What do ice cream, family, faith and farming have in common?
For the creators of 'Perfect Sundays,' they’re all ingredients in a story about hope, grief and the people working to keep America’s farms alive.
The new six-episode television series follows the fictional Weeks family, a dairy-farming family navigating life two years after its patriarch, Ed, dies by suicide. As his widow, Marla, worries about her son and the future of the family farm, she revives a beloved tradition: Sunday ice cream sundaes.
What starts as a simple family ritual soon becomes something more — and potentially a way to save the farm.
The series comes from a creative team behind 'SILO,' the story of a teenage boy who gets trapped in a 50-foot-tall grain bin, and how the whole town comes together in a desperate effort to save him.
Grain entrapment, when a person becomes trapped or buried by flowing grain, remains a serious danger on farms. Between 2007 and 2024, there were 584 documented grain-entrapment cases, with experts noting that many incidents go unreported. The accidents can result in severe injury or death.
But while working on 'SILO,' producer and creator Sam Goldberg began thinking about another side of farm life that he felt wasn't getting enough attention.
“I fell in love with farmers and wanted to show their life authentically,” he said.
Goldberg, a New York City native now living in Bucks County with his wife Rupa Mehta and their children, has always loved storytelling and sees it as a way to help people understand each other better. Particularly he has seen the need to bridge the disconnect between people who live in cities and suburbs and those living on farms and ranches.
He told Metro Philly Suburbs that while working on 'SILO,' he saw that there weren’t enough high- quality projects about farmers.
His team’s newest creation brings attention to the mental health crisis among farmers in the United States.
Farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. And with mounting financial stress caused by changes in the agriculture industry, including fluctuating commodity prices and trade policies, and the ever-present challenges the weather presents, that number could continue to rise.
'Perfect Sundays' is meant to start a conversation between people of all walks of life to better understand what life on a farm is really like and to instill a deeper appreciation for the unique challenges farmers face.
The TV series highlights important issues that not only farmers — but those who suffer from depression or who have lost someone to suicide — can relate to, Goldberg says.
The creative team behind 'Perfect Sundays' did research and development throughout Bucks County to develop the screenplay, speaking with more than 70 farmers and several mental health advisors. Some of the farms they visited include Worthington Farm, Bobolink Farm, Kasak Farm, Bishop Farm, Crooke Farm, and Ar-Joy Farms.
Goldberg said it was important for the production process to include local community members as much as possible.
The series was filmed in Chester, Berks, Bucks and Montgomery counties as well as New Jersey. Locals were even asked to be extras in certain scenes like those filmed at Middletown Grange Fair and Deep Run East Mennonite Church in Perkasie. Scenes were also filmed at Peddler’s Village in Lahaska.
For the Weeks family, ice cream becomes a symbol of hope. To give everyone a taste of hope, Goldberg’s wife Rupa decided they should create their own ice cream flavor, so she reached out to Owowcow Creamery, her family’s favorite local ice cream shop, to help produce “The Perfect Sunday” — Madagascar vanilla, chocolate syrup, mapled walnuts, candied strawberries with a single strawberry on top.
The TV series launched at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, and has been screened nationwide at community events with a Q&A afterwards. To help facilitate discussions, they developed a conversation guide with reflection questions.
You don’t have to wait, however, for the series to be screened near you. 'Perfect Sundays' is currently available for streaming online at perfectsundaystv.com.
“As we are discussing more traditional distribution, we wanted to get the show out now, coming into harvest time, a critical time for farmers,” Goldberg said.
MORE: Bucks County Foodshed Alliance spotlights local farms with tours
