Season one came out way back in 2019. With so much time passing, and these new characters joining the cast, is this more reboot than second season?
CINDY: It feels like a little bit of a changing of the guard, so to speak. However, there are a lot of returning characters as well that people will remember from season one — which is amazing, because they’re going to bring that energy, the stories that people knew from before, and continue that ball rolling.
CHRISTOPHER: Our writer [Alfonso H. Moreno] seamlessly incorporated the fact that it has been five years. He took the original cast and gave them what I feel is a really heartfelt and well-serviced segue. It doesn’t feel like an abrupt, “This was one show, now this is another.” No, everything is blended in beautifully.
How does arriving in the town of Brookfield change your characters?
CHRISTOPHER: Michael Fletcher, he’s described as a “latchkey kid.” He took care of himself growing up, joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police because he wanted to make the world a better place, and he took on positions travelling around the country, tracking down the worst of the worst criminals. But then he finds himself in Brookfield, with a stationary post. He’s bringing all of his experiences to that one town — but he needs to learn that it’s not quite the place for it. He needs to adjust, and not see everyone as a potential criminal. In doing so, we’ll discover that perhaps there was something missing that Brookfield will help him to understand.
CINDY: I think Nora is changed by Brookfield and its people through the love and the welcoming that she receives. She had a family that was in a fight her entire life — and so she never felt what it was like to be welcomed and cuddled and appreciated. She’s been a lone wolf, to some degree. She finds community in this place, and she also finds faith. She’s been very disconnected from her own faith, and they remind her of that.
The series centres on an orphanage Ñ but it also seems that so many of the townsfolk are metaphorically orphaned . . .
CHRISTOPHER: When you think about it — 1920, rural North America — everyone’s coming from somewhere else. This is still in the age of immigrants coming over on the boat trying to make a better life for themselves. The pioneers. It gives the show an opportunity to have people from all over, with all different aspirations, coming together — because they’re looking for a home and they’re looking for a family.
Do shows like When Hope Calls offer a palate-cleanser to the “edgier” series that have dominated TV of late?
CHRISTOPHER: I think people are craving something they can watch with their family, have some hope and be reminded what the human experience is actually about — being there for each other, loving each other and making a beautiful life together. Not just this rat race of being cutthroat and backstabbing and all that stuff we’re seeing in different shows — not that there’s anything wrong with them. They’re exciting. But this is definitely a nice departure from that.
CINDY: It feels like a back-to-basics kind of thing. I think of a lot of shows in the ’90s, where I’d come home and there’d be, like, Full House — where you could watch with your family and feel really good, and learn a lesson through the episode. There’s enough darkness in the world that we’re kind of over it. We want to find ourselves again. And at the core, what we are is loving beings.
The season finale of When Hope Calls airs Sunday, May 11 on Super Channel Heart & Home
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Two stalwart vets of the Canadian TV-scape, Christopher Russell and Cindy Busby have popped up in series all across the dial. Montreal native Busby is best known for her lengthy run as Ashley Stanton on CBC’s western family drama Heartland. You’ve seen Toronto-born Russell as a dashing reality TV suitor on UnREAL, and in smash-hit action series Reacher, as the title character’s murdered brother. Along the way, the two have also co-headlined four Hallmark movies.
CURRENT GIG:
Busby and Russell wax romantic yet again, joining the second season of this When Calls the Heart spinoff. She plays Nora, a troubled lawyer who comes to the frontier ’burgh of Brookfield seeking her long-lost niece — orphanage headmistress Lillian (Morgan Kohan). He, meanwhile, plays Michael, the strapping new Mountie in town.