DTF St. Louis Gets Plenty Of Stuff Wrong About St. Louis, But One Particular Thing Is Driving Me Nuts

Ok, I have a bone to pick with DTF St. Louis, the latest Jason Bateman-led show available with an HBO Max subscription (at least that's what it's called for now). I’ll admit, this bone is irrational, and I shouldn’t be as upset over it as much as I am, but I am. This is a show that is very obviously supposed to be set in St. Louis, my hometown. They even stuck the name of the historic city in the title, to make it very clear.

Why, then, are they getting basically everything wrong about the city? Have the writers and producers ever even set foot in St. Louis, or did they simply Google “things about St. Louis” and then completely ignore whatever they learned? They get a lot wrong, but one thing is driving me the most nuts: the geography.

The Geography Is Just All Wrong

The fictional suburb where Clark (Bateman) and his friends and family live is called “Twyla.” There is no suburb of St. Louis with that name, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is where Twyla is supposed to be, and what that means for Clark’s choice for his commute to work. Towards the end of the first episode, a weather map highlights where Twyla is, and it looks to be roughly in the area of western St. Charles County, on the outer edge of St. Louis’ exurbs, around the towns of Wentzville and Lake St. Louis.

That in and of itself is actually reasonable. Plenty of people live out there and commute to downtown St. Louis for work, as Clark does to get to his job at the TV station where he is the weatherman. What isn’t reasonable is that Clark seemingly rides his recumbent bike to work most mornings. Wentzville is roughly 50 miles from the heart of downtown St. Louis. According to a quick check on Google Maps, it’s about a 4-hour and 45-minute bike ride. Call me crazy, but even putting aside how tiring 100 miles of back-and-forth would be every day, nine-ish hours of commuting every day is just silly.

I Don’t Expect It To Be A ‘Love Letter’ To My Town

Let me be clear: I don’t need the show to throw in a bunch of easter eggs. I don’t care if they never eat toasted ravioli or get a roast beef sandwich from Lion’s Choice. I don’t care if none of the characters ask, “What high school did you go to?” at a barbecue (a local trope that St. Louisans love to poke fun at themselves over). No, what is making me, albeit irrationally, mad, is that they get so much wrong about the city.

I can forgive a lot of stuff if they were one-offs, even if it completely distracts me from the show. The show was filmed in Georgia, so the topography looks nothing like St. Louis, but that doesn’t bother me. No one calls a tornado a “cyclone,” as Clark repeatedly does in the show. Like, no one ever says that, ever, but fine, it’s not technically incorrect. They managed to shoot B-roll in Chicago, but couldn’t even get B-roll of Busch Stadium for the second episode? It's annoying, but hardly a deal breaker.

None Of This Is Critical To The Plot, So Why Not Get It Correct?

However, things start to add up. For instance, I think there is one Jamba Juice in St. Louis, and it’s way out in a mall in the ‘burbs. Carol (Linda Cardellini) works at Purina. Okay, that makes sense, but she says her office is on Central St. There is no Central St. in downtown St. Louis. Carol later explains that her husband, Floyd (David Harbour), is going “down state” for the weekend. That’s not a term that is ever used in St. Louis or Missouri.

None of these factors into the plot of the murder mystery. If Clark and Floyd lived a little closer to downtown, it wouldn't affect anything. If they get a street name correct (Purina is Chouteau Ave), it doesn't change where it is. The Jamba Juice thing is whatever, but maybe that's when you could slip in a local easter egg, like getting a coffee at a local spot like Kaldi's instead of a smoothie at a national chain. Why not just take the extra 30 seconds to get the little facts right?

All Of This Is Fixable

There are other things that I’ve noticed, but in the interest of not making this list 100 items long, I’ll just finish by saying, all of this is easy to double-check with a one-minute Google search. I get that the writers want to set this show in “Anytown, USA,” but if you’re going to put the name of a city in the name of the show, you should at least try to be true to that city. Otherwise, just call it DTF Twyla or something.

DTF St. Louis is a good show. It’s uncomfortable (in a good way), and the mystery it has set up is interesting. It’s hard to gauge the motivations of the characters, and it keeps the viewer guessing. The acting performances are fantastic, especially from Harbour and Cardellini. The show has some really dark humor that I really dig. There’s a lot to praise about the show. That’s exactly why I have to nitpick all these mistakes about St. Louis.

Why Put The Name Of The City In The Title Of The Show?

For me, if you’re going to put the name of the city in the name of the show, the city has to be a character in the show. Imagine Fargo without the accents. Or WKRP in Cincinnati with call letters that set it west of the Mississippi. Sometimes the little things make a difference. In DTF St. Louis, those things add up.

I get that the show wasn’t filmed in the Gateway City, and I get that compromises and changes are necessary, but come on, no one could take a quick second to double-check how far Clark would need to ride his bike to get to work every morning? I’m not expecting something on the level of the way The Wire injects Baltimore into the DNA of the show, but at least get what you do try to make local correct.

DTF St. Louis is a great addition to the 2026 TV schedule, and I’ll be tuning in every week. However, I’ll probably still wince at the things, little and big, that the show gets wrong about the city it’s set in.