When Calls the Heart : Season 2 is SO different than 1

I just recently started watching and finished the second season today. Season 2 feels wrong in so many ways. The hair, the clothes, the town. Season 1 was charming and felt more real to the period. In season 2 most of the women are wearing their hair down and the clothes don't seem right. Also, the town just looks too pristine. Just had to say. Maybe others feel the same way.

Also, Rosemary is very annoying, I don't like The whole Hamilton/Elizabeth's family storyline, Elizabeth doesn't journal anymore, Jack doesn't draw, there was very little teaching to speak of (isn't that why Elizabeth left in the first place), and why get rid of all the other characters?

I think they 'upgraded' most of the peripheral characters/actors too, because I think they married off Mrs Dunbar to that other miner, Dewitt Graves from S1, in S2, but it was unrecognizable because they totally recast Mrs Dunbar, her son, and Dewitt Graves with different (possibly better looking) actors between seasons.

I'm pretty sure they're the same actors. They look different because they changed the whole wardrobe, costuming, and hairstyles of every character in season 2. It's distracting.

They are the same actors.

I totally agree. I really enjoyed the first season, and was shocked by the changes to just about everything in season 2. Did Hallmark take over the show completely?

Re: Season 2 feels wrong in so many ways.

I agree! In season 1 women looked somewhat authentically correct to that time of the century - hair and clothes - nice and neat. Season 2: looks like Coal Valley got new hairdresser and tailor! Even children dressed in very bright and colorful clothes, not like kids of miners. I don't know, season 2 got me very disappointed from the start. I probably will not continue to watch :(

I agree with you. I miss the vibe of season 1. Even though it was just a feel goody, low budget, cable TV show a bit on the schmaltzy side, it was a good "charming" kind of schmaltzy. It was fluffy comfort food but the little details of that season (Elizabeth's journals, the attempt at more accurate period clothing, the incidental music, the side story lines that featured Elizabeth's teaching adventures) gave the show a lovely quality that's totally missing from season 2.

I'm assuming Hallmark decided to hooch up the costumes, hair/makeup, and set designs to try and make the show seem more updated and polished, but in my opinion, it backfired and has made the show seem cheap and kinda kitschy. The costumes are a hodge-podge of styles and periods. It's like wardrobe just decided to help themselves to whatever they could scrounge up from someone's attic or rummage sale without even considering if it's period appropriate or not. This might be understandable for a community theater production or high school students putting on a play, but not for a professional TV show. Even if low budget, they managed to do a much better job with season 1.

Some of the Season 2 dresses are pretty, but they don't match the time period and that looks lazy. Lazy = diminished quality. Amateurish. And the coats Those blasted pale blue and Easter egg color coats have to go! Hope Valley is a dusty, dirty, mining town. Why they have Abigail and her ilk waltzing around town in a light blue coat is beyond me. Elizabeth we can cut a little slack because she's a city girl with a rich daddy to send her fancy, frilly, impractical clothes, but Abigail, the other widows, and children look ridiculous. The set looks wet and muddy. You would think it would be easier on the wardrobe peeps to work with darker color coats because mud/dirt wouldn't show as much. They must be working overtime trying to clean all those pastel coats and dresses.


Same with the hair. It would probably be easier on the hair crew if they pinned it all up. It's wet and windy in Vancouver (or wherever they film the show). I've noticed the hair looks messy in a lot of the outdoor scenes because of this. It's all stringy and windblown. It would be easier to maintain if they just pinned it up.

The hair started to change slightly in season 1. I think towards the mid to late season Elizabeth started to wear her hair down and then Abigail followed. The introduction of Rosemary was the beginning of the end for me. I have no problem with the actress or anything, but the character is just way over the top and looks WAY too modern with the beachy highlighted hair. She just has a very modern look to her in general, even in season 1 she in particular did.

For whatever reason, Hallmark seems to think they need to overdose in pastel colors, overdone makeup, and cookie cutter, gingerbread towns that look like Laura Ashley threw up all over them in order to keep their viewers watching. Not true. What they need to do is get back to the roots of the show. Cut the contrived soap opera antics. I've had enough of secret exes and secret ex daughter in laws popping up out of nowhere. Hey, where's Gowan's long lost love child? Is that next?

Anyway, the show just needs to find it's way back. As cheesy as it sounds it needs to get back to the children and the citizens of Coal Valley. Yes, Jack and Elizabeth are the focal point of the show, but the show is also very much the people of Coal/Hope Valley and I hope they go back there. It was a simpler time back then, so I can totally be happy with simpler plot lines. I want Elizabeth's journals back too!

