Favorite rural tv show

[caj]

My wife used to say my definition of the middle of nowhere was if I wasn't within 15 minutes of a mall.

rofl - yeah, I'm sure a lot of people think that way. I definitely grew up in the middle of nowhere and we sure weren't close to a mall.

[Powerboy]

The Andy Griffith Show.

There were shows like the Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. But they were stupid funny even compared to TAGS.

The Waltons was okay but never a big one for me and I grew up in the country and in a small town.

I loved "Buffy" and liked "Smallville" but, having grown up in that sort of environment, there are too many ways in which Sunnydale and Smallville don't feel like small towns at all to me.

[Flash Gordon]

Twin Peaks, Justifed

[Jim Kelly]

I don't consider THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES to be rural, because it mostly takes place in Beverly Hills.

It's a four-way tie for me between GREEN ACRES, CORNER GAS, PETTICOAT JUNCTION and THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. Another great series was THE WALTONS. I suppose you could expand the category to include things like DAWSON'S CREEK and GILMORE GIRLS.

I've yet to watch SCHITT'S CREEK, even though that was on Canadian T.V. well before it went to the States. I intend to watch it at some point, but then I've yet to watch THE BEACHCOMBERS. I guess one could also include ANNE OF GREEN GABLES--and my mother loved to watch the follow-up series ROAD TO AVONLEA (starring Sarah Polley) and WIND AT MY BACK (starring Kiefer Sutherland's mom).

[Powerboy]

My wife used to say my definition of the middle of nowhere was if I wasn't within 15 minutes of a mall.

Yeah it comes down to what you've experienced. My graduating high school class was 25 people. The total high school was about 100. Counting the junior high and grade school, 500. The town was maybe 2000 plus the surrounding rural area and I didn't even live in the town. My grandparents lived in a "big city" thirty miles away. It had 15000 people. To me, Mayberry was just a normal town, bigger than the one I lived near but maybe smaller than the "big city". One school. One restaurant (later two), two gas stations, 15000 churches (okay, only three).

[Riv86672]

I always liked My Name is Earl and it always kinda bummed me out that the series ended on a cliffhanger

In the pilot ep. of RAISING HOPE, a news report on the radio mentions that a man in Camden County had finished his list.

Even though the show later contradicted that by mentioning the show by name, I choose to believe the radio report as it was in an earlier ep (the pilot I believe).

[Celgress]

Green Acres is my pick. I love that wacky old show.

[TriggerWarning]

Supernatural. That is all pretty rural.

I say it counts because outside of that failed spinoff about supernatural crime families in Chicago you can probably count on one hand the number of times the show has gone to a major city and actually showed the city.

So my vote is Supernatural as well.

[batnbreakfast]

Green Acres and Petticoat Junction are almost neck-and-neck, but Green Acres wins by a pig snout. Petticoat was a bit too normal, but Acres had an almost Twilight Zone feel. Poor Oleever is stuck in this place with idiots conspiring against him.

As for drama, Twin Peaks probably takes it.

Buffy is iffy. Sunnydale's sort of a suburb of LA. It was always funny seeing that Buffy was going to the same school as the 90210 kids.

Buffy is great but I wouldn't count it. It always looks like being inside a soundstage.

[Frobisher]

Last Of The Summer Wine

[Personamanx]

Letterkenny, and The Red Green Show.

Corner Gas is another great one. I find that most Canadian sitcoms are better when set in a rural area. Major cities are a bit too specific, but the middle of nowhere always feels like the middle of nowhere whether you're in Newfoundland or Saskatchewan. Largely unincorporated farmlands, prairies, and forests hours away from the nearest major city, now that's rural.

[Güicho]

Lassie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcN3Inbykx4

Probably Most Westerns count

Kung Fu series.

Dukes' of Hazard

House on the Prairie

All creatures great and small

[Vakanai]

There a horror tv series that takes place in a rural town?

I don't count Supernatural, more horror-action and goes to so many places.

[Anodyne]

Among the "cornpone comedies" of the 60's, my favorite was probably The Beverly Hillbillies... although it didn't take place in the country. Green Acres was my favorite one that did.

Among dramas, Bonanza and The Big Valley.

And the aforementioned Northern Exposure.

The first show to come to mind when I saw the thread title was The Waltons, but I liked Bonanza better.

IMHO The Waltons jumped the shark when Mary's husband, who'd been reported killed at Pearl Harbor, came back with a new lover.

Anyone remember the Waltons' reunion show? It was set during the first moon landing in 1969; but it was also their parents' 40th wedding anniversary--which meant they were married in 1929, yet they had three sons old enough to serve in World War II.

But what about radio programs? In the early 1950s I was fanatically devoted to the The Lone Ranger. I was mortified when my little sister innocently asked, "Does the Lone Ranger ever go to the bathroom?"

[Jackalope89]

There a horror tv series that takes place in a rural town?

I don't count Supernatural, more horror-action and goes to so many places.

Very rarely does Supernatural go to big cities. Usually small towns and suburbs at the biggest.

And going by Lordmikel's definition of "rural", I guess I live in a rural town. Nearest mall is 45 miles away, lol. Granted, Wyoming doesn't have big cities like most other states do, with Laramie County (the most populous) having just under 100,000 people altogether. They do have a mall though.

And count me in for Supernatural.