As fans become consumed with the horrors of Widow’s Bay, there’s a version of the show that took place in Pawnee, Indiana.
Series creator Katie Dippold recently told Deadline how her new Apple TV+ series was originally a spec script for an episode of NBC’s Parks and Recreation (2009-2015), on which she was a writer and co-producer, but doesn’t know if she “would have watched” that version of the horror comedy.
“I wrote it as a spec script for Parks & Recreation, but that version was much jokier,” she explained. “It was more comedic, and I think it gave a good idea of my sense of humor. But I don’t know that I would have watched that show, because I think it could have felt more like a spoof, and as a horror fan, I just wanna be immersed into the island.”
Dippold continued, “I wanna feel like I’m in New England. I wanna feel like I am isolated, and I wanna feel like I could go explore this island and find all the little nooks and crannies and terrifying little spots. That’s my dream, but I’m strange. So, that’s sort of how it started.”
In Widow’s Bay, a New England mayor (Matthew Rhys) tries to boost tourism to his tiny island as strange events unfold, unleashing a centuries-old curse. For Dippold, the show’s specific brand of horror comes from a very real place she wanted to capture.
Matthew Rhys as Mayor Tom Loftis in ‘Widow’s Bay’
“I would say the initial spark is a feeling I’ve been trying to capture ever since childhood—I always talk about going to this this boardwalk in New Jersey in Long Branch,” she noted. “Once a summer, I would go with my family, and when I say I was way too young for it, I mean I was like 6, and this place was lawless and terrifying. But I loved it. I was just so giddy, the anticipation of going in, and I would scream and I would laugh.
“And then once we left, I’d run out screaming, but then I would immediately want to go back in again. It was almost kind of a dangerous excitement. I used to get into all sorts of antics when I was young, me and my friends going to check out the abandoned house and then running off, and I just love that feeling because you’re so scared, but you’re laughing so hard, and I just wanted to get that feeling on television. So, that’s sort of where it started,” added Dippold.
Dippold inked an overall deal with Apple TV as the streamer renewed Widow’s Bay for Season 2, ahead of the Season 1 finale, which is available to stream on Wednesday, June 17.
