Castle Rock. Emma gets practically giddy when it is mentioned, and then when you get her together with Dale and Lynne (outside of work time, of course) the chatter is non-stop. The three of them are either talking all things Castle Rock or one or the other is shushing the others because they are an episode or two behind. If you’re not familiar with Castle Rock, as I wasn’t, it is a new horror show on Hulu based on a fictitious town in Maine that appears in a variety of Stephen King books. A number of other Stephen King’s works have been adapted for television that are set fictitious Maine towns. They include: The Dead Zone, Haven, The Mist, Storm of the Century, and Under the Dome.
This got us thinking about other TV shows that are set in Maine. Do you remember Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury? Set in Cabot Cove, Maine, the plot involved an author, Jessica Fletcher (played by Lansbury), who happens to be around whenever someone is murdered. It aired for twelve seasons on CBS and Lansbury received four Golden Globe Awards for her role in the series.
More recently, the show Once Upon A Time which aired on ABC from 2011-2018, is set in Storybrooke, Maine. The premise of this show is that fairy tale and folk tale characters are confined to present-day Storybrooke due to a curse cast on them by the Evil Queen Regina. They are exiled and their memories lost until a young boy, with the help of his mother (who may or may not be the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming), set things in motion to free them all.
There’s also Olive Kitteridge which is a four-hour mini-series based on the book by the same name by Elizabeth Strout. Set in Crosby, Maine, this follows the life of Olive, a retired schoolteacher who is married to the man who runs the local pharmacy. They have one child, a troubled son Christopher, who is a podiatrist.
And we can’t forget Dark Shadows that aired on weekdays from 1966-1971. It was a gothic soap opera that was set in Collinsport, Maine and followed the lives of the wealthy Collins family.
I haven’t seen all these shows, but it’s interesting to look at how Maine is portrayed. Is the portrayal of Maine accurate? Has the way “Hollywood” portrays Maine evolved? It’s interesting to see how Maine is projected on audiences that might not know anything about us.