The new original series “Love in Fairhope” is now available for your binge-viewing pleasure on Hulu, so welcome to Fairhope. Or rather, welcome to TV Fairhope, where “We’ve got two traffic lights, one bar, a beach, and the biggest bash on the Mobile Bay, the Magnolia Ball.”

TV Fairhope: Come for the belly laughs of “two traffic lights and one bar,” stay for the gentle puzzlement of hearing someone say “on the Mobile Bay.” I mean, there’s only one proper response to that: “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

In a second, we’ll talk about what “Love in Fairhope” is and isn’t. But, based on a careful viewing of all nine half-hour episodes, here’s a quick overview of TV Fairhope.

READ: ‘Love in Fairhope:’ Meet the new Hulu reality show’s cast

• The one bar in town is the Bone and Barrel. Hey, if you can only have one, it’s not a bad pick.
• One of the five women looking for true love in the show, LaShoundra Young, is portrayed as the wife of the pastor of the “most prominent” church in Fairhope, which happens to be a Black Baptist church. From the outside it looks very much like an Anglican church in Point Clear, but the inside belongs to a Baptist church in Mobile. See, going to TV Fairhope is like going to Narnia.
• As you drive the picturesque roads of Fairhope, you might suddenly find yourself on the avenue of oaks at Spring Hill College in Mobile.
• When the county fair is on, it is “A time in Fairhope where everyone is intoxicated by the whiff of corn dogs, cotton candy, and yes, casual romances.” Incidentally, the drone shot of this fair definitely isn’t the Baldwin County Fair and doesn’t look like Mobile’s Greater Gulf State Fair either. Narnia.
• The Magnolia Ball has been “the biggest event in Fairhope for over 50 years” and drives the whole social calendar even though it looks kind of like a wedding reception where they booked catering for 150 and 40 people showed up. Also, in non-TV Fairhope, it’s totally not a thing. As far as being the biggest bash on the bay, or on Mobile Bay, but never on the Mobile Bay, Mardi Gras would like a word. And Joe Cain Day is tapping on its shoulder saying, “step aside, I can field this one myself.”

If you were wondering how real this reality show was going to be, those are some handy benchmarks. Here are a couple more: Barry Poznick, the president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Unscripted Television, has referred to the series as “a reality soap” à la “the Hills,” set in the South. Cast member LaShoundra Young has described her piece of the show on social media as “the perfect blend of my real life, and real emotions, with a little bit of HOLLYWOOD MAGIC mixed in.” Another, Olivia Ogletree, posted: “If you were given the chance to bring your fantasy love story to life, how would it look?”

Best to consider it a pleasant fantasy, presented to amuse and entertain, rather than a documentary. “Love in Fairhope” certainly has an appealing cast, in part because of the range of race, age, and sexual orientation. The youngest, Mya Jo Williams, is fresh back from college and trying to choose between an old friend and an old flame. The oldest, Claiborne Walsh, is trying to fend off “alone-ness” after the death of the man she was married to for 55 years. In between there’s Abby Mannich, back in town in her early 30s after a breakup in New York City, dallying with a bad boy despite copious signs he’s not the one; Olivia Ogletree, considering whether she and a same-sex partner are right for each other; and LaShoundra Young, who has very mixed feelings about her breakup with her husband.

There’s no shortage of situation, and “Love in Fairhope” serves up ample beefcake and cheesecake – particularly where its younger cast members and their oft-shirtless boyfriends are concerned. What there is a lack of is actual romantic tension and a sense that anything very important is at stake.

“Love in Fairhope” frequently has the feel of a soap opera or a telenovela. Each scene exists so that a specific conversation can be had. The actors are perfectly made up, well-dressed and impeccably lit, and they hit their marks in workmanlike fashion. But a good melodrama punctuates the awkward pauses with revelations: So-and-so is somebody’s father; the company is going bankrupt; you’ll never believe who just got charged with murder.

This show doesn’t have any of that, but it does have Heather Graham as a narrator, alternating banalities with the occasional zinger. In the former category: “You see, to move forward you have to put the past behind. But when it comes to matters of the heart, it’s not that simple.” In the latter: “Moving on to Abby, down the street, who’s also lying to herself.”

At its weakest, “Love in Fairhope” gives us Graham as a benign sage of romance who wants to make specific points about love, then tries to illustrate them with footage that fails to crackle with any particular passion. At its best, well, it’s pleasant enough. In a world of reality shows stuffed with damaged exhibitionists willing to do anything for a smidge of celebrity, it’s pretty down-to-earth.

On the other hand, you never get the feeling that those exhibitionistic would-be celebrities are holding back because they don’t want this to haunt them later. I did have that feeling during “Love in Fairhope,” and it made me think about different ways the show might have achieved something with a little more edge.

Some possibilities:

Going full telenovela: I’m convinced that I’d enjoy “Love in Fairhope” more if all the dialogue was spoken in a language I don’t understand, and if dramatic music and other elements suggested a convoluted and dangerous subplot, like if all the characters were afraid that they might be the next victim of the Fairhope Strangler, and also that any one of them might turn out to be the Fairhope Strangler.

Going full Fairhope: “All she wants is true love, and to build a 1,600-unit apartment complex with quasi-affordable rents on a former cotton field. He’s ready to open his heart, and his boutique parka shop, to the right woman – but he also has concerns about scarce public parking, bitter zoning disputes, water pollution and Democrats. It’s complicated.”

Going full Gump: Graham’s narration is rich, engaging and hard to fault, except that the platitudes she often delivers are so lame. But you could lean into that. I mean, just imagine Tom Hanks saying any of these things in full-on Forrest Gump drawl. You can preface them with “My momma says,” if it makes you feel better.

• “The heart, well, that thing has a mind of its own … it just wants what it wants.”
• “Then it hit LaShoundra: The realization that breaking up is easy but breaking away is tough. Especially when deep down, you really don’t want to.”
• “A full day with someone you like can feel like 10 minutes. And the next thing you know, you’re staring at the stars asking existential questions like, ‘Who am I in this world?’”
• “I’m as fond of musicians as every other girl. But I can’t help but wonder: How much ‘in like’ do you have to be to follow somebody else’s dream instead of your own?”

But anyway, here we are. Reality is what it is, and “Love in Fairhope” is a gentle, light, reality-adjacent omnibus of love stories. As any of these women might tell themselves at any point in the show, you could do worse.

It doesn’t feel exploitive of its cast and for all its geographical fudging, it doesn’t make Fairhope look bad either. In fact, they do make it look like a very attractive place, which it is. If you’re thinking about visiting you do need to understand that it has more traffic lights than you might’ve been led to expect, but also more bars.