The series was a loose adaptation of the 1983 movie The Big Chill, and centered on the same premise as the film: a group of friends all in their 30s, who had reunited after traveling separate paths following their college days in the 1960s.

Set in Rye, New York, Hometown opened with the reunion of the seven former college friends, that took place at the wedding of two of them, the longtime couple of Mary Newell (Jane Kaczmarek) and Ben Abbott (Franc Luz).

Prior to the wedding, Mary and Ben had been living together for 13 years, had started a family of their own out of wedlock, and now were a modern yuppie couple raising young daughters Jennifer (Erin Leigh Peck) and Tess (Donna Vivino).

Completing the circle was Peter Kincaid (John Bedford Lloyd), a quirky college professor; elegant, recent divorcee Barbara Donnelly (Margaret Whitton), who currently lived off her vast settlements yet was insecure about moving on with her life and reentering the dating world; Jane Parnell (Christine Estabrook), also a college professor, but in addition serving as a presidential advisor to the White House; and Joey Nathan (Daniel Stern), who was more disheveled and less successful than his materialistic friends.

In the ninth episode, Ben began his lobbying to run for city council, but nothing more of this development was explored, along with other plot twists, as Hometown was pulled from the CBS schedule permanently after that telecast.