'Below' vs 'Widow's Bay': Netflix has two island series running in parallel

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents 'Below' vs 'Widow's Bay': Netflix has two island series running in parallel.

As Jesse McKeown had worked on Below for months and finally saw the teaser for Widow's Bay, one exclamation escaped him: "Oh shit." That's how the showrunner tells it in a producer interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He had simply not realized that an island series of a similar bent was in the works in parallel to his Netflix project.

"I wasn't aware of it until after we wrapped, and so my first reaction was, 'Oh shit.'"

Two island stories — on two different streamers

Below has been available in full on Netflix since October 8, 2026, all six episodes. Widow's Bay, by contrast, runs on Apple TV+ and has already won an Emmy. Its creator Katie Dippold had been trying to place the pilot script in Hollywood for over a decade before it became a series. What connects both, according to executive producer Jessica Rhoades, at the logline level: "Prestige streaming series, island, quirky language, deadly water, an older white man who has to save his people."

What Below is actually about

Below was filmed entirely on location in Newfoundland; the setting, in McKeown's words, sits right on the border between "folklore" and "real history." At the center is Calvin Penney, a fisherman from a small Newfoundland town who has been haunted for decades by the mysterious death of his father. When an unidentified sea creature terrorizes his town, Calvin must hold his small community together. In the lead role: Josh Hartnett, who is back in the spotlight with Below after a longer Hollywood break — known among other things from Pearl Harbor, a 2002 Razzie nomination.

How much real science is in the series

Rhoades estimates the share of real science in Below at 70 percent. McKeown corrects upward: 90 percent. The two only disagree here. On the next point they are absolutely in agreement: the Newfoundland accent had to land 100 percent.

Why the accent matters above all else

For McKeown this isn't abstract. He is himself a "Newfoundlander-in-law" — his wife is the actress Marthe Bernard. "I happen to be married to a Newfoundlander and I spend a lot of my time there, and so for my own life I had to get it right," he says. Bernard wasn't just "worried" because of the dialect, but also because of Calvin Penney's "mannerisms" — that is, the way Hartnett plays the character, through whom the viewer comes into contact with the region for the first time. Hartnett prepared by listening to the radio shows The Fisheries Broadcast and Open Line on a loop. After a local preview that followed the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, came the relieving collective feedback.

What the Below team says against the comparison

Asked about Widow's Bay, McKeown says: "But everyone who watched it assured me that it was very different." Rhoades adds: "The people behind it are so different, and both shows are so bespoke to their creators. […] Jesse's scripts were so different and so specific." At the script level the two shows were fundamentally different, even if trailer comparisons suggest the opposite.

What this means for your series night

You can watch Below in full on Netflix since October 8, 2026. For Widow's Bay you need an Apple TV+ subscription. If you want to compare both, you have to go across two platforms. The full producer interview with McKeown and Rhoades is available here:

To the full producer interview at The Hollywood Reporter