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NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 The suburbs are anything but bland in the new Peacock series \u201cThe ‘Burbs,\u201d where strange things are going on. Like how jokes mix with the dread.<\/p>\n Inspired by the 1989 Tom Hanks-led<\/a> movie of the same name, \u201cThe ‘Burbs\u201d follows a new mom as she navigates a foreign world of white picket fences and manicured lawns while also investigating a possible murder.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s got the comedy, it has the drama, it’s got the mystery, it’s got the horror, the thrills, the suspense \u2014 all of it,\u201d says Celeste Hughey, the creator, writer and executive producer. All eight episodes drop Friday. <\/p>\n Hanks is replaced by Keke Palmer,<\/a> who plays a newlywed and new mom who moves into her husband’s family home in fictional Hinkley Hills, where everyone is in everybody else’s business. \u201cSuburbia is a spectator sport,\u201d she is told.<\/p>\n Across the street is an abandoned home, where a local teen disappeared decades ago. Palmer’s Samira soon joins forces with a band of off-beat suburbanites to help solve the case, even if her own husband had some sort of role.<\/p>\n \u201cI really wanted to focus on that fish-out-of-water feeling, centering Samira as a Black woman in a white suburb who is a new mom, a new wife \u2014 new everything \u2014 and trying to figure out where she belongs in the environment,\u201d says Hughey. <\/p>\n Jokes and social commentary<\/p>\n The cast includes Jack Whitehall as Samira’s husband and the trio of Julia Duffy, Mark Proksch and Paula Pell as her wine-swilling, investigating neighbors who form a sort of found family.<\/p>\n \u201cThe movie came out when I was quite young, but I remember seeing it as a kid and it being like this terrifying movie to me,\u201d says Hughey. \u201cBut revisiting it as an adult, it’s just like the most timely movie.\u201d<\/p>\n The scripts crackle with witty humor, from references to Marie Kondo to \u201cBaby Reindeer,\u201d<\/a> and jokes often improvised by the actors. Chocolate brownies are described as \u201cthe Beyonc\u00e9 of desserts\u201d and there\u2019s a joke about how white ladies love salad.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2019Burbs\u201d also touches on more serious issues over its eight episodes \u2014 microaggressions, racial profiling, bullying and childhood trauma \u2014 but takes a kooky, off-beat approach.<\/p>\n \u201cI always look at things with a sense of humor,\u201d says Hughey. \u201cI think comedy is a way to be able to examine all these pretty heavy subjects, but in a way that\u2019s accessible, in a way that is clarifying.\u201d<\/p>\n Palmer says she grew up watching Norman Lear shows<\/a> and admired his ability to both entertain and address social tensions \u2014 something she found in \u201cThe ‘Burbs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I read this script for the first time, then as we started doing the show, it started to become clear that we had an opportunity to do the same thing,\u201d Palmer says. \u201cWe can expose cliches, we can lean into things, which is one of the greatest tools of satire and comedy in itself, and horror as well, because horror can play as a good allegory for the issues in our life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Play in both genres\u2019<\/p>\n Whitehall, who grew up in the London suburb of Putney, says he appreciates that the social commentary never feels that heavy handed between the comedy and horror: \u201cIt was great to sort of be able to play in both genres.\u201d <\/p>\n