MOVIE REVIEW
Movie: When Calls the Heart Christmas
Network: Hallmark Channel
Original Air Date: December 25, 2016
*This movie is available on DVD from Amazon - SEE HERE!
CAST:
Erin Krakow ... Elizabeth Thatcher
Lori Loughlin ... Abigail Stanton
Daniel Lissing ... Jack Thornton
Jack Wagner ... Bill Avery
Pascale Hutton ... Rosemary Coulter
Martin Cummins ... Henry Gowen
Kavan Smith ... Lee Coulter
Terence Kelly ... Sam
Andrea Brooks ... Faith Carter
Carter Ryan Evancic ... Cody Hastings
Eva Bourne ... Clara Stanton
Mark Humphrey ... Frank Hogan
Aren Buchholz ... Jesse
Loretta Walsh ... Florence Blakeley
Erica Carroll ... Dottie Ramsey
Johannah Newmarch ... Molly Sullivan
Hrothgar Mathews ... Ned Yost
Natasha Quirke ... Nancy Tucker
Callum Seagram Airlie ... Harper Tucker
Kadence Roach ... Anna
Imogen Tear ... Hattie
Amélie Eve ... Maggie Lawson
Gracyn Shinyei ... Emily Montgomery
Ava Grace Cooper ... Opal
Jaiven Natt ... Robert
Christian Michael Cooper ... Timmy Lawson
Eliza Norbury ... Wilma Lawson
Ben Rosenbaum ... Hickam
Larissa Albuquerque ... Katie Yost
Julian Christopher ... George Edwards
Hannah Zirke ... Ruby Benson
Jennifer Mawhinney ... Ruby’s Mom
Robert Parent ... Kurt Lawson
Cameron Dent ... Grumpy Diner
Melissa Howell ... Caroler
Alexandra Hill ... Caroler
Willy Miles ... Caroler
Oscar ... Rip the Dog
Rowdy ... Dasher the Dog
PLOT:
via Hallmark: When a train derails and delays the arrival of much needed food, supplies and presents, Christmas in the settlement town of Hope Valley is in jeopardy. With the help of a mysterious visitor, a simple peddler who has a knack for helping people find what they need, Jack, Elizabeth and Abigail rally the town residents to come together in the true spirit of kindness and giving, proving that Christmas really is the season for miracles.
Movie Review:
Coming...
See or Skip:
Coming...
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Photo Credit: Copyright 2016 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Ricardo Hubbs
This is one movie I will NOT be watching.
ReplyDeleteMy big bone of contention with Hallmark is their treatment of Cedar Cove. I feel like they really treated the viewers with contempt.
I enjoyed the first season and continued to watch although it went in a direction I am sure Debbie Macomber would never have gone.
I appreciate that all shows will eventually come to an end for various reasons and can accept this but it is how Hallmark did this that really annoys.
To pull the show between seasons with many plot lines left hanging was grossly unfair.
The viewers deserved closure. It wouldn't even have mattered if the various endings were not what I particularly liked since they would be catering for several million viewers and obviously couldn't satisfy everyone but at least it would have been an ending.
Hallmark are churning out so many new movies now that they had the perfect vehicle to round things off by producing an 80 minute production of Cedar Cove - The Movie which would have been fair to everyone.
I was left feeling cheated and resolved never to invest my time in such projects again in case the same thing happens which is why I will never watch When Calls The Heart, Chesapeake Shores etc.
It's not quite as simple as just producing a movie to give some closure to Cedar Cove. There is more that goes into it than that.
ReplyDeleteWell, first of all, let me backtrack... TV series get cancelled all the time, every year, on every network. It's not a new thing. In many cases the casts, writers and crews do not have the luxury of knowing they will be cancelled in advance, so they cannot prepare and close out the storylines for the viewers. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it works in the TV business/entertainment industry. Sometimes the plug gets pulled with some warning, and sometimes there is no warning at all.
Someone, somewhere, on the corporate side of Hallmark decided that Cedar Cove was no longer cost effective or worthwhile to keep on the air -- and that decision could be for a number of reasons to which viewers are not privy, but also largely due to the ratings not being where they should have been in the 3rd season.
Once Cedar Cove was cancelled, the actors involved in the show were no longer under contract and obligated to be available for a certain period of time to film it. So, if Hallmark were to do a movie just for the sake of closure, they would essentially have to rehire all of the actors and make sure they were all available again, at the same time, to be able to film it and address their stories. Maybe that will happen at some point down the road -- hopefully it will -- but many of the actors have moved on and started work on other things. The schedules could be trickier to coordinate for a large ensemble cast such as the (former) Cedar Cove cast.
So, essentially, if a closure movie were ever to take place, it might not happen for quite a while -- and that's IF the Hallmark executives who cancelled the series even think it is worthwhile to do a movie. And, at that point, I'm not sure how many people are really going to be thinking about how the series ended anymore.
When Calls the Heart is a hugely popular series for the Hallmark Channel -- a series which did not suffer from a mass exodus of angry viewers after Cedar Cove was cancelled -- but even WCTH could be cancelled arbitrarily, without much of an explanation, at any time. Nothing on TV is ever 100% safe from the chopping block, sadly.
There are all kinds of programming mysteries where Hallmark is concerned -- such as the sudden and rather cold dismissal of Cristina Ferrare from "Home & Family" earlier this year, and several projects that were officially announced as coming up in 2016 -- which never happened. The 2015 Cedar Cove cancellation is just another one of those mysteries.
would love to know what happened to cristina ferrare she was on the show for 20+years. it isn't fair to the viewers. as for cedar cove it needed to go.it was no longer a family show.
ReplyDeleteI loved the When Calls the Heart Christmas movie. Thank you, Net, for letting me know the DVD is available to order now.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! It was a beautiful When Calls the Heart movie/episode/Christmas Special! I was delighted to see it released on DVD so quickly!
DeleteWCTH's Christmas movie was everything Hearties expected it to be. No one was disappointed. The town came together and saved Christmas. All the regular cast members returned.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree! 100%! "When Calls the Heart Christmas", with all the regular cast members we know & love - was a beautiful opening to Season 4!
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