Showrunner Nick Santora had grand plans for “Reacher” season 1. After Alan Ritchson was cast, following some hesitation on Amazon’s part, Santora was ready to shoot his adaptation of Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher book, “Killing Floor,” on-location in Georgia. This would allow him and his crew to depict, as authentically as possible, the fictional Peach state town of Margrave, which plays host to Reacher throughout “Killing Floor.” Unfortunately, the global pandemic hit just ahead of filming, forcing Santora and co. to rethink their plan.
Rather than shoot on-location, the production shifted north, building the entire town of Margrave in a cornfield in Canada. The result was an undeniably impressive set that was, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the biggest in Canada. Erected in Pickering, Ontario, the set covered 23 acres and featured 30 stores and shops. It also allowed the production to shoot in a remote location and keep the risk of COVID infections low. All in all, then, it seemed like the perfect solution.
But one unforeseen issue with this fabricated town was not only that “Reacher” season 1 felt smaller than it otherwise would have — a common issue with projects shot during the pandemic — but that the environs of Margrave had this artificial feel which seemed conspicuously at odds with the otherwise gritty and often brutal tone of the show. Ritchson unintentionally hit on the problem when he told IMDb that driving onto the set felt like entering “Pleasantville.” While you might think the manicured environs of this fabricated Margrave might have provided a nice contrast to the show’s savage fight scenes and hard-edged crime thriller sensibility, it ultimately just came across as what it was — inauthentic. Which, for a show that was finally giving us a supposedly authentic Reacher, just felt wrong.