Review: With a dose of paranoia and a charming cast, 'The Burbs' draws you into its mystery

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Sharing with the 1989 Tom Hanks film a title, a vague premise, a little paranoid spirit and a Universal Studios backlot street, “The ’Burbs,” premiering Sunday on Peacock, stars Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall as newlywed new parents who have moved into the house he grew up in — his parents are on “a cruise forever” — in Hinkley Hills, the self-proclaimed “safest town in America.”Well, obviously not.First of all, that’s not a real thing.

But more to the point, no one’s going to make an eight-hour streaming series (ending in a cliffhanger) about an actually safe town.Even Sheriff Taylor had the occasion to welcome someone worse than Otis the town drunk into the Mayberry jail.

In post-post-war American culture, suburbs and small towns are more often than not a stage for secrets, sorrows, scandals and satire.The stories of John Cheever, the novels of Stephen King, “The Stepford Wives,” “Blue Velvet” and its godchild “Twin Peaks,” “Desperate Housewives” (filmed on the same backlot street as “The ’Burbs”), “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” last year’s “Grosse Pointe Garden Society,” which I mention in protest of its cancellation, are set there — it’s a long list.Samira Fisher (Palmer) is a civil litigation lawyer still on maternity leave, a job reflecting her inquisitive, inquisitorial nature.

Husband Rob (Whitehall) is a book editor, a fact referred to only twice in eight hours, but which allows for scenes in which he rides a soundstage commuter train to the big city (presumably New York) with boyhood friend and once-more next-door neighbor Naveen (Kapil Talwalkar), whose wife has just left him for their dentist.Samira, Naveen and Rory (Kyrie McAlpin), an overachieving late tween who has a merit badge in swaddling, a recommendation from Michelle Obama on her mother’s helper resume and a notary public’s license, are the only pe...