The CW’s Republic of Sarah is charming, but how long can this premise last?

New The CW drama The Republic of Sarah is one of the weirder midseason offerings that will be arriving on television this summer. The story of a small town called Greylock that declares its independence rather than allow a state-backed mining company to exploit the vein of coltan ore that runs underneath it and force many residents to lose their homes, it’s difficult to define what this show is specifically trying to do.

Is it a political drama? A character study? A family saga? Some combination of all three?

The Republic of Sarah certainly features plenty of interpersonal secrets and conflicts between most of Greylock’s residents, but almost all of them pale next to the problems caused by the motivating premise of the series: The idea that this town could somehow turn itself into a country.

The Republic of Sarah largely follows the story of the titular Sarah Cooper, a rebellious history teacher with a punk rock streak (seriously, the pilot sees her exhausted from participating in a mosh pit the night before) who encourages her students to be free thinkers who fight for the things they believe in. It is her push to stop Lydon Industries – she literally places herself in front of a bulldozer – that ultimately sparks the idea behind Greylock’s vote for independence after a dig into the town’s history reveals it was never claimed by Canada or the United States thanks to a shifting tidal bed that literally moved the boundary line between both nations around it.

Obviously, she’s chosen to be the leader of their tiny new nation, despite the fact that the town doesn’t have anything so pedestrian as a clearly delineated system of government yet. Like..is Sarah just dictator of Greylock for life? Are there elections? Competing political interests? Who can say?

On the one hand, The CW should be applauded for taking a risk like this. This show isn’t a reboot of a previously popular property (The 4400) or an extension of the network’s existing sprawling superhero franchise (Naomi). No, The Republic of Sarah is something entirely new and I can say with absolute honesty that there’s nothing else quite like it onscreen at the moment.

But as original, as its premise might be, how long can this possibly continue?

This is The CW after all, and it’s hard to imagine a world where network executives think that watching attractive young adults negotiate for access to the power generated by Canadian wind farms is the sort of television their viewers – or, more importantly, their advertisers – want to see.

Greylock is a picturesque New England town, rustic in a way that feels like a Pinterest board come to life and full of the sort of non-threateningly weird people that television networks seem to think primarily populate small-town America. It’s got major Stars Hollow vibes, from its pointed lack of chain grocery stores to charming town rituals and the sort of shared communal history that means literally everyone you run into at the local diner already knows everyone else’s business.

This is the sort of show that exists for the relationship dramas at its center, the quirky characters with convoluted histories, and overly precious dreams. I’m not sure how long people are going to hang in there for subplots about border closures and supply line failures, particularly when they speed by so quickly it barely feels like they even land. (Sarah gets arrested for what is essentially sedition, and spends what feels like approximately 36 seconds in legal jeopardy.)

I wonder if The Republic of Sarah might have fared better if it had spent multiple initial episodes leading up to the independence vote, establishing some basic ground rules for how this new nation – and the show that springs from it – will work, or what the ultimate goals for these people are. Do they truly want to be a free state in this way – and can any of them imagine what it really means to go it alone as a nation? Or do they just plan to use this as a stop-gap measure until Lydon Industries gets distracted by some other town with hefty mineral deposits?

With the New Hampshire governor so eager to exploit the area’s resources how can they rejoin the United States? And if they don’t, are they heading to Canada? I don’t know, and it doesn’t necessarily feel like the show has thought that far ahead either, which is….concerning? A more adventurous series might have tried to grapple with these issues on a larger, more macro scale – but since the stories thatThe Republic of Sarah wants to tell seem to be smaller stakes tales about the people in a town thrust on the world stage largely against their will, rather than the story of a new nation-state, we’ll have to see how it balances this premise going forward.

The Republic of Sarah premieres Monday, June 14 at 9 pm on The CW