hope lives on & love remains

A blog for the Hallmark series When Calls the Heart. You'll mostly find text-based material here, like character analyses and episode discussion. Feel free to send me a message anytime!

[hopevalley]

It's been a hot minute, everyone, but I heard some crazy things have happened in the show!

Do you think it's worth catching up on now? The last season I watched was S8.

[hopevalley]

Opps I mean Have you watched WCTH Season 9?

Late as heck replying to this so I apologize.

I have NOT seen anything from S9 except what Melinda has posted on her blog. How's everyone here feeling about S9? Have you been watching it? Is it up your alley?

[hopevalley]

Hey everyone! I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe out there. :)

After a lot of serious consideration I’ve decided that I won’t be watching S9, at least not live. Almost all of the characters I was pretty invested in are gone, the replacement characters feel more or less like stand-ins for those original characters, and I’m not a big fan of how they’ve treated some of the long-standing characters/cast members over the last few seasons. It just seems like a bad idea for me to pay for streaming to be able to watch it live.

That said, S9 could surprise us all, right?

So hey, if the response to the first episode is overwhelmingly positive, I may catch up via Amazon if they add it there. It looks like a lot of folks are giving the season a chance, so I hope you’ll share your thoughts and opinions with me so that I can stay in the loop. Y’all know my taste, so you’ll know whether it’s worth my time or not. :P

[hopevalley]

Looks like we got a release date of March 6th for WCtH Season 9... 

Who will be watching and who is refraining? :)

[hopevalley]

Oh my! Why all this mess? They focus on Jack and Abigail but this is not their show. I loved the main cast of WHC but they are pull away of their show by bringing two characters of the WCTH just to have more viewers. Two characters who left and died is not fair all all. The way some people react is so weird! They are all excited to see Jack. He will be a ghost who will appear to Abigail for? He will not return to Hope Valley to be with Elizabeth and she will not be in Brookfield I hope!

I'm super late getting to this, but I'm shook at all the developments happening with WHC. To be clear, I never watched the show and have no intention of doing so. I despite streaming platforms doing exclusive content to force you into paying more money for their stuff when the subscription isn't worth what they're charging. (HMN is not worth my time if I already pay to watch the damn Hallmark Channel.)

Anyway, I was super disappointed in the whole shebang with WHC. I couldn't believe the audacity of hiring Dan and Lori back just for views on a show that should be dead.

No offense is meant toward anyone who enjoyed WHC, but without HALF the main cast, the show was dead in the water and they should have just accepted it instead of trying to come up with "creative" ways to force it to keep going. If they were on season 3 or 4 or 5, I would understand the desperate grab of Dan and Lori to keep people from leaving, but with only ONE season under their belt it's cringey.

[hopevalley]

Nice to be able to chat with you again. I saw in deadline I think that Lori will bring an orphan to Brookfield. This will be a good way to bring her there. I'm pretty sure that sur will only there for the Christmas movie. She is still on probation. I'm from Canada so I don't have to pay extra to see WHC because it will be on the same channel has WCTH. Don't understand why GAC happen. It look like Hallmark so why two networks with the same content? Want to break the old one?

It's nice that you don't have to pay extra to see WHC. That definitely makes it a more appealing option.

I agree that Lori and Carter will probably only be in the Christmas movie. It's a good way to gauge fan reaction/engagement and see if it's worth bringing her back for other projects based on feedback/viewership numbers.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it is that Hallmark's former lead, Bill Abbott, left Hallmark after there was some discord in the ranks and disagreements regarding what constitutes family values. After leaving Hallmark, he got some investors together and bought out GAC (Great American Country). He then rebranded GAC as a seasonal feel-good family-value movies channel (basically a Hallmark knock-off channel). He has some kind of rights to WHC and pulled it to his own channel.

Hallmark and GAC have different leadership and different ideas of what constitutes "family values." There has been some speculation that Bill Abbott is out to take down the Hallmark Channel by suckering everyone into watching GAC instead, but I don't know how much truth there is to it. Like he definitely wants to poach viewers but that doesn't mean he's out to take down Hallmark entirely.

[hopevalley]

boy oh boy

BB back at it again.

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Like, don’t get me wrong...the original tweet is stupid as hell (they’re not bringing Jack back to Hope Valley, please shut up and stop groveling for it like it’d be good writing; it’s trash writing) but BB’s response is also cringey. Why wouldn’t you just ignore Cherie’s tweet????

“powerless victims of external circumstances” LMAO yall know this is a fucking fictional tv show right?

[hopevalley]

Since people are still so shocked on why fans still blame Dan for leaving... Yes, he did give notice. In a regular job, that’s basically fine. People will figure out how the job was done, the company usually recovers, et cetera.

