A smart, offbeat small-town drama with a strong David E. Kelley blend of legal, moral, and social satire.… Read more
Picket Fences
Where to watch: Buy
TV Show · Drama · Comedy
Fri
Created by: David E. Kelley
Starring: Tom Skerritt, Kathy Baker, Costas Mandylor
Overview
An aging Sheriff tries to keep the peace in Rome, Wisconsin, a small town plagued by bizarre and violent crimes.
Created by
David E. Kelley
Cast
Tom Skerritt, Kathy Baker, Costas Mandylor, Lauren Holly, Holly Marie Combs, Justin Shenkarow, Adam Wylie, Ray Walston
Curator Review
Verdict
A smart, offbeat small-town drama with a strong David E. Kelley blend of legal, moral, and social satire. It starts as quirky network-TV Americana and gradually becomes more ambitious and stranger, with memorable cases, sharp writing, and a distinctive tone that still feels unusual for the era.
Best for
Fans of character-driven ensemble dramas
Viewers who like quirky small-town mysteries and moral dilemmas
People who enjoy 1990s network TV with a literate, offbeat edge
Fans of David E. Kelley-style legal and social commentary
Skip if
You want a purely serialized modern prestige drama
You dislike tonal shifts between comedy, melodrama, and procedural storytelling
You prefer shows that stay consistently light or consistently dark
You are looking for fast-paced, high-concept crime TV
Overview
Picket Fences is one of the most distinctive network dramas of the 1990s, a show that treats small-town life as a pressure cooker for absurdity, tragedy, faith, politics, and civic dysfunction. It has the David E. Kelley signature: sharp dialogue, eccentric supporting characters, and cases that are often less about the crime itself than the moral mess around it.
Worth noting
The series works best when it leans into its ensemble and its sense of place. Rome, Wisconsin feels lived-in and weird in a way that makes every episode feel like it could tip into either satire or heartbreak. Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker give it real grounding, and the show’s willingness to mix procedural structure with bigger thematic swings is a big part of its appeal.
Bottom line
It can be uneven, and the tonal juggling is not for everyone, but that’s also part of what makes it memorable. If you like 1990s TV that is ambitious, oddball, and smarter than its broadcast trappings suggest, this is absolutely worth a look.