Widow's Bay's roots are found in Pawnee

Widow’s Bay has been cursing people with entertainment since it premiered on Apple TV in early April. But one person has been particularly haunted by the charming yet hexed New England hamlet for more than a decade: creator Katie Dippold. Long before she showed up to a grown-up wine party dressed as the Babadook, Dippold submitted an earlier, jokier version of the Widow’s Bay pilot as a spec submission for Parks And Recreation. However, that version probably wouldn’t have looked like the one that’s airing now. “I don’t think we’d have a flashback episode; I don’t think there’d be real tension and scares,” Dippold told The Hollywood Reporter. “It would just be so different.” She even considered pitching it to Amazon when the streamer was holding open submissions for Pilot Season and allowing viewers to vote on the best. Shows like I Love Dick, The Tick, and Woody Allen’s Crisis In Six Scenes were picked up to series, but that’s because Dippold never submitted her pilot. “I just had this bad feeling,” she said of the decision. “I put a pin in it. I just knew it wasn’t ready.”