Widow's Bay

With Widow's Bay, a horror-comedy hybrid on Apple TV+, every episode feels like somebody found an unpublished Stephen King novella and handed it to the people behind Parks & Recreation. To be fair, creator Katie Dippold wrote for Parks and Rec, so we guess that tracks. And with Hiro Murai helping steer the ship, they've pulled off one of television's trickiest balancing acts.

The series follows the mayor of a tiny New England island trying to turn a cursed fishing town into a tourist destination. The locals insist the island is cursed. He insists it needs better marketing. Then summer arrives, the ferries fill up, and the island's ghost stories stop feeling like small-town superstition.

Watching Widow's Bay feels like a parade of small-town folklore coming to life: a supernatural fog tied to disappearances and deaths, the Haunted Inn — which is exactly what you think it is — and monsters around every corner. There's a killer clown, a town witch, a murderous boogeyman, and the grandaddy of them all — the island's curmudgeonly undead founder.

But if horror isn't normally your thing, don't panic. Widow's Bay is spooky, but it's never punishing. The monsters may be trying to kill people, but the show remains far more interested in the town's oddballs and eccentricities, than traumatizing its audience. That's where the cast comes in.

Matthew Rhys is terrific as Tom, a mayor who keeps discovering that local folklore wasn't folklore at all. Stephen Root is a blast as Wyck, the island's resident curse enthusiast. And Kate O'Flynn rounds things out as Patricia, the eccentric side-kick.

If we're nitpicking, a couple episodes lost us — one going back in time, one reaching for the campier stuff. But Stephen Root comes barging in raving that they're all doomed, and it's hard to dwell on that for very long. Spooky, funny, and genuinely original — Widow's Bay delivers. Watch it.