I’ve Lost My Wife To The Hallmark Channel

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During the current pandemic there has been unprecedented boxset watching. Oh, to own shares in Netflix. Many of us have escaped the sad reality of the spiralling global death toll by seeking escapist refuge in our television sets, tablets or phones. We have dropped anchor on our sofas, disengaged our brains and floated off into make believe worlds where heroes prevail and everything is sorted out within a sixty minute episode, ad breaks included.

Here at chez Black, we have been no different. Ozark, Line of Duty and Warrior Nun to name but a few. Normally accompanied by lashings of Diet Coke and the occasional tub of honeycomb ice cream. Desperate times have called for desperate measures. Fionnuala and I have waded through enough explosions, fight sequences and terrifying car chases to last us a lifetime. We see more of Will Smith and the Rock than our own families. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Fionnuala has worked very hard to keep the house in order and her sanity intact, with an annoying husband and three messy teenagers permanently in lockdown residence. Adept at multi-tasking she has fitted in much of her viewing while ironing, cooking or attempting to prevent the house from resembling a bomb site. Is it little wonder, then, that she yearns for a quieter, simpler life? That’s when she discovered ‘When The Heart Calls.’

Now in its 7th season it tells the story of life in an early 20th Century Canadian frontier town where everyone has suspiciously good teeth. It’s centred around the perfect schoolteacher, Elizabeth Thatcher, played by that actress who has appeared in all those other Hallmark movies. Mountie Jack is the hero of the show, romancing Miss Elizabeth while keeping on top of the surprisingly high crime rate, given the idyllic setting and angelic population.

All the women in the show are incredibly slim and wear beautiful dresses. The men are rugged, yet dashing, and all have hearts of gold beneath their gruff features. Each episode involves a moral dilemma where the saintly status quo is threatened before good old honest moral values win the day and the natural order is restored. Bad eggs are thrown in jail, crooked businessmen exposed and everyone smiles and nods wisely as the end credits roll.

My wife is a hopeless, slavering addict. She’s devoured the first five seasons and almost lost her mind upon discovering that Netflix U.K. wasn’t currently streaming Seasons 6 and 7. She expressed her outrage in a tweet to Netflix even though I gently suggested they had probably all gone home for the weekend and their CEO most likely had bigger problems in their inbox. This observation was met with incredulity and a withering rebuke. I kept quiet after that.

Thankfully some slick research was able to locate the missing seasons. I’ve no idea how she accomplished it, as it was all very technical and far beyond my admittedly tiny circle of knowledge. But she was a happy woman last night as she settled down to the opening episode of Season 6. I returned to my book knowing all was well within the Black household again. All was equally well in Hope Valley, although a new character was rubbing the sheriff up the wrong way much to the chagrin of all concerned.

There are even numerous Christmas episodes which is timely as, seeing it is late July, the good folk at Hallmark will soon be polluting our screens 24/7 with the nine million Christmas movies they have in their archives. All involving the same three basic plot lines and dozen or so actors who make up the main cast of When The Heart Calls. All will be well again in a world where social distancing doesn’t exist and there isn’t a bottle of hand sanitiser to be seen. Happy Christmas everyone!

Published by Fractured Faith Blog

We are Stephen and Fionnuala and this is our story. We live in Northern Ireland, have been married for 17 years and have three kids - Adam, Hannah and Rebecca. We hope that our story will inspire and encourage others. We have walked a rocky road yet here we are today, together and stronger than ever. We are far from perfect and our faith has been battered and bruised. But an untested faith is a pointless faith. Just as a fractured faith is better than none at all. We hope you enjoy the blog.

44 thoughts on “I’ve Lost My Wife To The Hallmark Channel”

  4. Yup! I am back at work so I don’t have as much time as I once did. I spent most of my time off on WordPress and social media. Hubby has consumed a LOT of Netflix. We also have Prime and the Disney channel. Happy days! Oh my! I haven’t seen “When the heart calls”. Perhaps we will check it out. We’ve been stuck on “The One Hundred” and I would recommend “One Day at a Yime”, a remake of an old television show but this time with a Puerto Rican family. It’s hilarious!

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  5. I can totally relate to your wife’s enjoyment of these things – I have been reading and watching Outlander on Netflix and on cable – it’s a way to pass the time and keep your sanity by hiding out in a better world. Romance is the way to go sometime – I get totally lost in the books.

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  7. Hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha

    😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

    I quit watching When Calls The Heart after Season 5, but last season I watched a little of some episodes, and the new series they started that comes on after it. I loathe how perfect Elizabeth Thatcher Thornton’s life is, and I just wish for once something horrible would happen to someone, and it wouldn’t be reconciled. Yeah, they killed Jack (because he wanted off the show), but they gave her a kid. Seriously? 🙄🙄🙄

    And yes the Xmas movies are simpering, silly, ridiculous plot wasters, but we watch them anyway because we need the happiness they bring.

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  9. I watch a steady diet of ID (Investigation Discovery) Channel. My favorite shows are The Coronoer, Secrets of the Morgue, and Surviving Evil. I have never watched the Hallmark channel but maybe I’m missing out! I’ll have to check it out. Thnaks 😊

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      1. Surreal, but were you wanting to run out or were you all in. Obviously some people it is not their cup of tea, some they can tolerate with it and some find it fascinating. Where are you in the spectrum?

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      2. My father has since passed away but he was a retired State Police Detective. He took me to headquarters when I was 17 and introduced me to the Colonel. He asked me where I wanted to go and I asked if I could go to see the morgue. The Colonel’s jaw dropped and my dad turned ten shades of red…. He was angry with me!

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  11. Life may be many shades of grey, sometimes by necessity and sometimes by design, but sometimes what we need is a good ol’ happy ending!

    As always, thank you for the honesty in your words. 🙂

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  13. I love When Calls the Heart! Though I do agree with you that the characters are a little too perfect looking for the time period.

    Honeycomb Ice Cream? I have never heard of that, but it sounds good. I wonder if I could find it locally?

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      1. According to my google search, Ben and Jerry’s sells a pint of Honey Comb Ice Cream. I will have to hunt it down because I’ve never seen it at the grocery store, but maybe that’s because I wasn’t looking for it. I will let you know if I do find it!

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  15. We watch When The Heart Calls, it’s a nice change to some of the other shows out there. We were so so with Warrior Nun, but felt it has potential. Line of Duty is a good show and our youngest has watched Ozark (which I raised my eyebrows at). We do enjoy trawling our way through the Hallmark Christmas movies and having a good laugh.

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