dubstepford wife

My fellow Chessie! It is coming back, this summer, Jesse Metcalfe tweeted about it. I don't think it has much longer to go, maybe a season or two, but then again, this is Hallmark, so you never know.

If you're a fan of hers I recommend Chesapeake Shores. It's cozy and fluffy and she has a prominent role in it.

If Season 14 ends up being the last one I think I might laugh in a gallows humor kind of way. Like, you guys write out a major character and take away the audience's happy ending, all so you can have one more season? If that's the case why not just bring all the actors back with the promise of, if you stick around just for one more year, we promise we'll end things? Ironically this move might have bought them some time and they can get a couple of seasons out of characters moving on and rebuilding their lives. The stories were incredibly tired and they have been out of ideas for five years now; this opens doors for new opportunities. Though it's kind of tough to do that when you build your show around an epic love story for 14 years, give the characters who remain exactly two episodes to recover, and then you introduce new love interests. I've learned not to get attached to show couples for that reason, because you just know show runners are going to be like, "No, no, no! We never said these people were soulmates even though we totally were screaming that from the rooftops! Who cares that one of them is gone...here's a shiny new hot guy to distract you!" It happens so often it's become a trope.

Yeah this is what I mean about shows going on too long. I was spoiled for that happening but I didn't think it would happen quite so early. I think it's currently only airing in Canada.

For me it's Mean Girls. Whenever I see her I immediately think, "We should totally just stab Caesar!"

I don't know what it is about these family-friendly feel good shows that makes them never end. They're around for like, twice as long as cultural zeitgeists like Game of Thrones or Seinfeld. Heartland is going to start rivaling Grey's Anatomy for the title of "Show that Overstayed Its Welcome By About a Decade." ...and yet, I still half-heartedly (no pun intended) follow them. I think it might be hate-watching. Anyway. Lou being mayor is going to get on my nerves. And I think Amber is still a pretty lady, though I saw someone once say she looked like a young Hilary Clinton and now I can't unsee it (nothing against either woman). And I think bad makeup on the show isn't helping her at all. I don't know why the makeup department always uses the wrong shade of cakey foundation and concealer for her but it makes her skin and undereye circles look much worse than they really are. In the early seasons they hardly used any makeup on her at all and she had lovely skin with cute freckles.

I HATED this subplot. My least favorite part of the series so far. It served no purpose (yeah, yeah, she learned to stand up for herself, she was doing that anyway for the most part.) I still don't understand why the entire world seems to hate Mel other than it's to show to the audience how perfect she is.

Lol, yeah and my favorite part of this is that the character was played by a different actor in Season One. So they didn't have to do the twin thing, they could have just brought that actor back for the first two episodes, then made creepy Hallmark/Lifetime journeyman actor his (non-twin) brother. But nope, apparently that's not soapy enough.

Okay I'm back, courtesy of a lot of fast-forwarding. I'm not sure if I watched a single Ricky/Lizzie scene. Of course crazy abusive dead ex has an equally crazy twin brother! And they're both crooked cops! Because it wouldn't be a soap without an evil twin, or shady cops being shady. Speaking of evil twins, wow @valen is right...Charmaine was all over the place. One minute thanking Mel, the next yelling at her for "stealing" Jack, lather rinse repeat, all season long. I figure the writers, when inevitably called out for that, are going to blame pregnancy hormones, which I guess isn't entirely wrong, but still. That seems like a very convenient excuse for bad writing. Mark's sister showing up was random. Does Mel have anyone in the world who likes her/is nice to her besides Jack and Joey? I know, I know, we as the audience are supposed to see how perfect and angelic and level-headed she is in the face of an abusive, cruel world, but jeez show. Cut the girl just a tiny bit of slack. I do kinda hope that the cliffhanger ends in a way that we aren't expecting. Having one of Calvin's goons be the shooter is pretty obvious. It'd be cool if they actually made it Charmaine, driven into a jealous rage. Though the fact that the shot was in the stomach kind of makes me think of that scene in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil's son mocks how people in movies always are really bad at killing people, because the plot actually wants them to survive. Any actual killer would've just shot him in the head and been done with it. I'm going to watch Season 3, but not because I think this show is good (which I legit thought it was after Season 1). It's become a trashy soapy guilty pleasure.

