[1][2][3] The program presented Marin as at the forefront of trends that were becoming more predominant in the larger American society in the late 1970s, and it represented an early snapshot of the lifestyle that a few years later would be termed "yuppie".

[4] The program starts with a cold open featuring a woman receiving a nude massage and being stroked with peacock feathers from two also-nude male masseurs, as well as being indulged in a hot tub.

The film interviews a number of Marin community members: the Gulko family, presented as a "portrait of a successful divorce"; several individuals whose professions bring them into contact with problems in the community, including a judge, a pharmacist, several therapists, and a schoolteacher; several new age and self-help teachers, which the program refers to as "gurus"; a woman whose pursuit of self-realization and personal happiness had led her to partially abandon her role as mother to her young children; and several school children who are affected by divorce.

"[10] Edwin Newman also defended the veracity of reporting by NBC News, stating, "We were not offering a view of Marin County as a whole....We pointed that out on the program more than once.

[14][15] Abrams was a long-time Marin County musician and former schoolteacher, best known for the 1970 minor hit "Mill Valley", which she recorded with her fourth grade class.

However, Marin's reputation for leisure and a "loose swinging lifestyle" had given way to "stress", "hyper-intensive parenting, frazzled dual-income families, [and] exhausting commutes".

Brad Gulko, now a computational biologist and genomicist, was featured prominently in the Netflix documentary Baby God about the Fortier fertility fraud case.