Stephen King TV series uses N.S. town

The picturesque town of Lunenburg, N.S., is providing the backdrop for a new TV series based on a Stephen King story.

Haven is inspired by King's 2005 novella, The Colorado Kid, and its first episode is being filmed for three days this week in the bucolic town south of Halifax.

Lunenburg's Old Town district, first settled in 1753, is on UNESCO's World Heritage site list.

Thirteen one-hour episodes have been ordered, with the show being aired on Global TV in Canada and on Syfy in the U.S.

The premise concerns an FBI agent, played by Emily Rose (Jericho ), who investigates a routine case but uncovers strange occurrences afflicting a small town in Maine.

Along the way, she discovers the town has become a refuge for people with supernatural abilities. At the core of the plot is that the inhabitants are descendants of a cursed ancestry.

Joining Rose are actors Lucas Bryant (Queer as Folk, Dollhouse) and Eric Balfour (24, Six Feet Under ) as residents of the town.

The series is being produced by The Dead Zone executive producers Shawn Piller, Lloyd Segan and Scott Shepherd.

Segan, in an exclusive interview with scifitvzone.com, compared the series with The X-Files, which ran from1993 to 2002 and starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI investigators of the paranormal.

Segan says Haven is like "an unravelling of an onion."