Beacon Hills

Beacon Hills is the fictional setting for the American 2011 television drama Teen Wolf. It is very similar to the fictional town of Sunnydale from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mystic Falls from The Vampire Diaries.

Location

A majority of the action in the series takes place in "Beacon Hills", a hub for mysterious incidents. Series creator Jeff Davis conceived the town as a representation of any generic California city. Local flora and soil composition as seen in all six seasons would indicate that Beacon Hills is located somewhere between Paradise, CA and Plumas National Forest, which rests about 90 miles north of Sacramento. However, in Season 3 Episode 1, two missing person posters are shown with a phone number attached to the bottom beginning with Area code 925. This being a real area code near San Francisco could indicate that Beacon Hills is set in either Contra Costa County or Alameda County. That would put Beacon Hills roughly 200 miles from where originally perceived, and does not support the surrounding environments from the show. That said, in Season 4 Episode 2 an unopened envelope is shown on the Beacon Hills Sheriff's desk (addressed to "Beacon Hills Police Department"), the return address of which is simply "Telephone Telecommunications" — implying it most likely contains a telephone bill — with a postmark stamp that reads "Richmond". Since "Richmond" is the name of an actual city in California located in western Contra Costa County, that envelope supports the theory that "Beacon Hills" is located in, or very close to, Contra Costa.

Beacon Hills' size and surroundings are implausible but justified given its origins — to sustain a human population for supernatural evils to prey upon. Beacon Hills possesses many common horror-movie characteristics, such as an abundance of dark alleyways, abandoned mansions and factories, and an adult population that is either clueless or perpetually in denial, in stark contrast to the werewolf-fighting, supernaturally aware teens.

The town is situated near several acres of woods and forest, including Beacon Hills Preserve.^[1]

Filming locations

Various southern Georgia locations are used as stand-ins for Beacon Hills:

• Exterior shots, and some interior shots, of Beacon Hills High School in the pilot are from a real school in Atlanta.
  • In production of seasons 2-present, Palisades Charter High School is the filming location for Beacon Hills High School.
• Some exterior shots from the first season of the cast playing lacrosse were filmed in Los Angeles.

History

Season 1

There was a large spree of gruesome murders that occurred in the year after Scott McCall was turned into a werewolf. The events were said to have happened due to a mountain lion. Due to the number and strange nature of these deaths, the Beacon Hills Police were able to link them together. The common connection was the Hale House Fire: every death could be linked to that event.

Season 2

A seemingly random set of deaths occurred again, but these deaths were not normal - the bodies of the dead had been poisoned by a strange rare chemical, one powerful enough to render its victim completely unable to move. Each death was eventually connected to the 2006 Beacon Hills High swim team.

References

External links

• Official website
• List of Teen Wolf episodes at the Internet Movie Database
• List of Teen Wolf episodes at TV.com