The primary phrase that involves thoughts when most individuals consider Hallmark Channel is Christmas. The community has made its identify (and loads of its cash) on its annual vacation fare that ensures light-hearted, family-friendly enjoyable, whether or not you’re watching mockingly or not. The patented method of its Christmas films is a consolation for the droves that watch yearly, however Hallmark incessantly will get ignored when it places down the tinsel and Santa cookie cutters.
This needs to be the yr that adjustments, as a result of Hallmark has probably the greatest reveals on TV. The multi-generational time-travel drama “The Way Home” is the brainchild of Marly Reed and mother-daughter showrunners Heather Conkie and Alexandra Clarke. It’s certainly one of Hallmark’s greatest hits —and with good cause.
Andie MacDowell and Chyler Leigh anchor the sequence about an estranged mom and daughter who reconnect many years after a household tragedy with the assistance of a mysterious pond on the household farm that permits them to journey backward in time.
The primary season centered on two storylines, taking Leigh’s Kat Landry and her daughter Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) again to the ’90s to discover what occurred when Kat’s little brother disappeared and the way the household patriarch Colton (Jefferson Brown) died shortly after. The second season, which aired this yr, added an 1814 storyline that, primarily, added a wholly new world into the sequence.
The scope of “The Method Dwelling” and the way it handles the mechanics of time journey is spectacular for any sci-fi present. What makes the sequence so particular is the way it makes use of these parts to bolster the characters’ tales. Sure, it is a present the place a magical pond takes folks again in time, however much more, the present is about grief, reconnecting and dealing with the previous. It’s charming and addictive in equal measure, not like anything on TV in the mean time.
Within the formidable Season 2, every of the characters is dealing with their very own origin story. Kat is distributed again to 1814 to see the founding of her hometown and should reckon together with her household’s sophisticated historical past as she continues the seek for her little brother. Alice is confronted with the truth that her mother and father didn’t have a storybook romance, whereas their neighbor and time journey information Elliot (Evan Williams) grapples together with his connection to each his organic and surrogate fathers.
Despite the fact that the characters are on seemingly separate journeys, the truths they uncover about themselves throughout their separate adventures by the pond inevitably deliver the household nearer collectively within the current day. And the sequence retains folks hooked by introducing new twists and Landry mysteries simply as burning questions are answered.
Every of the characters are flawed folks. They’re cussed, offended and impulsive. They’re human, which anchors the extra extraordinary facets of the present. The pond doesn’t drive the characters however gives a lens by which they’ll see one another extra clearly. The masterful approach by which “The Method Dwelling” makes use of a magical pond to inform such character-rich tales is what deserves the accolades.
It could be an actual disgrace for Emmy voters to miss this present as a result of Christmas goggles that they view Hallmark by. “The Method Dwelling” exemplifies what Hallmark is really about — highly effective household tales that compel and interact a large viewers. The sequence is breaking the mildew for Hallmark Media and could be the most underrated present on TV. “The Method Dwelling” is the way in which ahead for Hallmark. TV Academy, take word.
