Can a thriller really work on television? (mild spoilers, not that it should matter)

I watched the fourth Happy Town earlier today, still hoping against hope the potential it showed early on would finally be realized, but to no avail. Unsurprisingly, I noticed comments mentioning that ABC had recently canceled the show.

For the many people who haven't watched Happy Town, the show is a mystery/thriller set in the small town of Happlin, where a kidnapper called the 'Magic Man' resurfaces. When I saw the initial promotions for Happy Town, I was excited. I was a big fan of Harper's Island, a miniseries with many similar themes: small town, old killer returns, etc. Harper's Island operated on a sort of thrill-of-the-week pacing while still maintaining the overarching plot and developing even minor characters. I watched this miniseries regularly with my friend, and we constantly speculated about who the big bad's accomplice was and who would die next (we also had a delightful drinking game, but that's a story for another day) and it became a true highlight of my week.

I was, in essence, the perfect audience for Happy Town. But my hopes were misplaced. Instead of a new thriller to fill the void, I had a crappy pseudo-whodunnit that appeared to have been written by JJ Abrams' crackhead cousin. Goat-shaped hammers? A sheriff cutting off his own hand? Ooh, a bread factory! The only less than miserable moments of this show were the work of Sam Neil (of Jurassic Park fame), who brilliantly plays his role as the English owner of a film memorabilia shop specializing in the Golden Age of Hollywood. The rest of the show plods through all kinds of weird crap like a young girl being drugged at the hospital visiting the sheriff and then waking up in the home of the village idiots (clothes on - ABC is a 'family' channel, remember), and I can't even care about the daughter in law of the crazy sheriff being kidnapped by the big bad Magic Man.

Maybe I just crave the violence, but I think what this show really needed was the thrill-of-the-week. It truly gives viewers something to guess about albeit something rather morbid. But after the first death, nobody we know is even harmed, let alone offed. Is it just me? Am I missing the subtle questions hidden beneath the ridiculous bullshit?