I'm only a third of the way through, but...oh show, what has Netflix done to you? I will say I laughed when I saw the scene with Paige and her abusive ex. That's not the correct reaction I know, but, that actor shows up a lot in Hallmark/Lifetime series and he's always the exact same character, the psychotic murderous spurned lover. I know people have accused this show of ripping off those networks and up until now I've defended it, but...is the casting pool in Vancouver really that small? Charmaine actually seemed nice last season. And Jack seemed intelligent. Hel-lo, character assassination. Oh well, you were nice while you lasted, show. And your soundtrack is still good, so there's that. I'm a knitter and this happens all the time. Shows/movies also frequently confuse knitting and crochet, which is just freaking lazy. It takes two seconds to Google the difference between them. But yeah, I was like, Connie, what are you doing?

Oh I love me some Bernadette. She has mythical status in the online sewing community, especially among historical sewers. And it's interesting, she has another video where she talks about movies/TV series where they got the costumes right, and she makes a point to mention that if you sacrifice historical accuracy in the interest of "modern beauty aesthetics" you aren't even giving the viewer a chance to appreciate other ideas. She loves the series "Gentleman Jack" for this reason, because it takes place in the 1830s, when hairstyles were wacky and sleeves were practically floatation devices. The costume department embraced all of that and it has the result of normalizing it. The hairstyles don't look so crazy once you get used to them. With time you start to see how this could have been considered beautiful in its own time. WCtH, like Reign, or The Tudors, doesn't give the viewers a chance. It just puts the women in long skirts and thinks that's enough. Part of me thinks it's just laziness. I can find the "costumes" of WCtH in stores, I doubt they even make them, they're probably just off the rack clothing. (Not including Season 1, where the costumes actually seemed sort of okay.)

This is reminding me of that philosophical discussion about whether true altruism exists. If people always get something out of doing good works (and you do get a warm fuzzy feeling from it), then is it true altruism? And if Hallmark's motives for increasing diversity are more Machiavellian than we would like, yeah that sucks, but they are kind of changing, so that's good. They'd hardly be the first business to take their bottom line into consideration when deciding the best course of action. That's kind of what businesses do. Me, I want to see if this effort is sustained. If they feature interracial couples and LGBTQ characters often enough that it stops being noteworthy, then I think that will show a commitment to change. But if by next summer things are back to the way they were before, then that shows they were just checking off a box. If that happens, I think they lose me forever. There are just too many other options for feel-good entertainment that don't have uncomfortable racial/homophobic undertones. I think we've seen the last of him. He's either been blacklisted by the network or doesn't want to come back.

I read the books that When Calls the Heart are based on and they're way, way better. They're not nearly as in your face with romance -- honestly, after the first book we barely see the main guy character -- but the women have agency and self-determination, and there is far more ethnic diversity as there are a lot of First Nations characters who are central to the storyline. And it's so ironic considering that in the books, the women outright say that they are subservient and that the men are the head of the family, and yet they do so much more than the women in the show, who mostly just exist to fall in love. It's kind of sad.

I kept waiting for the episode to end with Andrew Morton being invited to Kensington Palace to begin recordings for his book, since it seemed like Diana was fully ready to burn that castle to the ground. She's done. And good for her. Charles. You have been screaming for the past two seasons about how the royals are unfeeling, uncaring, and unkind. And then you turn around and say that you hug the people you care about, while refusing to hug your son goodbye (or to cheer him on in his rugby game) after visiting him at school. You say hugging people with AIDS is something anyone could do were it not for the "spectacle," yet you are incapable of showing any feelings at all for anyone except yourself and Camilla. Even your own children seem to not matter to you. It's so ironic, considering how he grew up always feeling like no one cared. I don't know how much fictional Charles resembles real Charles, but this version is despicable. Absolutely vile. A selfish, hypocritical monster. I love how they included the scene of Diana preparing to throw up, then stopping herself. She is finally figuring out that she doesn't need his approval to feel a sense of self-worth, and that for years he's been gaslighting her. I'm very excited for season five. Who knows when we'll get it, but I'm looking forward to it.

I kind of love the scene where Charles calls Andrew "fringe." This show has not been subtle when it comes to Andy, from foreshadowing his problems with underage girls to him wanting a larger royal role for himself and his children, and Charles throwing it back in his face. I don't think Peter Morgan is any fan of old Andrew. This show is certainly not being kind to Thatcher. I wasn't around for that era so I don't know what's true and what's fiction, but if even half of this is factually accurate she is not coming across well. Opposition to ending apartheid is never a good look, regardless of consequences for the economy. And if that thing about her son being a businessman in South Africa, which the show implies colored her decisions towards the country, is true, then that should be grounds for removal from office. It's outright corruption.