This is spot-on, I'm just finishing season two and becoming more irritated by the minute. The clothing..good Lord miners' wives or coal-town women and children did not own pale blue or white or blush-colored coats, but yes, just a "Sunday Best" dress and maybe one or two others.muddy streets and clean hemlines, huge bleached teeth on most actors (to be expected, I suppose) and Hollywood ballayage highlights and hair extensions on the key women. Some men in coats which looked "fur-like" would ONLY be made of real leather or shearling, or other furs or leathers, NOT micro suede, which they obviously are. The blue jeans were period-appropriate and oh man, did they look good on the delicious Jack (he is now the only reason I watch but he seems to be becoming weaker wnd hardly ever in his very becoming Mountie garb, bring it back) and WHY can't he just properly court Elizabeth? So tedious) but Levi's were not remotely tailored in those days. Let's see what else..shiny, shiny clean, profesionally loose-waved hair and perfect makeup on all women. In season one the permanently tan California darling Lori Loughlin had manicured nails (ballet pinkish-white color) in every episode. And on at least one occasion, Elizabeth taught school in a head-to-toe bright white frock, in another she wore a very fitted white jacket which I believe had a zipper up front. Oh and can we talk about cleavage? Random now but lots of it in season two, ladies in higher echelons did not wear Wonder Bras in this time period, and matrons in coal towns didn't wear pastel or white v-neck cotton blouses with visible cleavage in 1910. I'm sure I'll spot more things..such silliness this season.

I can't get over how much more artificial everything looks. From the town to the costumes, to the caked-on makeup. These are supposed to be hardy mining town women and they're more made up than the girls at the Clinique counter. And the wavy, loose hair is completely inappropriate. It would be distracting even if the story hadn't become so predictable.

OMG I can't stand everyone's perfect loose waves. It makes me roll my eyes every episode. Back then a woman's hair was ALWAYS pinned up. If anything Elizabeth's hair would be in a braid or ponytail tied with a ribbon. Esp the older women in the town, no way they'd have their hair down. Looks so out of place. First season come back!

I came to imdb just to see if others saw it too. It is SUCH a dissapointment. They all look like they would be in any city today. One guy was wearing blue jeans in the episode I just watched. That is so not right. I wish they'd go back to authentic. Shame on them.

Actually Blue Jeans were patented in the late 1800s by Levi Strauss but they were around before that. They were made from dungaree material, now known as blue jean material. They were actually designed for miners and cowboys so the inclusion of blue jeans as costumes is authentic, although they would have been the button-fly version.

However, the women wearing their hair down, the makeup and some of the fasteners used in the clothing would not have been used back then.

It's too bad. The first season felt more authentic, and underlined the harshness of living in those towns. Even with the switch to being a lumber town, and the widows coming into some money, they would not have been dressed in such "modern" styles.

It's not just the wardrobe and sets the dialog is full of serious anachronisms too. Just saw an ep where pastor Frank asks Abigail if she's angling for an "invite". This bastardization of invite from a verb into a noun is a very recent (and VERY annoying) 21st century phenomenon. Back then, and right up to the early two-thousands, Lee would have asked if she was fishing for an "invitation".

Same here - I was looking to see if the writers/show runner/production company changed. It's terrible now. I loved season 1. It's not just the production values hat have gone way askew, but even the style of shooting, writing, and acting. It's now far more a soap opera than historical drama. It's truly a disappointment. It's like Hallmark thought they could turn this show into a low-budget Downton Abbey. (Which despite the soap opera style, DA is a fantastic show to watch BECAUSE of the awesome and time-period accurate production values.)

Same here - I was looking to see if the writers/show runner/production company changed. It's terrible now. I loved season 1. It's not just the production values hat have gone way askew, but even the style of shooting, writing, and acting. It's now far more a soap opera than historical drama. It's truly a disappointment. It's like Hallmark thought they could turn this show into a low-budget Downton Abbey. (Which despite the soap opera style, DA is a fantastic show to watch BECAUSE of the awesome and time-period accurate production values.)

Agreed. Season 1 had its silly moments clotheswise - how the men from the mines were rarely really dirty, when they should have come out of there black as pitcha nd filthy and just about everything in the town should have been coated in a slight dust, and yet its pristine, but they got the clothes and hair at least mostly right. i saw picture of s2 and i swear i thought it was from a dream episode or something, that Elizabeth was trying to imagine their lives 100 years on. its lost its charm entirely. i remember reading once that a phrase of the era was 'loose hair, loose woman' in regards to a woman having their hair down. women would have washed their hair about once a month at best and so it was pinned up for practically and also to just hide it's lack of being clean. and there are so many early 1900 hairstyles that are flattering and beautiful.
the tonged hair just makes them all look from 2010 not 1910 and when they've got their (super modern) coats on, they all look like a bunch of modern women that haopen to be outside! those clothes!! these are miners wives, they're poor. VERY poor, and yet, apparently they have super modern clothes, clothes they change daily rather than having only a couple dresses they rotate and can afford expensive dyes. the linens all being pure white despite the fact they'd most likely be washed in a river.
I'm not expecting historic perfection, but it's now just a modern show with slightly retro clothes.

