Director Craig Zobel isn’t from Pennsylvania – he grew up in Atlanta – but for the past few years his work has taken him to both ends of the commonwealth, first for 2018’s shot-in-Pittsburgh “One Dollar” and more recently for filmed-around-Philly HBO limited series “Mare of Easttown” (9 p.m. Sunday, HBO).

“I felt like I learned a lot about Pennsylvania from being in Pittsburgh for a year,” Zobel said by phone Monday. “Everybody said Philly was different and then I got to go to that corner of the state and see for myself.”

Zobel’s “One Dollar,” made for CBS All Access and still available on successor streaming service Paramount+, was a murder mystery set in a fictional Western Pennsylvania town that was notable for its embrace of the Pittsburgh accent, rarely heard in scripted TV programs prior to “One Dollar” or since.

In “Mare of Easttown,” created and written by Brad Ingelsby (“Out of the Furnace”), star Kate Winslet goes all-in on a Delaware County accent that turns “water” into “wooder.”

“The thing that was hardest for me, of course, was to do it well enough that you kind of shouldn’t hear the act of doing it,” Winslet said in February during an HBO press conference as part of the Television Critics Association winter 2021 virtual press tour

Winslet stars as the title character, Mare Sheehan, a small-town Pennsylvania police detective who investigates a murder while going through upheaval in her personal life.

Sunday’s premiere offers an organic introduction to Mare and her world without resorting to obvious exposition.

Instead the series simply shows, rather than tells, how Mare is on a first-name basis with many in her community, both law-abiding citizens and those she arrests. She’s also haunted by an unsolved case.

The series gets off to a somewhat sluggish start but by the end of the first hour, “Mare of Easttown” gets its hooks into viewers, building tension around the murder investigation that engulfs Mare’s life. Episode two ratchets up the mystery further as multiple suspects come into focus.

Elements of “Mare” do feel overly familiar, particularly the hard-charging-woman- detective-who’s-dedicated-to-the-job-at-the-expense-of-her-family trope. But it’s easy to forgive thanks to Winslet’s performance and the show’s strong supporting cast, including Jean Smart as Mare’s mother (adding some splashes of humor) and Julianne Nicholson as Mare’s best friend.

And, yes, the specificity of the accent adds to the sense of place – everyone knows everyone else in Easttown and Rolling Rock is the preferred beer — but it’s most pronounced coming from Winslet’s character.

“I didn’t want to come up with something that was sort of generalized and make a few token sounds that were a nod in the direction of the Delco dialect,” Winslet said. “I wanted her to really feel as though she had been born and raised there.”

Zobel said he’d never heard the yinzer accent before arriving in Pittsburgh and he quickly noticed how it wasn’t an accent he heard in the voices of all Western Pennsylvanians.

“Some have it very heavily and certain people don’t have it at all,” Zobel said. “Both of these stories have an element of class in them. Certainly in ‘One Dollar’ (the accent) was a useful class signifier in a way where I do think the Philly accent is not quite the same thing. It really is a lot more pervasive and it’s also a lighter accent.”

Zobel said Hollywood executives had more questions/concerns about the accent in “One Dollar,” less so with “Mare,” especially as British actress Winslet got excited about doing the Philly accent.

Zobel hasn’t lined up his next project but he’s not averse to returning to Pennsylvania.

“I would joke on (the ‘Mare’) set, ‘I’m looking for my third miniseries to shoot in Pennsylvania to complete the trilogy,’” Zobel said, chuckling. “I’m only half-joking. The more I think about it, the more I really want to find something that’s maybe set in Allentown.”

‘Big Shot’

The pilot episode for this one is unimpressively bland – hothead college basketball coach (John Stamos) has to take a job coaching a girls’ high school team – but Disney+’s “Big Shot,” streaming Friday, improves markedly in episode two when the coach’s daughter (Sophia Mitros Schloss) moves in with him. It’s a sweet, sunny series if not as endearing as Disney+’s “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.”

‘Cruel Summer’

Freeform’s time-hopping mystery-thriller “Cruel Summer” (9 p.m. Tuesday) follows two young women in June of 1993, 1994 and 1995. The show piles on enough mysteries to make it intriguing and then answers some questions fast enough to be satisfying.

In 1993 nerdy Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia) envies popular girl Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt). Then Kate goes missing and Jeanette basically takes Kate’s place, even dating Kate’s boyfriend.

In 1994 when kidnapped Kate returns, Jeanette is accused of being complicit in Kate’s abduction.

The time jumps can be a little confusing for viewers not paying close attention but producers try to distinguish the years visually to help it all mostly make sense.

Kudos to Aurelia whose Jeanette changes most dramatically across time periods and to Andrea Anders (“The Class”), who seems to be having a blast as Kate’s snooty Texan mother.

Kept/canceled/rebooted

ABC renewed “The Hustler” for a second season to air at 10 p.m. Thursdays beginning June 17 but the network canceled freshman game show “Don’t.”

Netflix ordered seasons three and four of “Bridgerton” with season two already in production.

CBS’s “MacGyver” reboot will end with its April 30 episode.

Streamer Peacock ordered a reboot of “Queer is Folk,” originally a British series Americanized by Showtime (2000-05) and set in Pittsburgh but filmed in Toronto. The new version will be set in New Orleans.

Channel surfing

Showtime’s on-demand streaming platform debuts all 10 episodes of “Cinema Toast” Tuesday featuring new stories told using dubbed public domain footage. Director Marta Cunningham’s “Attack of the Karens,” episode eight, uses footage from George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” to recontextualize the story for modern times. … On Saturday Netflix debuts the documentary “Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist,” a tribute to the star of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” … Showtime docu-series “Couples Therapy” returns at 10 p.m. Sunday for its second season.

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