It’s a double whammy night for feel-good Hallmark stuff. A new series debuts on Hallmark Channel and a new Hallmark Hall of Fame arrives on network TV.
Check today’s TV Week insert for the cover story on Signed, Sealed, Delivered. The series kicks off at 7 p.m. on Hallmark Channel and is based on the movie of the same name that aired last year.
The latest Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation (a series that dates all the way back to 1951) is In My Dreams. The curtain goes up at 8 p.m. on ABC.
The romantic comedy stars Katharine McPhee (American Idol, Smash) and Mike Vogel (Under the Dome) as “two lonely people not entirely convinced they’ll find the mate of their dreams.”
This is television, so our “two lonely people” are gorgeous. She’s a babe and he’s a hunk. That doesn’t stop them from being lonely on TV. At least for the two hours of the movie.
McPhee plays Natalie Russo, who is focusing all her time and energy on trying to breathe life into her family’s ailing Italian restaurant.
Vogel portrays Nick Smith, a frustrated architect who’s slaving away for one of those jerk bosses who never gives him any credit or opportunity. Nick’s also reeling from a disastrous relationship and breakup.
As an added bonus, JoBeth Williams (The Big Chill, My Name Is Bill W) plays Charlotte, Vogel’s well-meaning but meddling mom. She’s determined to introduce Nick to the perfect girl. Her idea of the perfect girl.
Enter the Hallmark Hall of Fame magic.
After Natalie and Nick each throw a coin into the town’s Hayward Fountain (fabled for bringing lovers together), they start having dreams about each other.
In these dreams they fall in love. The problem is, how do they find the person of their dreams in real life?
And there’s the catch. If the dream couple haven’t actually met in the real world before the end of seven days, the fountain’s time limit expires and - poof - it’s all over. It’s a race against time.
Will Nick and Natalie get together? Will they?
Anti-Hallmark. If you find Hallmark offerings all squishy and cheesy and maudlin, cable’s WGN has the anti-Hallmark offering for you.
Salem is the cable network’s first original series. It premieres at 9 p.m. today and asks the burning question, “What if witches were behind it all?” It’s aimed at adults.
As the title suggests, the series is set in the dark, dark world of 17th-century Massachusetts and “explores what really fueled the town’s infamous witch trials and dares to uncover the dark, supernatural truth cloaked behind the veil of this infamous period in American history.”
In Salem, witches are real, but they are not who or what they seem. Here’s all you need to know.
The beautiful Mary Sibley (Janet Montgomery, Made in Jersey) presides over the town of Salem as its most powerful sorceress and the wife of the elderly, ailing and very wealthy head of Salem’s town council.
Mary has many dark, dark secrets to hide, and must rely on her mysterious accomplice, Tituba (Ashley Madekwe, Revenge), to help carry out her agenda.
Mary’s life is shockingly disrupted when her former lover, John Alden (Shane West, Nikita), returns from being away seven years during the French and Indian War to find Salem in the grip of witch hunt hysteria. John is a voice of reason when unexplained spooky weirdness sets the town on edge.
Fanning the flames of panic is local aristocrat Cotton Mather (Seth Gabel, Fringe), who dedicates himself to ridding Salem of evil by any means necessary. Use your imagination.
Anti-Hallmark? Unlike Nick and Natalie, Mary and John “are thrust into a world where horror, hysteria and the supernatural reign.”
I found this to be a nicely done period thriller if you enjoy that sort of thing. Think of it as American Horror Story meets some witchery part of True Blood.
Salem, with 13 episodes set for this season, was filmed in that famous New England stand-in film location, Shreveport.
Who’s yer daddy? While we’re at it, make a note that NBC’s four-hour adaptation of the 1967 best-seller Rosemary’s Baby will air at 8 p.m. May 11 and 15.
The 1968 film from Roman Polanski starred Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse.
More zombies. Can’t get enough zombies with The Walking Dead? Syfy has announced a 13-episode zombie series set for the fall.
From the folks who brought us Sharknado, the action-horror series Z Nation will cover “the epic struggle to save humanity after a zombie apocalypse” and promises “a sense of hope to the horror of the apocalypse - our heroes take the fight to the zombies.”
In Z Nation, a ragtag team must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood.
Sounds epic.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email: mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style, Pages 48 on 04/20/2014