Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery

Archaeologist Emma Fielding (Courtney Thorne-Smith) is trying to prove her father's theory of a lost colony in their home town. She has a map and her group of young students. She has a confrontation with angry old acquaintance Augie and the next day, she finds his dead body in her dig site. FBI Special Agent Jim Connor (James Tupper) arrives to investigate.

It's an ok mystery. It's comparable to anything Lifetime or such channels. CTS seems to have gotten stiffer in her acting over the years. The story has an interesting premise although the movie should start with a young Emma listening to her father talking about the lost colony. This is fine for a TV mystery movie.

This movie was OK. Not as good as a Garage Sale, Aurora Teagarden or Mystery Woman Mystery, but OK.

But what I found REALLY distracting was the casting of the actor who played Will.

There were repeated references to Emma having spent her summers there in Maine as a teenager, with Will.

However, Emma appears to be in her early to mid 50's (yes, the figure of a young woman, but facial close-ups reveal an "appearance age" or early to mid 50s).

Will, despite his dime-store dye job, appears to be in his early to mid 30s.

So when Emma would have been a teenager, Will would have been somewhere between a toddler and not-yet born.

Creepy.

Actors need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask these questions.

1) Am I under thirty-five? 2) Am I handsome? 3) Does my beard fill in completely? 4) Do I have the self-discipline to keep my beard well trimmed? 5) Again, am I handsome?

If the answer to those questions is not a firm yes, that actor must refuse to be shot with the kind of whiskers that make them look like they haven't bathed. The lead actor in this movie may be self-disciplined about shaving but he's a firm no on the remainder. Therefore, he must either cease seeing himself as someone whose looks can be enhanced by the kind of scruff.

This movie would have been more relaxing if the lead actor had asked himself those questions. He should also button another button on his shirt and reconsider the necklace.

I could accept the formulaic script, predictable plot, and two-dimensional characters of this film-I watch this kind of movie to relax and not have to think too hard. But trying to pretend that British Columbia was Maine was more than my imagination could handle! If an east coast location and American actors were too expensive, why couldn't they have tweaked the story to suit a west coast setting? Professor Fielding could just as easily have been searching for artifacts of Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest or Native American burial sites as trying to prove the existence of an early Pilgrim settlement. It was so ridiculously obvious that this was not Maine that I couldn't think of anything else throughout the entire movie.

Actually, as far as archaeology is concerned, this movie is a great deal better than many I've seen (from the digg to the students!), and trust me, I am an archaeologist. I mean, everything is there - buckets, wheelbarrows, unmanned aerial vehicles, total stations...The main actress Courtney Thorn-Smith, who plays the archaeologist Emma Fielding, is amazing, and she looks 10 years younger than her real age. The character of Emma Fielding is very convincing, she is a convincing professor of archaeology and her relationship with students is accurately presented. All in all, a nice, easy plot and good actors make this a great film for relaxed weekend afternoons. From me 10 out of 10.