Stream It Or Skip It: ‘When Calls The Heart’ Season 13 On Hallmark Channel, A New Season In Hope Valley With Lori Loughlin Set To Return

The big news for Season 13 of Hallmark’s When Calls The Heart is that Lori Loughlin is going to return to the show for the first time since she was ensnared in the college admissions scandal; her character, Abigail Stanton, was edited out of the Season 6 episodes that were completed but unaired after the scandal hit. She’ll be in six Season 13 episodes, but doesn’t show up in the season premiere.

Opening Shot: Scenes of Hope Valley, a mining town in Alberta, in the early 1920s.

The Gist: Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Karkow), the teacher at Hope Valley’s one-room schoolhouse, has been spending the summer in Cape Fullerton at the home of Charlotte Thornton (Brooke Shields), the mother of her late husband Jack and the grandmother of her son Little Jack (Hyland Goodrich). Also with them is Elizabeth’s Mountie boyfriend, Nathan Grant (Kevin McGarry) and his daughter Allie (Jaeda Lily Miller).

They’re there to get Little Jack the treatment he needs for his diabetes while a clinic in Hope Valley is being completed. They’re all ready to go home but things hit a snag: The inspector that will be needed to license the clinic is stuck in Toronto due to a rail strike, which means resupplying the clinic will be tough. It looks like everyone will only be able to be in Hope Valley for the weekend then go back to Cape Fullerton until the clinic can be inspected.

Still, they all get warm welcomes when they come back into town, followed by disappointment that they’ll have to leave again. With the school year starting, Elizabeth prepares to hand over her lesson plans to Minnie Canfield (Natasha Burnett), who is nervous that she won’t be a good substitute.

In the meantime, the mayor, Leland Coulter (Kavan Smith), is proud that the town’s first stoplight is being installed, and that Goldie National Park, which he spearheaded, is going to open. The governor, Lucas Bouchard (Chris McNally), returns to his hometown and ends up sharing an office with attorney Edie Martell (Miranda MacDougall), and they both wonder if they should take their previous flirtation and make it into something real.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As always, When Calls The Heart reminds us of two mostly-gentle series from TV’s past: The Waltons and Little House On The Prairie. Speaking of Little House, Michael Landon, Jr. is one of the show’s co-creators, and Melissa Gilbert joined the cast as a guest star in Season 12.

Our Take: Even though we don’t see Loughlin in the Season 13 premiere, the show’s ensemble is huge, and showrunner Lindsay Sturman and co-creator Brian Bird have plenty of places to go for stories. Bill Avery (Jack Wagner), the town’s sheriff and judge, has to deal with rancher A.J. McGinty (Kevin McNulty), who hates the idea of the park wasting prime ranch land. Oliver (Jacob Shoemay), the young Mountie cadet, is trying to assert himself, and wants to spend more time with Allie. Rosemary LeVeaux Coulter (Pascale Hutton) is irritated that the local paper calls her new playhouse a “vanity project.”

And, of course, there’s Elizabeth, who has always been the emotional center of the series, and Nathan, with whom she’s been connected since Jack died. It seems like their romance and the blended family they’re putting together has only gotten stronger with their summer away from Hope Valley. The idea that they may need to live apart for awhile so Allie can go to school in her hometown while Little Jack gets his insulin treatments in Cape Fullerton drives the conflict in the first episode, until Jack comes up with an ingenious way to get an inspector out to Hope Valley.

But there’s always something going on in town, and the fact that despite the comings and goings in the cast over the past decade-plus, the warmth that the characters project is still there is a testament to not only the writing but the performances of Krakow and the rest of the cast.

Performance Worth Watching: Erin Krakow’s Elizabeth is always calm, always seems to look on the bright side of people and situations. And Krakow continues to infuse Elizabeth with sincerity and warmth, without making her a Pollyanna.

Sex And Skin: None. This is Hallmark, after all.

Parting Shot: After giving everyone the good news that she and Little Jack are going to stay, Elizabeth and the other townspeople notice that smoke is coming from Goldie Park — where Allie and some other teens have been hiking.

Sleeper Star: We mentioned the return of Loughlin, but we were also happy to see Shields return as Charlotte, who has come to appreciate Nathan’s devotion to her daughter-in-law and grandson.

Most Pilot-y Line: Apparently, the hand-drawn and hand-written kids’ guide to Goldie Park is an important project for Leland, but when it’s done, there only seems to have been two or three copies made.

Our Call: STREAM IT. When Calls The Heart continues to be a warm, gentle series that doesn’t mind slowing down and spending time with its characters. It’s a show that knows what it is, isn’t apologetic about it, and continues to deliver what its audience wants.

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.