Mystery

Providence Falls

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It Fell

Am I the only one in the whole wide world who did not absolutely love this 3 part mini-series? Apparently so. Oh, there were some good things about it, for sure. I liked the actors: 4 new fresh faces in lead roles, an old favorite (Matty Finochio) in a pivotal role, and 2 Hallmark mainstays in small but important parts. Kudos to Niall Matter who played a bad guy against type. The set direction and production values were top notch, and there were parts of the script that were just fine. But the whole thing felt forced and manufactured around a very faulty premise. It didn’t make sense and was just wrong. And I’m not talking about the angels and devils, the dual timeline, the time travel, or the reincarnation. I usually like that stuff. Some of Hallmark’s best movies have been based on those kinds of plots. And part of what bothered me was that they dropped the love story and all the supernatural stuff right in the middle of a police procedural for no reason I can think of that made any sense. Except to stretch maybe 3 hours of story into 6 hours. 

Cora and Liam are star-crossed lovers in 1844 Ireland who met when Liam, a thief and a rogue, broke into her father’s country estate to steal some things. They fell in love and were running away together, when, chased by dogs, torches, and pitchforks, Cora fell off a cliff and died. Liam is miserable and blames himself, but instead of being reincarnated or sent to heaven or, as they call it here, “H.E. double hockey sticks”, he is put in Limbo for almost 200 years due to a clerical error. Doesn’t heaven have some kind of quality control department? That was disturbing. Of course he had to die first and I am afraid I am a little fuzzy on how that happened. He comes to our attention because they are “clearing Limbo out”. Liam is given a chance to make up for cutting Cora’s life short and taking her away from her soulmate (who she barely met) and her important destiny and earn his way into heaven. Somehow, her death is all Liam’s fault, not her own nor the trackers chasing her over hill and dale and off the cliff. Or just an accident for that matter. All he has to do, in the present time, is to get Cora, who has been re-incarnated, back together with her so-called soulmate that she barely met, who has also been reincarnated. Cora is now a newly promoted police detective in Providence Falls, and Liam is a visiting detective (Ha!), her new partner. Her soulmate Finn (Evan Roderick) is an Assistant D.A. and is a good guy and very attractive. But despite Hallmark trying to fool us, savvy Hallmarkies know he is not the one because instead of coffee he drinks tea with sugar in it, is a lot shorter than Liam, and is a little too well-groomed. Also an old cohort of 1844 Liam is back and has been re-incarnated as the police chief. And maybe some other people? I don’t know. 

So we have 6 hours including commercials of Liam getting used to cell phones, cars, and other 21st century things and pushing his beloved Cora into the arms of Finn, who she really is not all that interested in. Just as she did back in Ireland, she has fallen for Liam at first sight. And Finn likes her best friend Suzette. Could it be possible that it is Liam and not Finn who is Cora’s soulmate? Nope, nope, nope, absolutely not. Destiny and Fate cannot be wrong, and Destiny has spoken. Even though against all of the rules in the Destiny Rule Book, Cora has started to remember her history with and love for Liam in her former life. So Destiny is wrong about some things then. But according to the angel Samael, the lady in charge of this fiasco, if she reunites with selfish bad Liam, instead of good and decent Finn, she will not be able to continue to help at-risk youth and keep them on the straight and narrow. Somehow this capable woman cannot do her good works unless she’s with the right man. I think Miss Samael got her centuries mixed up. Meanwhile Liam is proving over and over what a reformed character he is. But no, according to this angel Samael, he is selfish and bad to the end even when he is rescuing Finn from an old mine shaft and throwing himself in front of a speeding bullet to save Cora’s life. Repentance? Forgiveness? Grace? Free Will? Fuhgettaboutit. And all through this, there is a very drawn out murder mystery/burglary/criminal conspiracy to solve that was right out of the usual Hallmark Movies and Mysteries playbook.

I understand why everyone really liked this. It was a well-done ambitious production for Hallmark, and the trappings were off the usual beaten track, even though the love story was predictable and the mystery was tedious. I just couldn’t get past that damn angel Samael being so blind and misguided: Insisting that poor Liam could not get into heaven despite his proven goodness unless Cora ended up with Finn against both of their wills. I know it was to create tension and keep the thing going for 6 hours. But it was just wrong and flew in the face of what angels are supposed to be about. I couldn’t believe it when the Angel Gabriel (Brendan Penny) showed up to save the day, and he told her what a good job she did! He left Liam’s fate up to her as long as she first finally listened to the one good angel with some sense, her assistant, Agon, Liam’s handler. She should have been fired and threatened with H.E. double hockey sticks.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Christmas Charade

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Charade…A Nod to a Classic Caper Flick?

Whitney is an elementary school librarian who has always been wrapped in a cocoon of safety by her parents who own a home security firm. Reading a Christmas story to the kids, she concludes with a lecture on the dangers of using incandescent bulbs on a Christmas tree. The kids look at her quizzically. Rachel Skarsten is as appealing as heck in this role. She is single of course, and doesn’t use an online dating app because, you know, Murderers! And she has the stats to back it up. Plus, she is timid and shy, though one senses she wants to break out of her shell.

