MCN Review: Meloni Makes Syfy's Genuinely Strange 'Happy' Work

A genuinely strange program, adapted from a famed graphic novel, Happy! stars Christopher Meloni as Nick Sax, aptly described by Syfy as an intoxicated ex-cop turned hit man, and he hams things up to perfection.

A twisted Christmas holiday tale takes place in which a little girl, Hailey (Bryce Lorenzo), whose mom is connected to the police somehow, is kidnapped by a disgusting bad Santa. The little girl has an imaginary friend, Happy.

Related: Watch Syfy's "Happy" Trailer

Happy is visible to only Hailey and Sax as a little blue flying unicorn voiced by Patton Oswalt. Happy’s mission is to get Sax to come and save Hailey.

The humor here is dark and, without Meloni’s brilliance in the duets with it, Happy the character might grate a little bit too much. Lili Mirojnick as a heavily involved cop and Medina Senghore as Hailey’s mom keep the Hailey subplot ticking. Some brilliant visuals, especially in the opening sequence.

Kent Gibbons

Kent has been a journalist, writer and editor at Multichannel News since 1994 and with Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He is a good point of contact for anything editorial at the publications and for Nexttv.com. Before joining Multichannel News he had been a newspaper reporter with publications including The Washington Times, The Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal and North County News.