The creators of “The Burbs,” “Widow’s Bay” and “The Boroughs” explain why fringe stories are so successful this awards season: “People are inherently weird.”
Hacks, Bear and Murders only in the building Regardless, big cities like Vegas, Chicago and New York are not the epicenter of storytelling on television this Emmys season. Instead, they are shows that explore the non-neighborly – and often other – conflicts within the rural and remote towns that dominate the screens. Here, the creators and producers behind 10 such series convey the joy of centering life on the suburbs — “people are inherently weird” — and how that invalidates a familiar narrative: “Too often, we attribute tragedy to the rich or the high-status.”
“Madison”
Image credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+ (Madison River Valley, Montana).
The Claiborne family, led by matriarch Stacey (Michelle Pfeiffer, left), moves from New York City to the Madison River Valley in southwestern Montana after the death of her husband in Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ drama. “In a story about grief, and the way it changes us, it was important for these characters to be broken and unbreakable,” says director Christina Alexandra Foros. As for filming in Three Forks, Montana, she adds: “The physical landscape of Three Forks Madison He was our greatest gift and our greatest opponent. We encountered the weather, terrain, river currents, and even the short daylight of Montana’s indecisive fall. When geography is a major character – the The main character in so many ways – doing the landscape justice was as essential as finding the pulse of each scene.
“Biology”
Image credit: Courtesy of Netflix Near Albuquerque/Santa Fe, New Mexico
“Biology “It’s about a certain town that doesn’t really exist, so we had to build it. The main challenge was for it to be a place you’d want to live in if it weren’t for the monster problem,” show creators Geoffrey Ades and Will Matthews say of their Netflix series in which the residents of a New Mexico retirement village confront its owners, who want to drain their brains to feed a vampiric creature whose blood keeps them young. Production designer Ruth Amon created the idyllic community in the middle of the desert, and the co-creators noted that “the neighborhoods had to feel like a bubble – beautiful, but perilous. Far enough away from the neighboring town, it feels isolated, but in a believable way.” As for the cast, led by Alfred Molina, they add: “It was very important to us that these retirees were seen first and foremost as heroes. … Although they may have sad or funny moments, they should not be pitied or objectified.” Joke.
‘heaven’
Image credit: Disney/Sir Pavo Colorado
The first season of heaven It was all about the underground fortified city built into the Colorado mountains (and filmed on Warner Bros. property), but the second season of Hulu’s post-apocalyptic thriller from director Dan Fogelman is moving above ground. “It was important to show a world coming back to life, but also a world that had gone through great tragedy,” says EP John Hoberg. “We wanted that feeling of traveling through Americana but seeing it with different eyes.” This also means distinguishing between the trauma of those above and below ground, including Terry Rogers Collins (Enoka Okuma). “You can feel the loss and trauma in the bunker; it’s always lurking,” Hoberg says. “When we went above ground, we needed to feel something different — to feel for the people who survived. They had to learn how to thrive in a dangerous and complex world where they ultimately found community, kindness, and love.”
“I love Los Angeles”
Image credit: Courtesy of HBO Yes, of course Los Angeles is a sprawling metropolis but its drama is often underpinned by transplants from small-town America. With filming days for TV productions in Los Angeles down 28 percent quarter-over-quarter in the first four months of 2026, you can’t overlook this show filmed in the City of Angels that so accurately – and hilariously – depicts the struggles of newcomers trying to make it in the world of entertainment. “What was so exciting about building our world for I love Los Angeles “He leaned into the hyper-privacy of this group of friends and the world they lived in,” say co-showrunners, writers and EPs Rachel Sinnott and Emma Barry. Sinnott, who created the show, also stars as an ambitious talent manager who struggles to rein in wild-child client and friend Tallulah Stiel (Odessa A’zion, pictured in the mural). “There’s an easy trap to fall into when portraying the world of influencers where characters aren’t grounded or feel exaggerated. “Even though our characters are comedic characters, we wanted to keep the emotional stakes real, and our actors helped do that by asking questions and finding the motivation behind everything they did,” the book adds. “Los Angeles is a big, vibrant city, and it means something different to everyone. “
“Landmann”
Image credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+ Midland/Odessa, Texas
In his portrayal of the many cogs in the wheel of the billion-dollar Texas oil trade, Christian Wallace, who created the series with Sheridan, says: “It’s important that we do justice to the rough, blue-collar workers in West Texas who do the difficult and dangerous jobs that fuel modern society.” The cast and crew had to deal the same way while filming the Billy Bob Thornton-led Paramount+ drama. “The oil fields in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico are huge and remote, roughly the size of the United Kingdom and located about five hours west of our production base in Fort Worth,” Wallace explains. “The elements are stacked against you out there: brutal dust storms, desert heat, hailstorms, rattlesnakes, and dangerous machinery almost everywhere. But it all feeds into the visual language of the show. There’s a rugged beauty to the Permian that’s unlike anywhere in the country — if you squint your eyes enough to see it.”
“It’s: Welcome to Derry.”