While on a blind date set up by a trusted friend, she sits down in front of the wrong guy in a green sweater and gets roped into an FBI sting operation. Corey Sevier is Josh, the FBI agent who does not act at all like a blind date should. When she is put in the picture she plays along and gets invited to help plan a Christmas Ball by the FBI target’s girlfriend. The very party that Josh needs to get into to trap his man! Unable to extricate herself without endangering the operation, Whitney agrees to be a part of the sting,  much to Josh’s consternation and objections. Josh is a surly lone wolf type who grew up in foster care, does not have a family, and is not a Christmas fan. “It’s just another day to me”. Cue montage of Josh “training” Whitney in basic FBI survival skills. Since Whitney learned how to defend herself at an early age thanks to her parents, during the martial arts tutorial she whips Josh’s butt. Whitney starts to enjoy herself. In fact, throughout the movie, Whitney proves to be much better at Josh’s job than Josh is. He is played by Corey Sevier, who is as good in his role as Rachel is in hers.  The chemistry between the two was terrific, as it has to be between the two leads in a caper movie. Or was this a parody of a caper movie? When I think about it, I’m going to go with parody. Nothing concerning their mission is grounded in reality and they are laughably inept at everything they do to catch the bad guys. But they never get caught out because the bad guys are even more inept. This theory also covers some inexplicable plot holes that I would have to blame someone for. It was helmed by the directing and writing team of  Corey, who is a favorite of mine, and his writing partner and real-life wife, Kate Pragnell.  What was with that Tango scene that dropped into the movie out of nowhere? And the magic rope that formed a loop in midair? The script was cute and clever. At one point when Whitney and Josh are crawling through the ventilation system, Whitney quotes from Die Hard, “the best Christmas movie ever.” Yes, they went there.

The one strike against this movie, for me, was Whitney’s parents. They made me feel very stabby, especially her controlling father, who smothered her with over-protectiveness for most of the movie. I don’t want to spoil anything (this time) but in a very funny twist at the end, their whole schtick led to the best scene in the movie. All was forgiven by me, (but not Whitney.) That is, until the inevitable reconciliation scene which concludes the story. Of course we also have the kiss at the very end when Whitney and Josh decide to be girlfriend and boyfriend for reals.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Cut, Color, Murder

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Dye, Die, Don’t Bother

I don’t have a bad word to say about the actors in this new Hallmark mystery series. Gonzalo and McPartlin were just fine, and they had a good rapport. But boy oh boy was it dumb. This is a new entry in Hallmark’s spunky female amateur detective line. They usually run their own “womanly” business so they can take off whenever one of their acquaintances or customers gets murdered in order to catch the killer. We have flower shops, bookstores, antique stores, and bakeries. We also have matchmakers(!?), wedding photographers, crossword puzzle editors, and podcast hosts. Strangely, in two of my favorites, Aurora Teagarden and Mystery 101, the spunky female amateur detectives actually have mainstream professions. With the arrival of Cut, Color, Murder, we now have a beauty shop owner. What took them so long?

In this one, Julie is taking her talents to the world of beauty pageants in which her younger sister is a participant and she is doing hair. The bitchy showrunner gets murdered and there are plenty of suspects because she was evil to absolutely everyone. Julie is the widow of a policeman who was killed in the line of duty (or was it an unsolved cold-blooded murder?). So she has ties to the police department primarily through the chief of police who she has wrapped around her little finger. Enter new guy, Ryan McPartlin, a handsome hotshot detective with whom she butts heads because he is a professional. After Julie meets an anonymous text messager alone in a spooky abandoned house at night because he/she has info about her husband, it was remote throwing time. Except I had to find it first because I had already thrown it after all the laws she broke and chain of evidence procedures ignored in the meantime.  She is rescued from certain death by Ryan and let’s just say this show leaves no cliche unincluded.

We know this is a series because after the mystery is solved we have a bit of a cliffhanger while Julie is having a pow-wow with her dead husband at the cemetery because she has decided to move on (is that something you just decide to do?) and wants to give him a heads up ( I guess?). We know that there is going to be an over-arching mystery of her trying to solve her husband’s murder and getting into all kinds of trouble. Not a spoiler, because I’m not psychic, but I predict that the murderer of her husband turns out to be the indulgent good-guy/father-figure/police chief in an unknown number of episodes hence.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

February 9, 2022

Along Came a Nanny

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It’s the Script, Stupid!

**3 out of 10 stars**I watched this all the way through so that earns it at least 2 stars. but man oh man was this Manny,(Cameron Mathison) though cute, the dumbest detective ever? His whole methodology consisted of A) writing all the of the names of the people in the neighborhood and drawing arrows from one to another and then studying his drawing in bed night after night like it was Holy Writ. B) congregating on the sidewalk with the other Nannies and asking if they’ve seen anything unusual. And C) flirting with the pretty Nanny (Sarah Lancaster) on walks while they are pretending to be sleuths. D) Leave brain disengaged. The perp was entirely obvious, though the motive for the robberies was so dumb, I kept saying to myself “No, It couldn’t be…too lame.” Plot holes a mile wide. The big clue is a pen with the burglars fingerprints on it, yet they just had to match the prints found at the crime scene with the suspects prints on file as he had a previous record. If you are watching this for the romance, forget that too. Not a bit of charm or chemistry. Lazy and lame, the scriptwriter should have been ashamed to take a paycheck for this drivel.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

October 13, 2014