David Farnor | On 04, May 2026

You know how the story goes. A small-town mayor wants to open up to tourists, just as the community becomes threatened by an unspoken danger. Naturally, the town authorities don’t listen to the warnings and bad things start to happen. Maybe it’s a shark or maybe, in the case of Widow’s Bay, it’s an eerie fog. But when was the last time we thought about it from the mayor’s perspective?

That’s the starting point for Apple TV’s inspired new series, which stars Matthew Rhys as Tom Loftis. Raised on annual summer trips to Widow’s Bay, he’s familiar with its backwater ways – no WiFi or telephone reception despite it being 2026, a hotel where nobody wants to stay in case it’s haunted, and a local history that includes an instance of cannibalism. Probably. Tom wants to turn things around and improve the town’s prospects – and so he persuades a journalist from the New York Times to visit and pen a piece about the town to attract tourists. The only catch? A mist has begun to descend – and there’s at least one dead body already.

The series continues a long tradition of superstitious small-town tales, following on from recent series The Mist and The Rig. But creator Katie Dippold – who has previously written The Heat and Parks and Recreation – gives it a brilliantly fresh spin by injecting with a lively strain of dark comedy. And so we’re introduced to Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), Tom’s assistant, and employee Rosemary (Dale Dickey), both of whom make Tom’s job more difficult in every possible way – that familiar workplace humour grounds the show’s supernatural streak in something oddly mundane, with Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick), Tom’s son, bringing an emotional anchor, as we see how Tom’s efforts are not simply about selfish ambition or capitalism but about something more personal – and, as a result, something that makes him just that bit more desperate.

Director Hiro Murai – who, between Atlanta, Mr and Mrs Smith and Station Eleven, is responsible for some of the best TV in recent memory – perfectly balances the silly, the weird, the ordinary and the gently sad. Able to whisk us from modern family bickering to spookily timeless nocturnal encounters without any sense of tonal whiplash, Hiro uses the cinematic language of horror to disarming, unsettling and simultaneously hilarious effect. That means we chuckle as Tom clashes with the seemingly serious sheriff, Bechir (Kevin Carroll), recoil as Wyck (the always-excellent Stephen Root) speaks out portentous omens, and wince as Tom promises to spend a night in the hotel to prove it’s not haunted.

The locals are colourful and eccentric, while also being amusingly recognisable in their day-to-day concerns and disagreements – and part of the fun lies in seeing a mayor attempting to both rule and serve in such an unwelcoming community. (Watch out, too, for Toby Huss as the local reverend who knows more than he’s letting on.)

None of this would work without Matthew Rhys, who is exceptional as the frantic mayor who doesn’t know how to quit when he’s behind. It’s a joy to see Rhys get the opportunity to flex new muscles here, as he jumps between angry, giggling and terrified from one conversation to the next – one moment halfway through Episode 1 when he gets some good news is an utter delight. It’s a masterclass in charisma and sympathy, even as we occasionally wonder if he’s the right man for a job. The result is a thrilling, scary, unnerving and repeatedly surprising oddity that’s not quite like anything else on TV at the minute – and maybe, just maybe, we don’t know how this story will go after all.

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