idea of a giant Saint Bernard with
buzz saws delighted all of us,”
Goddard says with a chuckle.
“And then we thought, ‘The more
buzz saws, the better.’ ” Just
don’t try to pet him.STARS OF THE (FREAK) SHOWOnly a few of the many mon-
sters could grab major screen
time. The off-puttingelegance of
the Whedon-created ballerina
made her extra-ready for her
close-up, while Goddard pre-
ferred the man with saws in his
skull—originally called, simply,
Hell Lord. The director renamed
him Fornicus, Lord of Bondage
and Pain.Muchbetter!TWO OF A KINDThe “Dismemberment Goblins,”
Goddard’s favorite, had just one
goal: to dismember things. “Inmy mind, if you asked them to
fill out likes and dislikes, all they
would write in likes is ‘dismem-
bering,’ and in dislikes, ‘not dis-
membering,’ ” he says. “They’re
just havingso much funin all
the chaos.” Plus, they’ve got
a “best-friends vibe,” Goddard
points out. And friends don’t
let friendsnotdismember.GROSS ANATOMYOscar-winning special-makeup-
effects designer David Leroy
Anderson came up with most
of the creatures and tended to
overthink things—in a good
way! “Dave said, ‘Hey, Drew,
would it be okay if the merman
had a blowhole on it?’ ” Goddard
remembers. “He had thought,
if the merman was going to bite
someone’s face off, where
would the blood go? That made
mesohappy.” Us, too.Like most of the charac-
ters’ on the show, the
life ofHarper’s Island
was short: Ratings for
the one-season event series dropped
from more than 10 million to 3.8 by the
finale. But for those who tuned in to the
13-episode Christopher Gorham-led
thriller (spoiler alert—he was the bad
guy!), it was crucial TV ahead of its
time. Here, three little-known facts.THE ISLAND’S O.G. KILLER WAS
RESURRECTED FROM THE DEAD
In the original script, John Wakefield—
the first serial killer on the island and
dad to Henry (Gorham)—was dead.
“You would never believe Henry could
do this alone,” says coexecutive pro-
ducer Karim Zreik. “He needed help,
and that’s where we said, ‘What if John
Wakefield was alive?’ ”THE KILLER SAVED A LIFE ON SET
RevealsGorham:“Iwasstandingoff
camera and the first AD was choking, so
I had to do the Heimlich...while trying to
stay in character as a murderer. When
we went back to shoot the next shot, the
crew erupts into applause, and I’m like,
‘Please stop—wait until after we roll!’ ”SEASON 2 WOULD HAVE BEEN WILD
“We’d have a group of new actors, no one
returns, and it’sHarper’s Safari,” c r e a t o r
Ari Schlossberg reveals. Adds Zreik:
“The far-fetched one we talked about
wasaspacestation...butIthinkwe
were closer to the safari.”Harper’s Islandis available on Hulu and
Amazon Prime.2012
THREE THINGS YOU
DIDN’T KNOW ABOUTHARPER’S
ISLAND
A murder mystery set against the
backdrop of a remote island wedding:
That was the premise of the gory
2009 CBS series.By Robyn Ross8672009
Christopher Gorham and Elaine Cassidy2378HARPER’S ISLAND
: CHRIS HELCERMANAS-BENGE/CBS