Best Series Set in Small Towns
TL;DR — The best small-town series depend on your mood. For comfort: Gilmore Girls, Schitt's Creek or Northern Exposure. For heartfelt drama: Friday Night Lights. For crime: Broadchurch, Mare of Easttown or Justified. For something strange: Twin Peaks, Stranger Things or Wayward Pines. Below, each show with where it's set and how big a commitment it is.
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Take the quizCosy and funny
Gilmore Girls (The WB and The CW, 2000-2007, 7 seasons). Lorelai and Rory Gilmore in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, a town of eccentric neighbours, constant festivals and Luke's diner. Netflix added a four-part revival, A Year in the Life, in 2016. The gold standard for comfort TV.
Schitt's Creek (CBC and Pop, 2015-2020, 6 seasons). The super-rich Rose family goes broke and has to live in a motel in a town they once bought as a joke. It starts as a fish-out-of-water comedy and becomes one of the warmest shows on TV. Its final season swept the comedy categories at the 2020 Emmys.
Northern Exposure (CBS, 1990-1995, 6 seasons). A New York doctor is sent to repay his medical school debt in Cicely, Alaska. Gentle, philosophical and full of odd locals. Harder to find on streaming, but worth the search.
Heartfelt drama
Friday Night Lights (NBC, 2006-2011, 5 seasons). A new coach arrives in Dillon, Texas, where high school football is everything. It's really about the marriage of Coach Taylor and his wife Tami, and kids trying to find a way out or a way to stay. You don't need to like football.
Crime and mystery
Broadchurch (ITV, 2013-2017, 3 series). David Tennant and Olivia Colman investigate a boy's murder in a Dorset seaside town where everyone is a suspect. Series 1 is one of the best British crime dramas of its decade.
Mare of Easttown (HBO, 2021, 7 episodes). Kate Winslet won an Emmy as a worn-out detective in a Pennsylvania town where she knows every victim and every suspect. Complete in one season.
Justified (FX, 2010-2015, 6 seasons). Timothy Olyphant's US Marshal Raylan Givens is reassigned to Harlan County, Kentucky, where he grew up. Based on Elmore Leonard's writing, it's funny, tense and rich in local detail.
Strange and unsettling
Twin Peaks (ABC, 1990-1991, 2 seasons, then Showtime's Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017). An FBI agent investigates the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer in a Washington logging town. David Lynch and Mark Frost's show is soap opera, mystery and nightmare at once.
Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016-2025, 5 seasons). A boy vanishes in Hawkins, Indiana, in 1983, and his friends find a girl with powers and a monster from another dimension. The familiar small-town setting is what makes the horror land.
Wayward Pines (Fox, 2015-2016, 2 seasons). A Secret Service agent wakes up in an Idaho town he can't leave. The first season has a genuinely good twist; the second is weaker.
Our verdict
For a show you can live in for months, Gilmore Girls. For something short and gripping, Mare of Easttown. If you've never seen Friday Night Lights, it's the best show on this list and the one people most often skip because of the football.
Frequently asked questions
What's a good short small-town series? Mare of Easttown is seven episodes and complete. Broadchurch's first series, eight episodes, also works on its own.
Is Twin Peaks worth starting today? Yes, if you like strange, dreamlike TV. Start with the original two seasons (1990-1991) before the 2017 revival.
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