Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hope Valley: 1874’ On Hallmark+, A ‘When Calls The Heart’ Prequel About A City Woman And A Rancher Building A Town In The Canadian Northwest

Sometimes when we watch a show like Hope Valley: 1874, a prequel to the Hallmark hit When Calls The Heart, we can be a bit sarcastic, calling out the moments when things feel a bit melodramatic or predictable. But when the episode we’re watching is over, we can’t help but feel the warm feeling that a show like this, built around a community trying to build something in North America’s past, tries to project.

HOPE VALLEY: 1874: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: As we see a mother and daughter in a horse-drawn wagon riding across the countryside, we hear a voice talk about northwest Canada being the land of opportunity.

The Gist:  Rebecca Clarke (Bethany Joy Lenz) and her daughter Sarah (Mila Morgan) have come to this remote frontier area from Chicago. Rebecca looks at a newspaper listing for the boarding home she eventually ended up buying. Their goal is to make it there, but they have had a rough go of it. The latest is a broken wagon wheel.

They manage to find a wheel on an abandoned wagon and install it on theirs. As they pass an encampment of gold prospectors, Rebecca gets off to get provisions from Hattie Quinn (Jill Hennessey), who is selling food and other goods to the prospectors. Suddenly, a stick of dynamite is detonated, and Rebecca’s horse starts running with Sarah in the wagon. Tom Moore (Benjamin Ayers), a local rancher, happens to be herding cattle through there and helps wrangle the spooked horse.

Tom is not happy the prospectors are there, and confronts Archie Doyle (Ryan Robbins), part of the group that used the dynamite. For their part, Rebecca and Sarah find themselves with a broken wheel again. After some prodding by Hattie, Tom offers them the services of his blacksmith, Clayton (Jedidiah Goodacre) and a place to stay. She reluctantly takes him up on the offer, but insists on staying in her tent instead of in his house.

Rebecca and Sarah keep where they’re coming from and where they’re going a secret, because Rebecca is running from a bad situation in Chicago. But, eventually she mentions the boarding house, which is in the nearby town, across from Hattie’s trading post. That’s when she finds out that the building is overgrown and in disrepair; in other words, she was ripped off.

Rebecca is despondent, but senses that the community there is one she wants to be a part of, especially when she’s called upon to help deliver a baby in the prospector camp — her late husband was a doctor and she helped him at times, giving her the most medical experience of anyone in the area.

Photo: Jeff Weddell/Hallmark

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As the title might suggest, Hope Valley: 1874 is a prequel to When Calls The Heart, taking place about 36 years before the first season of the venerable Hallmark Channel series. The series was created by Alfonso H. Moreno.

Our Take: Hope Valley: 1874 essentially is a show in the tradition of, say, Little House On The Prairie as opposed to, say, 1883. All three are about pioneer families and communities, and they all take place in a similar time period. But what Hope Valley: 1874 is trying to show is mostly positive events, with a modicum of conflict to make things interesting.

Rebecca is determined to renovate and open the boarding house, and gets help from Tom, Hattie and others in the area. Tom and Rebecca slowly fall for each other. Prospectors, especially ones like Doyle and his crew, threaten the beauty and natural resources of the area, with Rebecca and Tom at odds over whether the prospectors are good for the area or not.

We’re also pretty sure that we’ll get stories about others living in the tiny town or with the prospectors. We do know that Hattie’s daughter Olivia (Roan Curtis) has some plans that may take her away from the frontier, and that the new Northwestern Mounted Police constable, Alexander Vaughn (Lachlan Quarmby), will fall for Olivia.

What the show is hoping to create is the same sense of community that its parent show has, and show how Hope Valley grows in subsequent years. It helps that Lenz, Ayres and Hennessey all project both the warmth and strength that helps shows like these connect with viewers, and that the slow-burning chemistry between Lenz and Ayers is there from the first time they meet.

Photo: Jeff Weddell/Hallmark

Performance Worth Watching: Bethany Joy Lenz projects a lot of determination and strength as Rebecca Clarke, more than enough to want to root for her as she gets the boarding house in shape.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Constable Vaughn introduces himself by breaking up a fight between Tom and Doyle. “I represent the law. And no one is above it,” he tells them.

Sleeper Star: We’re always in favor of Jill Hennessey gracing our screens, and she’s very watchable here as Hattie, who finds herself needing to be strong for her daughter as well as a be a mentor of sorts for Rebecca.

Most Pilot-y Line: Tom keeps calling the prospectors “locusts” because the word he wants to call them is likely not allowed in a Hallmark drama.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hope Valley: 1874 is an easygoing, community-oriented Western that is reminiscent of shows like Little House, and is helped along by very watchable performances by Lenz, Ayers and Hennessey.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.