Widow's Bay, the Next Martha's Vineyard

 

by Pa Rock

TV Junkie

Early last spring I realized that I was running out of new viewing options on Prime and Brit Box, so I asked my youngest son, Tim, to expand my entertainment horizons by hooking me up to a couple of new services.  He got our household connected to Netflix, which I had been subscribed to several years earlier, and Apple TV.  Tim, who has penned two screenplays that have been made into feature films, has a strong appreciation for quality script-writing, and he was enjoying a new series premiering on Apple TV called "Widow's Bay" which he thought I would like as well - and I did.

Widow's Bay is a fictional island off the coast of Massachusetts that is connected to the mainland by a ferry service,  Many of the residents are direct descendants of the island's first white settlers who arrived around 1700, and their families have maintained the island's history, folklore, and superstitions across the centuries.   The fairly young mayor, Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), came to the island as a tourist, married a local girl, and they had a son.  Mayor Loftis is now a widower with a teenage son - and he has a dream of turning his quiet little adopted home into "the next Martha's Vineyard."   The locals, however, are resistant to change, a massive fog rolls in which they see as the return of a curse that one of the island's founders placed on the island, and old fears and superstitions re-ignite which clash directly with the mayor's plans to rejuvenate the community by drawing in tourists.

A quirky set of characters inhabiting a quaint and colorful setting sounds like the backdrop of a standard television sitcom, but this show is much more complicated than that.  Yes, the television professionals who select the Emmy nominees regard it as a "comedy," and it was nominated as the "Best New Comedy Series," but calling "Widow's Bay" a comedy is a stretch.  There are plenty of moments that are far more dramatic than they are comedic, and even some where horror and panic prevail.  (At one point the mayor is sitting in the home of an old and dear friend trying to figure out the most humane way to murder her, and another scene has a killer clown, on hands and knees, charging at the terrified mayor in a cramped air vent.  The show flits between feeling like a place created by Neil Simon to an asylum run by Stephen King.)

I have also seen "Widow's Bay" referred to on the internet as a "horror-comedy," which is a more accurate fit, but there is apparently no current Emmy category covering horror-comedies.

The complete first season of "Widow's Bay" (10 episodes) is now streaming on Apple TV.  The show was nominated for 19 Emmys, the most for any new series, and it is well worth a watch - just don't expect every scene to leave you laughing because "Widow's Bay" is far more complicated than a mindless sitcom.  A range of emotions will be exercised if you spend much time there - and keep the remote handy for a quick exit - just in case things suddenly get too intense!