That lunch scene was insane. "I'm all for sharing." You certainly are. Poor Diana. She really was a lamb led to the slaughter. She came off a little creepy in the first episode but at this point she knows the wedding is a bad idea. What a lonely life, to leave such a warm household filled with friends and to be stuck into grand Buckingham Palace where the only company you have are the maids and letters from admirers.

At one point in Nine Lives of Christmas Kimberly Sustad unzips her jacket to show just the tiniest hint of cleavage. She immediately zips it back up again, but that's about the most risque thing I've seen in a Hallmark movie (low bar I know). And that was six years ago, they've gotten blander and more sex-less since then. What the hell is a shrimp lollipop? Is it like shrimp toast from Chinese takeout?

We do see a scene in the trailer where Charmaine is crying and she and Jack look wistfully out at the river. I'm guessing that's the scene where she finally accepts the situation and they agree to be co-parents but not a couple. I am with you though, I really really hope this moment doesn't come in episode 9 or 10. I can deal with will-they-or-won't-they for a few episodes but when it drags on and on it gets really annoying. Really though, Charmaine was 90% sweet in the first season. She was mostly nice to Mel and polite to Hope, despite Hope being really over the top nasty to her (for reasons we discover later). She didn't do anything wrong until the last episode, where she not-so-subtly tells Mel to leave town and uses her baby as ammunition. Yeah she's the third wheel but third wheels don't automatically have to be villains. I hope the show redeems her a little bit and gives her the opportunity to move on and find her own happiness.

We got him to be in two of these, for no pay!

Hallmark does this, where they find a name that they like and they reuse it across their movies/shows. My favorite game is to play Spot the Abigail. There's one in WCtH (or was), one in Good Witch, and I think there are two in Chesapeake Shores. And I know I've seen at least two movies where either the main character or the main supporting friend was named Abigail.

Trailer is up on YouTube I didn't even recognize Charmaine, she looks completely different without her bangs and heavy makeup. It does look like this season might be a little more lighthearted than the last one, though I know the preview mentioned a "murder" so I'm betting we haven't heard the last of the pot growers and Brady. Jack couldn't care less about Charmaine's baby. Which is kind of sad; I get that he doesn't love her but still, he could be a little more enthusiastic about his kid! I'm excited for Hope and Doc, even though she drives me up a wall. It's going to be nice to see an older couple get romantic.

From just a few clips I can tell Gillian Anderson nails it. Absolutely spot on. And Diana's actress definitely has the voice right, very breathy and soft spoken. They're really playing up how Diana was just a child, with the lonely roller skating and ballet dancing in the grand halls of Buckingham Palace. Which I don't think is all that inaccurate.

This is exactly how I feel watching Chesapeake Shores as a Marylander, lol. Or should I call it, Vancouver Shores. Maybe it's a cost cutting measure? Maybe the syndication costs are cheaper? I have no idea I'm just guessing.

I like the dress in theory, it's a beautiful color, but I can't get past the thumbnail picture on YouTube. Her teeth are so white they look like they'll glow in the dark, and her expression is kind of a smile but is also slightly unnerving. She looks like she's saying, "You will enjoy Christmas or I will EAT YOUR SOUL."

Yeah I mean, he was the male lead for five seasons (well, five technically, three where he actually did anything), and he's the father of Little Jack, so as much as I'm sure Hallmark wishes they could they can't just make him disappear. He's definitely not coming back though, certainly not to the show (unless there's a flashback or they do the soap trope where Elizabeth has a near death experience or something), and I don't think to the channel either. They've released the Christmas movie lineup and this is what, two? Three years running now? Where Lissing isn't in any of the movies. Whether that's his choice or he's been blacklisted, who knows. Anyway -- I've started watching Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman on Amazon and it's like WCTH (including very questionable historical accuracy) but better. It's an old show and it shows its age at times -- the male lead is right off of a romance novel cover circa the early 90s -- but it's got decent acting and storylines. If you like the pioneer aspects of WCTH but are getting sick of flipping the table at Hallmark's stupidity, I recommend it.