Good for Dan for giving notice. Yes, the powers that be should have done more to like...manage the storyline better and write Jack off in a more dignified manner. They had at least four opportunities to let Jack and Elizabeth elope and didn’t do it. Should they have? I don’t know: you tell me. I’ve never been invested enough in Elizabeth or her relationship to Jack to feel like my opinion as a “fan” of the show mattered when it came to them. I would have liked to see an elopement to avoid the unnecessary stupid drama and get to a happier place before things got bad, but if I was guessing...the powers that be didn’t have them elope because they worried that too many fans would recoil at the mere thought of not getting a big fancy over the top twinkle-lights-and-too-many-candles wedding. So they gave the fans what they thought the fans wanted. And it wasn’t what the fans wanted. Big surprise that a bunch of out of touch writers couldn’t guess what a bunch of romance fans wanted.

ANYWAY.

In acting, when the male lead of A ROMANCE SHOW who is also HALF OF THE MOST POPULAR ROMANTIC SHIP IN THAT SHOW decides to quit, it’s kind of a big deal! Like, shows have died with less pressure on them than that.

It’s great that WCtH didn’t die because Dan left, but he left knowing damn well it could have spelled the end of the show. That’s kinda scummyyyy

[hopevalley]

I have some difficulty to process it. This will hurt WCTH a lot now. To see Abigail and Cody is one thing but to see Dan is another thing. Even if they cast Dan as a different character it will be strange, very strange. In Hope Calls for a lot of people, they were watching for Grace and Chuck and they will not be there but the network was bright wanting all the people waiting for Dan to be back and Lori too. Not sure I will watch for me Jack is dead. I turn that page.

Hi Plecky! Long time no talk. :D

I think Dan is definitely the bigger surprise, here. I'm relieved that they invited Carter to join Lori again, because that's the least they can do for the kid, but I can't begin to imagine how they'll choose to weave them into the story. The best I can think of is that there's an implication that Abigail and Cody are going to Hope Valley to visit and drop in to visit Brookfield on the way there/or get snowed in there or something for a few days. That would definitely be the easiest way to include them without committing to them being in the season from start to finish. But it also feels like a cheap grab at the fans.

I really don't know what to make about Dan being cast. I think it's safe to assume he won't be playing Jack for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that the Brookfield storyline starts only after Nathan has already come to Hope Valley, which makes it impossible to retcon the storyline back to a year where Jack was alive. He must be playing a new character, which could be interesting for the show. I mean, I'm not a fan of Dan (just don't care for his acting much), but even I have to say I'm intrigued.

Which...let's be honest with ourselves here: if you're right and Chuck doesn't come back to WHC either, they've lost two leading roles. The show is dead on the vine if they don't really do something drastic. Getting Lori and Cody on the show is a pretty smart choice...but Dan is an even better one. He could play any role for five minutes and that will net viewers guaranteed.

But before his fans go crazy I'd definitely wait and see if it's hinted at how much of a role he's actually going to get. If he's Jack and it's a five minute flashback sequence...it's definitely not worth tuning in for. But if he's a new character with a new role...might be worth it if you enjoy him/his acting.

I might have tuned into WHC if it got a second season on the Hallmark Channel (just because I heard S1 was pretty good and seeing it get more attention might have piqued my curiosity), but having it move to GAC is a big nope from me.

[hopevalley]

I CAN’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT’S BEEN GOING ON, Y’ALL. WHAT IN THE WORLD?!

[hopevalley]

Wedding March 6 (starring Jack Wagner (Bill) and Josie Bissett (AJ)) just got done airing, and once again it was a nice installment to the series! I’m pretty disappointed that multiple characters that really should have been there weren’t able to be (Duke, Grace, Julie, Bonnie) but I think they did a pretty bang-up job of working with what they had. The vows felt especially nice after all the previous films.

I’ll probably have more to say about it another time, but I got half my thoughts out already livetweeting. I did a long thread here but my twitter is here. I rarely use it because y’all know Twitter’s word count limit goes against my nature of being the opposite of brief! :P

[hopevalley]

Hello folks! I know things are pretty quiet here, but I did work a lot more on my script for my video essay. For those curious, the thesis statement is loosely going to be about how the series holds its followers as long as it does by virtue of having introduced interesting and/or well-written characters.

I know that sounds insane, so fear not, the essay goes on to explain that it doesn’t take much work to create a good or interesting character—it’s keeping them that way that’s hard! Even so, it doesn’t matter: once a good character has been dropped into a series, people start emotionally investing themselves into it, which makes it hard to let go even when the characters stop being written well or the series goes off the rails.

Which has been happening to WCtH since like, season 5, but I digress. My point is that once you get your audience emotionally invested into characters, they’ll stick around when things get bad because they saw and recognized the potential that was there from the start and they’re hoping they’ll bear witness to the fruition of that potential if they’re just patient. The problem is, they may be waiting forever.

