Roughly 1,000 miles separate Washington from D’Lo, Miss., unless you’re talking about the political climate. Then you’d need to be measuring the difference in light-years. “Small Town, Big Mayor,” an impossibly cheery and lighthearted reality series that began this month on UP TV, follows John Henry Berry, the mayor of D’Lo, which has a few hundred residents, as he tackles his “95-point plan” to improve the community. In the latest episode, he was promoting environmentally friendly practices, including using goats to keep the ball field grass clipped, but there was a problem. “Apparently I didn’t fence them in as well as I thought I had,” he said. An episode-long hunt for the missing goats followed.

Mr. Berry is ebullient and self-deprecating, and his family and assorted local residents get in on the act. In the next episode, Thursday, Aug. 17, one of his sons finds himself on culvert-cleaning duty. It’s reality TV with a decided wink, and if nothing else a refreshing escape from the political headlines.