Agree with everything you said! Esp being the wife of a lowly, poor coal miner - at best you'd have one dress you wore through the week and one dress that was your "Sunday best" that was worn to all social events, church, and funerals. This show has gotten beyond ridiculous. We're not even going to get on Season 3 New Year's Eve celebration - those dresses looked like something you'd see on thee red carpet today smh

---

In season 2 most of the women are wearing their hair down and the clothes don't seem right.

---

The JC Penny evening gowns and blouses with lace glued on doesn't do it for you? =P

I watch this because the ridiculousness is entertaining. So many goofs. Why is there a pitcher and water basin sitting on a barrel in the saloon?? And I have never seen a town where a car and stagecoach travel the same street.

I watch because of Jack, he's wonderful.

LOL The pitcher & basin, along with indoor plumbing is an anachronism indeed But the stagecoach & car, I could chalk it up to being set in rural Canada in only the second decade of the 20th century. Sure Henry Gowen had a car, but for longer trips and/or the average outing by most people in Hope Valley, horse & buggy & stagecoach would be the more popular mode of transportation.

Still, WCTH is no Downton Abbey when it comes to especially costume accuracy, storyline, and budget, so yeah there are bound to many errors. lol

LOL! - I'm so glad I'm not the only one that's being driven nuts by the hair and makeup!

When a young woman turned 17, the hair went up. Women were only caught with their hair down in an emergency. Mostly they wore caps as well, especially outdoors.
Why, oh why, do these shows take such liberties. They don't need to do that. I would much rather they be period authentic well, not period, but era. :O

You're right about the caps! Even up until the 1960's both men & women always wore hats, especially outside! Women may have worn them a little less often, but a man NEVER went outside the house without his hat & these guys do it all the time! It's stupid. :(

"Every human life is worth the same and worth saving."-Kingsley Shacklebolt

I agree! Although I think past shows like Downton Abbey (set in 1912-1926) and Mad Men (set in 1960-1970) has spoiled us for dramas that are well written & meticulous to their period/era specific fashions. (Although even Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, despite how clean her town was too, was better at depicting their period costumes back during its run in the 1990s, than WCTH often is now. lol)

I completely agree with everything here. As much as I enjoyed the overall plot, they just changed everything else in season 2. I do love the clothes in season 2 but they did indeed not look right for that particular time period. If you want to do a time period tv show do not switch it up to look completely different by the second season. Also, I don't like that the show didn't keep the whole storyline of the movie. There are unexplained things that are not seeming to be answer. Have no idea if I'll continue to watch the show at this rate.

I wonder if the producers of the show ever read these comments. If they do, I wonder how they will react? I watch, hoping for something better and picking apart all the show's problems. My wife just laughs at how clean the women's clothes are and I just love the perfect GRAVEL streets. What audience are they trying for? I know it's "G" rated and that's great, but come on folks. Can't they make look at least a little realistic??!! Don't they hire consultants who can offer some suggestions? We will give it another try next season, but unless it gets a lot better, we're gone.

I've been watching this show every night and was shocked by the changes in season 2. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Everything looks far too beautiful for a poor mining town. Even if the saw mill took over and the mine closed, the change wouldn't've have been so abrupt. Season 1 had old-fashioned charm.

I'm on the 4th episode and another thing annoying me is Elizabeth, and how oblivious she acts around her friend Charles. She really doesn't see his affections? And she continues to entertain all his attentions, it's like she forgot about Jack. Sometimes it all feels very soapy.

I'll have to keep watching.

The fancy modern hair colors and styles are extremely distracting. I'm trying to ignore all the changes and just focus on the stories into the later seasons. I still love just looking at actor Daniel Lissing. He's a beautiful man.

Visit my website: Voyagers Guidebook!~
http://www.voyagersguidebook.net

I really appreciated all these comments. We are not getting When Calls The Heart on Pay TV here in Australia unless Foxtel is running it, which we don't have. So glad to have these warnings about Season 2. We may not go there. We are still getting DVD's of Season one of a bookstore locally.

Sorry to be right off track here but I have to say it totally peeves me that seeing we can view Region 1 DVDs on our compatible player (Region 4 with Dual ability) why can't Hallmark put subtitles on the movies?

Some of the audio quality on Hallmark stuff is absolutely atrocious, so the lack of subtitles is not fair at all.

Thanks so much for all the fantastic feedback. My wife and I will be warned not to go on to Season 2, but I love the main characters Erin Krakow and Daniel Lissing.