Even though it’s set in a fictitious New England village, this series is all over the place. Is it a quirky small-town comedy or a ghost thriller or something else? It’s a bit of all that, but it takes several episodes for any of it to take off. Matthew Rhys stars as the mayor who’s eager to make it the hot new tourist destination, but there’s a curse causing problems. Eventually, that aspect kicks in with a knife-wielding maniac, but that’s all the scares. As for humor, there a cast of familiar quirky types that don’t have a chance to show off their quirk. It includes Kate O’Flynn, Katie Dippold, Dale Dickey, Stephen Root and Jeff Hiller. So, what’s the deal? In the attempt to be oddly charming, showrunner Katie Dippold has created a compilation of mildly eccentric characters with a convoluted, sprawling story (and I didn’t even get into the teen issues). As a service to you readers, I forced myself to sit thru the entire series and I will say it got better, but still not effective enough to wade thru ten 30–48-minute eps. 2.5 out of 5.0 stars
