Cedar Cove: Season 1 (2013)

One of the fascinating things about the recent resurgence of television has been seeing certain channels and platforms producing scripted series for the first time, crystallising their particular atmospheres and demographics into longform narrative. Cedar Cove falls into that mould – based on the bestselling romance books by Debbie Macomber, it is the first scripted series to be commissioned by the Hallmark Channel, which previously only screened telemovies and miniseries, alongside infomercials and daytime talk programs. More than most other channels, Hallmark deals in experiences – and its experiences are generally shortform, bursts of warmth, comfort and safe harbour that are designed to be as dependable as they are disposable. Translating that into a television series is a challenge, just because comfort, like sentimentality, is one of the most difficult tonal registers to control over an extended period – it needs to be soothing without being soporific, like the steady momentum of a slowly moving stream. That Cedar Cove manages to achieve that balance is partly due to Andie McDowell in the lead role as Olivia Lockhart, a judge in a small fishing town just north of Seattle. All the show’s plots and suplots revolve around McDowell, who’s an inspired choice for this part – she’s always seemed to bathe in a more mellifluous timeframe from the films in which she’s been cast, a timeframe perhaps glimpsed in her sultry Maybellene commercials, but utterly perfected here; in Hallmark’s hands, Cedar Cove is a town which proceeds at the pace and lilt of Andie McDowell, and that’s saying something. Adding to the languour is the gorgeous cinematography – and while these glassy vistas are very much the Puget Sound of the Lifetime universe, there are still moments when it’s like glimpsing a unique Hallmark topography, a landscape made up entirely of greeting-card establishing shots, as the series creators seem to have sought out the most airbrushed harbours and hillsides they could find. If there’s anything that ruptures that mood, it’s a certain hostility towards the younger generation – at some of its most jarring moments, it feels designed to affirm 50-somethings that every life decision they ever made was the right one. Still, that affirmation is part of the wider Hallmark brand too - in the end, it feels aimed at anyone, really, who wants to receive a beautiful card from their younger self convincing them that they haven’t lost their way, or, if they have, that there’s still time and space to find it again.