Those of a certain age will remember the carousel revolving at the beginning of Camberwick Green to reveal that particular episode's character.

Be it Captain Snort or Chippy Mint, their lives would be chronicled after undergoing the obligatory spin at the start of the children's fave.

While Troche may not have been influenced by the comings and goings of that particularly bucolic English village, she uses the same device to establish the characters.

OK, so a teenager lying in a coma and a schoolboy with an unhealthy Barbie fixation are bleaker fare than the work of baker Windy Miller.

In fact, it has to be conceded that this slice of Americana is a far darker place than is the norm for a land perpetually irrigated by lawn sprinklers.

Esther (Close) is so preoccupied with her comatose son Paul (Joshua Jackson) that she has distanced herself from her husband and daughter.

Just down the road mother-of-two Annette (Clarkson) - who once had an affair with Paul - is finding it hard to make ends meet as she endures a messy divorce.

Then there's bored mom Helen (Mary Kay Place), a health obsessive who lectures sugar guzzling neighbourhood kids "the crash is worse than the high".

Truth be told, there is such a proliferation of characters milling around the narrative that it's difficult to avoid caricature.

As their lives cross over the period of four days, dark mysteries are revealed, relationships are probed and a sort of closure reached after a shocking act ties all the loose ends together.

It's all a bit Todd Solondz lite, with nods to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia and American Beauty along the way yet retains enough humour to prevent the black tone enveloping the whole shebang.

What lifts it above a darkly surreal soap are the performances - particularly from the ever-reliable Close and the always watchable Clarkson.

And no, it doesn't end with a turn from the Trumpton Fire Brigade on the bandstand.

Tim Evans