# TV shows with only subtle hints they take place outside your country

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-only-subtle-hints-they-take-place-outside-your-country/817423>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 6, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-only-subtle-hints-they-take-place-outside-your-country/817423 "2018-07-06T20:41:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-only-subtle-hints-they-take-place-outside-your-country/817423/1 "2018-07-06T20:41:29Z")

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I’m currently watching two recently concluded TV shows that I need to remind myself don’t take place in the US: **Saving Hope** and **Rookie Blue**. If not for Saving Hope remarking about how many kilometers an hour someone in a crash had been driving instead of miles, and a few place names scattered throughout the first couple seasons of Rookie Blue, I could easily believe that they both were set in a large northern city on this side of the border rather than in Toronto.

There must be other shows like that, right? And not just for Americans and Canadians, either. I imagine that there are shows set in Ireland, Wales, or England that similarly blur the line for UK viewers (especially after seeing a movie like **The Lodgers** that was set in Ireland but inexplicably used English actors for all of the main characters). Perhaps likewise for Australians and New Zealanders?

So, any shows you watched and found yourself remembering, “oh yeah, that’s not supposed to be here”?

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**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-only-subtle-hints-they-take-place-outside-your-country/817423/2 "2018-07-06T21:03:05Z")

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Just reading the subject line made me think of _Saving Hope_ as well.

In the first season, when is was still aired on NBC, they played down the Canadian stuff. Then they started letting more Canadian references in until it was fairly openly a Canadian show.

The short lived series _[Backstrom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstrom_(TV_series))_ was set in Portland but filmed in Vancouver, B.C. Over and over you saw stuff that Was Not Portland. (The buses were the wrong color!) But you had to know Vancouver to tell that was the actual location.