statement, obviously. Disney Channel live action programming is not geared for 41-year-old journalists who have a penchant for pro wrestling, jam bands, and whatever blood-soaked prestige drama that HBO produces on a Sunday. It’s geared towards kids in their single digits to their early teens and are either goofy screwball comedies or fairly tame teenage romances (usually filled with song).
Then there’s Secrets of Sulphur Springs.
The series – which is set to close its third season on May 5 – revolves around the mysteries surrounding the Tremont Hotel located in the fictional town of Sulphur Springs, Louisiana. Premiering in 2021, the series stars Preston Oliver as Griffin Campbell, a boy from Chicago who moves to The Tremont Hotel with his family, and whose dad somehow is connected to the mystery that haunts the town. The series also stars Kyliegh Curran as Harper Dunn, Griffin’s fast friend and someone who is determined to uncover all the mysteries that lie within the hotel.
If you watch the trailer for the series you could easily hand wave this as Disney’s attempt to recreate the vibe R.L. Stine books produced for parents back in the late ’80s and early ’90s. However, dismissing it for just a junior grade thriller series would be doing this series a disservice.
In reality, the first season of Sulphur Springs (which is streaming on Disney+) is more akin to Twin Peaks with hints of Doctor Who fluttering around the edges. The plot of the first season revolves around the question, “What Happened to Savannah?” Savannah is the Laura Palmer of Sulphur Springs as she disappeared from the hotel’s summer camp program in the early ’90s. Her disappearance ravaged the town and still haunts all those who were at the camp – including Griffin’s dad, Ben (Josh Braaten, This Is Us) and Harper’s mom, Jess (Diandra Lyle, NCIS). As strange things happen in the hotel and the bumps in the night keep getting louder, Griffin and Harper are hellbent on solving the curious case of Savannah’s disappearance.
The result is a highly entertaining, extremely bingeable multi-season mystery box series.
One of the main reasons the series works so well is that the showrunners – who are veterans of the daytime soap world – know how to maximize the show’s minutes. Each episode runs just under 30 minutes, so there’s little time to waste. Many mystery box shows tend to meander and lose their thread (looking at you, Westworld), but Sulphur Springs keeps everything tight and what you see and hear onscreen is absolutely vital to the mystery at hand.
The conceit of the mystery box and the huge twist that comes early on is not something audiences haven’t seen before, but it’s presented in such a fresh way that you cannot resist going along for the ride. The sincere, lived-in performances of Curran and Campbell sell the mystery, the thrills and the drama of the mystery box so well. Never do they feel like “Disney kids” reciting lines; Harper and Griffin are fully realized, human characters that have realistic flaws, whose wide-eyed optimism and dogged determination make for great protagonists. Curran, who some may remember from Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, will know that this young actress can hold her own against actors like Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson, so it’s no surprise she can carry a series like this.
All of this makes for such a disarming watch for adults, and a mind-blowing experience for kids. Adults will find themselves sucked into the world of the tantalizing mystery box and the drama the parents find themselves embroiled in while also rooting for our two kid protagonists to save the day. Kids will be blown away by the mystery. First-hand experience showed that a little jaw would drop, and an excited voice would be raised when a twist came flying into the story.
The Secrets of Sulphur Springs does what few live-action family shows can do: smartly engage every member of the family with clever storytelling, dynamic acting, and a sense of sincerity that can permeate even the most hardened television watcher.