Photo credit: Brooke Palmer/HBO who
The fictional city of Derry is based in Stephen King’s 1986 novel He – she and subsequent films, so when it comes to the HBO series, “It’s more than just the space we were shooting in; it’s the time in which the season takes place, which is 1962,” says Barbara Muschietti, who co-developed the prequel with her brother Andy Muschietti. “This has been a year of tremendous upheaval in the United States and the world. We are still relatively close to the terrible effects of World War II as we move into a world that wants peace and understands the need for equality. But it is still in a city stuck in time and weaponized by fear.” Andy adds that it’s the latter that makes the townspeople (including Jovan Adepo and Blake Cameron James) an easy target for the titular bogeyman Pennywise. “He’s weaponizing all of these things that are relevant to what’s going on today in America and in the world. Division targets race and the desire to divide and rule, and this was an opportunity to revisit those themes.”
“Your friends and neighbors”
Image credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+ (Westmont Village, New York).
While viewers may be impressed by the display of wealth in the fictional, affluent suburban town where this Apple TV series is set, it’s the real residents of Westchester, New York, where the show is filmed, who need convincing With his health. “Anyone who owns the type of home we want to shoot in probably doesn’t need a location fee,” says creator Jonathan Tropper, who pokes fun at the “complicated scouting process of finding artistically minded homeowners” to let them film in their homes multiple times each season. But it’s Hamm (right, with Amanda Peet) who manages to make viewers somehow feel sorry for a financial man who starts robbing his neighbors when he loses his job. “When it comes to rich people, there is a danger of resorting to stereotypes and caricatures,” Trooper adds. “But no one is emotionally invested in characters like that.” “We put a lot of effort into writing and acting the show to make sure our characters are three-dimensional, flawed, redeemable, and, above all, relatable, even if their lifestyles sometimes aren’t.”
“DTF St. Louis”
Image credit: Courtesy of HBO St. Louis, Missouri
“Putting extraordinary tension in what should at first glance appear to audiences as a safe, familiar suburban setting was our greatest challenge and greatest opportunity,” says creator Steven Conrad of his HBO drama, which stars a love triangle made up of three middle-aged adults — Jason Bateman, above left; Linda Cardellini; and David Harbour, top right — who connect via a dating app called DTF St. Louis ends up getting killed. Although it was filmed in Atlanta, the settings in the series, such as the local swimming pool where Floyd’s (Harbour) body was found and the baseball field where Carol (Cardellini) takes a side job as a Little League umpire, condense the characters’ environment into the trappings they want to escape. “The cast did an exceptional job of conveying serious impulses in a way that always seemed human and relatable among people with fixed ambitions and family lives,” Conrad adds. “They always felt like the world around me.”
“The Burbs”
Photo credit: Elizabeth Morris/Peacock Hinckley Hills
While filming on Universal Studios’ iconic Colonial Street, the same location where Tom Hanks’ original 1989 film was filmed, “I wanted to avoid filling our neighborhood with suburban caricatures but also wanted to portray familiar archetypes — the busy person, the stickler, the mystery, etc. — in a way that felt specific and relatable,” says creator Celeste Hughey of writing the Peacock comedy. “Having neighbors is a universal truth, and people are inherently strange, so we created a cast led by Keke Palmer, who tries to uncover the history of a mysterious house in a dead-end Ashfield Place: “This group of strange people of varying ages, races, and life experiences brings together “our essence.” [characters] They won’t necessarily be friends outside of their proximity, yet they find community through their shared eccentricities, need for connection and love of wine.
‘a task’
Image credit: Courtesy of HBO Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Show creator Brad Ingelsby had a clear goal in mind when crafting this crime thriller, in which FBI agent Philly (Mark Ruffalo) leads a task force investigating a series of home burglaries: “bring complexity to the working-class characters,” he says. “So often, we attribute tragedy to the rich or the high-ranking—CEOs and kings. I wanted to feel the dreams, the regrets, the desires, the failures, the betrayals of the garbage man and the priest. Because I know they exist.” To ensure the actors conveyed that feeling on screen, filming in Delco, where the HBO series is set, was essential, Inglesby adds. “They visit cafes, bars and restaurants. They interact with people and overhear their conversations. They see what the locals are wearing, driving, and they listen to it. It seeps into the actor’s bloodstream, and translates to the screen. They have a power over their character that they wouldn’t have if we were shooting somewhere else.”
“Widow’s Bay”
Image credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+ New England
“We wanted to build a world that feels small enough to think you’ve never heard of it before, but big enough to suggest that there are countless nooks and crannies still to be explored on this strange little island,” says creator Katie Dippold of the fictional New England town where the Apple TV horror comedy is set. That means “big platforms of elaborate buildings — the inn, the town hall, the saltwater whale, their houses, even the water tank,” she adds of filming in coastal Massachusetts towns, noting that “the feeling of being on an island, a little isolated from the rest of the world, is key to the show.” Matthew Rhys’ mayor, Tom Loftis (above right, with Stephen Root) wants to change the island’s remote reputation and turn it into a tourist destination against the will of locals who are convinced the land is haunted — the kind of superstition you only get in a small, close-knit community — which added another layer to the world-building on set. “Most importantly, we wanted an atmosphere that felt warm and livable,” Diebold adds. “The kind of place you want to wander into and get lost in, even if it means you might die there.”
This story appeared in the June 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.
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