Courtesy of HBO (3); Emerson Miller/Paramount+ (2); Courtesy of Netflix; Disney/Ser Baffo; Brooke Palmer/HBO; Elizabeth Morris/Peacock; Courtesy of Apple Tv+ (2) Hacks, The Bear and Only Murders in the Building aside, metropolises like Vegas, Chicago and New York aren’t the epicenter of storytelling on TV this Emmy season. Instead, it’s shows exploring the unneighborly — and oft-otherworldly — disputes within rural and remote cities that are dominating screens. Here, the creators and producers behind 10 such series relay the fun of centering life on the outskirts — “people are inherently weird” — and how doing so undoes a familiar narrative: “Too often, we attribute tragedy to the rich or highly placed.”
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‘The Madison’
Image Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+ Madison River Valley, Montana
The Clyburn family, led by matriarch Stacy (Michelle Pfeiffer, left) relocates from NYC to the Madison River Valley of Southwest Montana following the death of her husband in Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ drama. “In a story about grief, and the way it changes us, it was important for these characters to be both broken and unbreakable,” says director Christina Alexandra Voros. As for shooting in Three Forks, Montana, she adds: “The physical landscape of The Madison was both our greatest gift and our greatest adversary. We were up against the weather, terrain, river currents and even the shortening daylight of Montana’s indecisive autumn. When the geography is a main character — the main character in ways — doing that landscape justice was as imperative as finding the heartbeat of every scene.”
