Television series
The Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town
A Canadian comedy murder mystery that plays Twin Peaks with a small-town sensibility and sketch-troupe anarchy. The Kids in the Hall ditched their sketch format to tell one serialized story: Death literally arrives in a backwater town, and chaos ensues. It's weird, darkly funny, and committed to its premise in a way that feels almost punk rock for a TV comedy.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love the Kids' oddball sensibility and want their deadpan, surreal humour stretched into a serialized small-town mystery, the way The League of Gentlemen bent its village into a playground for grotesques.
Skip it if you come for sketch comedy and tight, self-contained laughs, since this is a story-driven sitcom where the jokes hang on a continuing plot and characters you have to keep track of.
What it asks of you: Eight half-hour episodes that build on one another, so you need to stay with the thread rather than dip in, and the strangeness accumulates slowly before it pays off.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Schitt's Creek2015
A show about misfits in a small Canadian town finding community and purpose. It has that same blend of character quirk and genuine warmth, with comedy that gets smarter as it goes. The ensemble work is impeccable.
But By season three it becomes almost aggressively heartfelt. If you came for cynicism, the sentimentality might feel like a betrayal.
Severance2022
A prestige mystery that wears its premise lightly. Both shows use a hook—Death visiting town, work-life split—to explore something stranger. Great supporting cast, gorgeous direction, and comedy that arrives from genuine weirdness rather than setup-punchline.
But It takes itself very seriously. No sketch-comedy DNA here; it's straightforward sci-fi. Pacing is deliberate and sometimes demands patience.
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace2004
British comedy that commits utterly to being bad in a specific way. Like Death Comes to Town, it's written by and stars comedians playing against type. The commitment to tone and the willingness to sit in discomfort is exactly right.
But It's only six episodes and deliberately ugly—the production design is meant to look cheap. Not for people who need glossy production values.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy2005
Both use a fantastic premise (literal Death, literal destruction of Earth) to tell intimate stories about ordinary people trapped in circumstances that don't care about their reasonableness. Same DNA, different accent.
British comedy sci-fi that treats cosmic absurdity like small-town dysfunction. Death shows up in a Canadian town; this has Death visiting Earth. Both find the comedy in 'why is this happening to me specifically?' The tone is exactly right.
But The film is rushed and doesn't capture the brilliance of the books or the earlier TV version. It feels like it's apologizing for being weird.
More like this (8)
Hannibal2013
Serialized dark comedy-horror about a small community torn apart by something supernatural. It has that same willingness to be genuinely unpleasant while staying funny. The craft is extraordinary and it doesn't wink at the audience.
But It gets brutal and stays there. The food horror alone might make dinner uncomfortable for weeks.
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse2005
A spinoff from the sketch show that does exactly what Death Comes to Town does—takes the troop's sensibility into narrative comedy. Dark, strange, populated with grotesques who matter. Proof the format shift actually works.
But It's British and deeply peculiar even by those standards. If you haven't seen the original series, you'll feel lost quickly.
Fargo1996
Small-town murder mystery told with precision and dark humor. It's where Death Comes to Town got its moral compass. The Coen brothers prove that brutality and comedy live in the same room.
But It's from 1996 and looks it. Some viewers find the accents distracting rather than charming.
Twin Peaks1990
David Lynch's answer to what happened after the original show. It's absurdist, weird, and genuinely moves. If Death Comes to Town was riffing on Twin Peaks, this is the thing itself at maximum strangeness.
But It's eighteen hours and demands you've seen the original series. Also, it's actively hostile to traditional storytelling.
30 Rock2006
Sketch comics (Lorne Michaels' people, mostly) doing serialized comedy about misfits in a toxic workplace. Fast, silly, character-driven, and it trusts the audience completely. Great ensemble work.
But It gets worse in later seasons when it leans too hard on meta-jokes. The early stuff is tighter.
Wilfred2011
A show about a man and a dog that's actually a show about depression and meaning. It starts as comedy and becomes genuinely moving without losing its edge. Bold, strange, and willing to take risks.
But The early seasons are funnier; later it commits to the drama and loses the joke. Also, it's about a guy in a dog suit, which is either your thing or not.
Carnivàle2003
Both use ensemble casts and small communities to tell stories about the uncanny invading the mundane. Both trust weirdness without needing to justify it. Death Comes to Town is funny; Carnivàle is not. But they breathe the same air.
A dark prestige drama about a traveling circus during the Depression. It's serialized, gorgeously shot, and commits to atmosphere over joke. Nothing like Death Comes to Town except in spirit—same willingness to be genuinely strange and not explain itself.
But HBO's prestige-drama mode in 2003. It's slow, baroque, and sometimes pretentious. Also: it was cancelled on a cliffhanger and never resolved.
The Sopranos1999
Both are Canadian ensembles (Sopranos is American but cast with Canadians, directed by Canadians) that treat a community as a character itself. Both are interested in the people we didn't expect to matter. Death Comes to Town is 8 hours of pure joke; The Sopranos is 90 hours of moral complexity. But they're asking the same question: who are these people and why do I care?
A show about terrible men in a community where everyone knows everyone. It's serialized, darkly funny, and genuinely moving. The ensemble work is why it matters—every character is real. Started the prestige-TV era and never stopped earning it.
But It's almost ninety hours and front-loaded with a guy in therapy talking about his mother. Vast stretches are about nothing happening. Also: deeply violent and disturbing sometimes.
