The first word that comes to mind when most people think of Hallmark Channel is Christmas. The network has made its name (and a lot of its money) on its annual holiday fare that guarantees light-hearted, family-friendly fun, whether you are watching ironically or not. The patented formula of its Christmas movies is a comfort for the droves that watch every year, but Hallmark frequently gets overlooked when it puts down the tinsel and Santa cookie cutters.
This should be the year that changes, because Hallmark has one of the best shows 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 one of Hallmark’s biggest hits —and with good reason.
Andie MacDowell and Chyler Leigh anchor the series about an estranged mother and daughter who reconnect decades after a family tragedy with the help of a mysterious pond on the family farm that allows them to travel backward in time. The first season focused on two storylines, taking Leigh’s Kat Landry and her daughter Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) back to the ’90s to explore what happened when Kat’s little brother disappeared and how the family patriarch Colton (Jefferson Brown) died shortly after. The second season, which aired this year, added an 1814 storyline that, essentially, added an entirely new world into the series.
The scope of “The Way Home” and how it handles the mechanics of time travel is im.
