Stream It Or Skip It: ‘For Heaven’s Sake’ On Paramount+, Where Two Millennials Try To Figure Out An 85-Year-Old Family Mystery

In the 8-part docuseries For Heaven’s Sake, Mike Mildon and Jackson Rowe, true crime docuseries obsessives, investigate the disappearance of Mike’s great-great uncle, Harold Heaven, who disappeared in 1934. They follow the clues they have and try their might to find people who came in contact with people who came in contact with the admittedly-quirky Harold Heaven. That’s not a typo; because the mystery was — at the time they shot the series in 2019 — 85 years old, direct eyewitnesses who are still alive are hard to find. Let’s just say Mike and Jackson aren’t exactly the most skilled sleuths on TV.

FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of a man smoking and reading in bed in a rustic cabin. Then the man puts his jacket on, ties his shoes, grabs his hat and keys and walks out.

The Gist: Harold Heaven walked out of his cabin in the remote woods of Ontario in the winter of 1934 and he completely disappeared. Eighty-five years later, his great-great nephew, Mike Mildon, and his buddy, Jackson Rowe, have set out to solve a case that is so cold, it’s as frozen as the lakes in Haliburton County, where many of Mike’s family, the Heavens, still live.

To assist their investigation, Mike and Jackson interview many members of Mike’s family, from his mother Ruth to his aunts and uncles. The mystery is so pervasive in this family that even Mike’s teenage cousins, who weren’t even born in the 20th century, are interested. His grandfather, Ted, has led the Heavens’ efforts to figure out what happened to Harold, so he’s eager to help Mike and Jackson figure dive deeper into the mystery.

While the buddies do take their quest seriously, they don’t take each other seriously. Jackson creates the beginnings of a yarn-and-pin board that’s a bit sparse, writing “Mike is dumb” when he gets a chance. Mike’s relatives seem to be friendly, but a bit quirky. And Mike doesn’t pretend to be a lifelong Haliburton County resident; he has been living in Toronto for years now; he’s one of those “citiots” that the town historian calls visitors to the area.

One of the things they find out during their first days in the area, especially when they talk to people in a local bar about their search, is that there are going to be a lot of cold avenues, mainly because so much time has passed. When they publicize a hotline on flyers and a local radio station, both voicemails are of people laughing at them.

But no one in the Heaven family can abide by the suicide ruling the local police quickly came to back then, especially considering the fact that Harold’s body was never found. How do you kill yourself and then disappear?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? For Heaven’s Sake is like a funny version of true crime series like Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel.

Our Take: While Paramount+ and CBC Gem have prominent spots in the credits of For Heaven’s Sake, the production credit that’s most indicative of the kind of show this is is Funny or Die. It’s a “comedic docuseries,” and for the first couple of minutes, you’re not 100 percent sure that this is a true-crime docuseries parody along the lines of American Vandal. But apparently the case of Harold Heaven is completely real.

The funny part of the show not only lies in the irreverent Heaven family, but the fact that Mike and Jackson — whose claim to fame is a parody video where people pretend to pee on each other that got 5,000 views — aren’t taking themselves seriously at all. They realize that they’ve taken on a case that is extremely difficult to solve, and that they’re going to get stifled at every turn. Some of the methods that they’re going to use to find out what happened to Harold are going to be unorthodox. Just the fact that they use hand-painted figurines instead of slick computer graphics is a plus.

But they’re having the time of their lives — and also making a docuseries about it. You can see that they’re loving the fact that they can mine the mystery that’s been passed through Mike’s family for four generations for a docuseries that eventually the CBC and Paramount+ would be interested in. Their longtime friendship also comes through in how they goof on each other, especially Jackson goofing on Mike.

The first episode has more than enough twists and turns, paired with the full-of-personality members of the Heaven family, to really engage the viewer. Whether the story itself holds up over the remaining episodes is yet to be seen.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Kym Heaven, Mike’s aunt and a nurse at the local hospital, talks about a patient she had about 20 years prior; he was involved in the search party organized by local officials. When Kym asked him about it, he said “They were never going to find him,” but when he asked her last name and she said it was Heaven, he shut up.

Sleeper Star: Paul Heaven, Mike’s uncle, actually lives in the lakeside cabin Harold was building when he disappeared. He’s obviously interested in what happened to his great uncle, and he seems to be more invested than the other Heavens (except for Poppa Ted), and they’re all pretty invested.

Most Pilot-y Line: As usual, the reenactments take away from the by-the-seat-of-their pants style Mike and Jackson are trying to convey. It’s too slick and doesn’t fit in well with the show’s family vibe.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Because the filmmakers who made For Heaven’s Sake don’t take themselves seriously, they make the already-interesting story of Harold Heaven even more entertaining.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream For Heaven's Sake On Paramount+