How does a show like When Calls The Heart stay on the air (or in this case, basic cable) for so long? By being consistent and giving viewers seeking out comfort TV a group of characters they want to spend time with. It’s not a show packed with twists and turns, but it doesn’t have to be, and the Season 12 premiere is exactly what you would expect from the show.
WHEN CALLS THE HEART SEASON 12: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We pick up right where Season 11 left off, with a Mountie official telling Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Karkow) and Nathan Grant (Kevin McGarry), the Mountie constable of Coal Valley, that he has something from Elizabeth’s late husband Jack.
The Gist: What the superintendent had was Jack’s old Commissioner’s Medal, which was found when the wreckage of the rockslide that killed him five years prior was excavated. Of course, the medal brings up all sorts of feelings, for both Elizabeth and for Nathan, who knows that Jack’s memory will always be a part of his relationship with Elizabeth and her son, Little Jack (Hyland Goodrich).
The school year is starting, and Elizabeth is getting prepared to welcome her students back to the one-room schoolhouse where she teaches everyone from kindergarten to 12th grade. In the new batch of students is Little Jack, who is nervous about his first day. She pins the medal on him so he can take his father’s courage with him for the first day. She also reassures Nathan’s daughter Allie (Jaeda Lily Miller) that nothing in their relationship will change.
In the meantime, Leland Coulter (Kavan Smith) is being recruited by the governor, Lucas Bouchard (Chris McNally), to come to Capital City to help push through Leland’s idea for a national park. He refuses, because he wants to be there for his wife Rosemary (Pascale Hutton) and daughter Goldie. Rosemary gets an idea to boost the newspaper’s declining circulation: Host a news show on the newfangled (for 1921) technology called radio.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? When Calls The Heart reminds us of two mostly-gentle series from TV’s past: The Waltons and Little House On The Prairie.
Our Take: At this stage of the game, the many fans of When Calls The Heart aren’t looking for heavy conflict. They’re basically looking to see their favorite people from Coal Valley live their lives and weather the changes that inevitably come. Showrunner Lindsay Sturman and co-creator Brian Bird (Michael Landon Jr. was the other creator, developing the series from Janette Oke’s novel) know that for the show to be as enduring as it has been, time has to move forward and the lives of the characters have to change, in big and small ways.
That’s the secret to the popularity of a show where it can sometimes feel like nothing of significance happens from episode to episode. It’s not about big character swings or plot twists or major cliffhangers. The passage of time and the changes in the lives of the people of Coal Valley are more than enough to keep the storytelling fresh.
What does pass for conflict feels very real-life. Nathan feels like he’s living in Jack’s shadow, both as a Mountie and as Elizabeth’s new significant other. Little Jack isn’t sure about his mother being his teacher. Rosemary and Leland have to decide whether Leland should be apart from their family to pursue a dream. Nathan gets a new cadet named Oliver (Jacob Shoemay), who is organized and prepared but was at the bottom of his academy class. Angela Canfield (Vienna Leacock) tells her parents, Joseph (Viv Leacock) and Minnie (Natasha Burnett) that she wants to go to a school for the blind in the big city of Hamilton. The town’s boys are eager to consume the next issue of their favorite comic book, which some parents think are rotting their kids’ minds.
Things can certainly get corny at times, like when Little Jack gives his friend Lily Watson (Chloe McKinnon) his dad’s medal so she has courage to face her first day of school. And there are times when significant characters, like Bill Avery (Jack Wagner), don’t get much in the way of plot, but are in scenes to give advice and/or just remind us that they’re there. When Calls The Heart is the type of show that invites its viewers to sit and spend some time with its characters, whether anything is really going on or not. That sort of gentility and warmth has been very attractive to audiences in both the U.S. and Canada, and will continue to be for as long as the show’s producers want to keep making it.
Sex and Skin: Some kissing. This is a show for the whole family.
Parting Shot: Elizabeth and Jack stand at her front door and look at the full moon; they kiss.
Sleeper Star: Speaking of Little House, Melissa Gilbert is set to guest star in Season 12.
Most Pilot-y Line: We say we don’t want to see little kids act like wisecracking adults on our TV screens. But when little kids act like little kids, as Goodrich and the other kindergarten-age actors do in this series, it feels stilted and sappy. At this point, we’re not sure which we’d rather have.
Our Call: STREAM IT. When Calls The Heart appeals to people who want a gentle show with characters they want to spend time with. Would it be boring for people used to prestige dramas? Yep. But this is a show that has stayed consistent for over a decade by knowing its target audience.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘When Calls The Heart’ Season 12 On Hallmark Channel, Where Elizabeth And Nathan Deepen Their Complicated Relationship appeared first on Decider.