I go into a lot of detail talking about each individual episode and what makes the characters on the show “good characters.” Don’t worry, per my usual there’s tons of criticism in there, even in the first episode, but what’s important is showcasing how the characters kind of shine through those flaws & get you interested in watching the second episode.

And then the third. And then...the...fourth... And the next thing you know you’re watching Season 8.

This is going to be an enormous amount of work. But I hope it’s worth it and we come up with something fun. And who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to condense this into like, a four hour video.

Nah, who am I kidding? Just the first season coverage will be at least that! LOL. 

[hopevalley]

@kvanbooven said:  Good! Excited for all to come and I look forward to that and any writing you decide to do. I am also looking forward to wedding March 6 and I think I saw somewhere it was the last one. Also the mystery movies coming out in August I’m excited for as well

Thanks! I’m glad I won’t be the only one here watching WM6! And I’m glad it’s the last one; it sounds silly because as a consumer of content we kind of want the things we like to go on forever, but it ends up never being worth it when the reason it goes on forever is more about the money it’s making than the fact that there’s more story to tell. I think ending it here is a good, reasonable finale for the movie series and it’ll be nice to unwind and enjoy that.

I haven’t looked up anything about the mystery movies but maybe I’ll check them out this year! :D

[hopevalley]

Hellloooo everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well. I’ve spent some time reflecting and after realizing that I wasn’t making space in my life for all of the hobbies I enjoy doing (and uh, there are a lot of them!) I’ve decided to cut a major hobby out of my life.

Fear not, it’s not this blog! It’s World of Warcraft, actually. You can read about the lawsuit going on with a google search, but if you’re a sensitive person I don’t recommend hunting it down. As a 15-year veteran of the game it makes me feel sick to my stomach. It isn’t the only reason I unsubscribed, but it was the final straw for me.

Which means I’ll have more time to spend here with all of you!! Yay! (Or maybe not yay, I don’t know. It depends on how you feel about my content.)

So, things I’m working on (besides getting real life into some better order):

art! i’m going to start picking up art again, and i’m excited about it because i gave it up for writing many years ago and would like to get back into it. if the urge strikes you, you can check it out @veredus (though there isn’t much there yet).

i’ve started a script for a video essay about when calls the heart!! i don’t anticipate this being done anytime soon, because it’s likely to be a really long video and it requires rewatching the entire series, but i’m excited to work on it anyway! i have a thesis and everything! :)

i’ve also started working on the second chapter for three years and i toyed with the concept of novelizations again, but i don’t wanna bite off more than i can chew right now.

hopefully with all this extra time i’m getting, i’ll also get to read more, which means doing some liveblogging of the return to the canadian west book series by janette and laurel oke!

I’ve seen some of the posts about S9 filming being underway, which is pretty cool. I’m glad Martin has come back for sure (I was pretty sure he’d be back, but one can never tell with this series so the news is great). I’m equally as glad Paul Greene news is zero and I hope it stays that way. I really do not want to see Carson return to the show as he is.

(Basically, I’m tired of this show trying to make characters self-inserts of their actors, and Carson had gotten just as bad in the end as Abigail was before she was sent away so...that’s that on that.)

I’m also SUPER looking forward to Wedding March 6, which airs August 14th. I think you all know why that is. LOL. But I haven’t been disappointed by a Wedding March movie yet, and I’m very eager to enjoy what will probably be the last one in the series. (I mean, nobody’s said it’s the last one, but it feels like it could be a natural stopping point for them, so I’m just emotionally preparing myself for it being the last one.)

So what’s on y’all’s minds? :) How’ve you been?

[hopevalley]

I’m thinking about re-reading the novels again soon, so when I get around to it, I’ll probably post some sort of “liveblogging” type posts while I do. I know they’re quite different from the TV show but there are aspects of them that I remember really enjoying, and I never really got around to going into detail about it here.

[hopevalley]

So I finally finished your podcast (had to listen to some of each day because ya know work and all) and I really enjoyed it. The only problem is that only 4 hrs showed up on my drop box when I downloaded like you said so either I did it wrong or something g is wrong. Anyway I thought it was very insightful and fun to listen to. I definitely laughed out loud a few times.

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I'm not sure why only 4 hours showed... I'm sure you didn't do it wrong or anything. Glad you enjoyed what you did get to hear, though. :)

[hopevalley]

reality check, aisle 2

i can’t believe people really think this because nathan “lost” to lucas:

i think the bird is as dumb as hell but this is straight up delusional of the fans. lol hallmark just can’t write characters like beliavable, realistic human beings. haven’t we established that a hundred times over here?