I hesitate to mention any recent show set in San Francisco, b/c they are comically not filmed there. Charmed, Monk and from what I’ve seen Alcatraz don’t lift a finger to have a strong regional sense.
Excellent point! From what I’ve read, very little of Justified’s footage is filmed on location in Kentucky or surrounding states, but rather in California. The glaring shots of hills with no trees are just some of the problems with place authenticity, and it’s more in the dialects and mannerisms that give the show whatever “regionalism” it can claim.
Perhaps another thread dealing with this aspect of non-NYC and non-LA “locations” might be fun to explore. Meanwhile, let’s allow the phony actual locations to slide in favor of the supposed ones.
Just for fun, you might try “Auf Wierdersehen Pet”
An early eighties drama/com set on a building site in Dusseldorf and featuring a bunch of migrant UK workers. It has the benefit of a young Timothy Spall (and in one episode, Ray Winstone) and a fine collection of regional accents. Brummie, Geordie, scouse, cockney and west country brogue.
As the geordie lads would say…“Its git canny like!” (trans. "it is a program of fine quality)
I grew up in a speciic neighborhood in New York City, but rarely felt as if most TV shows set in New York really captured my neighborhood or accurately portrayed the kind of people I gew up around.
The Honeymooners certainly captured Bensonhurt, Brooklyn, in the Fifties.
All in the Family OCCASIONALLY rang true… I definitely knew a lot of real people in Astoria who talked like Archie. But there was way too much the show DIDN’T get right about Astoria (Archie never seemed to run into any GREEKS, for one thing!).
“Home Improvement” was set in (Tim Allen’s home region of) metro Detroit. But all of the Detroit references made on the show always seemed forced, like Tim was just basically doing shout-outs to the people back home.
I’ve never known any show to ever get DC right. It’s always just a quick establishing shot of monuments or exteriors of buildings, then you’re magically whisked away to L.A., or Vancouver, or anywhere else but DC.
Understandable, due to the difficulty of filming anything in DC, but it’s always completely obvious that they’re definitely NOT shooting here. They even fuck up the surrounding area. It’s always apparent that the producers/writers are just looking at a map and randomly picking names of cities/towns. I especially enjoy how they seem to think that anywhere inside the Beltway, or even out to Annapolis (X-Files, I’m looking at you), is just a 20 minute drive.
Always Sunny in Philadelphia, despite being mostly filmed in L.A., is still pretty good about keeping a strong “Philly” presence in the show. The Gang is always talking about Phillies, the Eagles, using local slang, etc…
I’ve since stopped watching Whitney, but it took me about 6 episodes to realize that it was supposed to be set in Chicago. Other than the occasional Blackhawks jersey, there’s nothing Chicago about it at all. Haven’t seen *Happy Endings *so I can’t comment.
Currently, Mike & Molly is the most authentic Chicago-based show for my money. The creator (Mark Roberts) and one of the exec producers (Mark Gross) are both ex-Chicagoans, and there are a lot of little touches – Old Style beer, mentions of less-famous city landmarks and neighborhoods, convincing establishing shots – that give it a decidedly Chicago feel.
In the defunct hospital drama department, I thought ER did a halfway decent job of capturing the city, especially in the earlier seasons; *Chicago Hope *less so.
