Virgin River - does it get better?

[blueismycolor]

Recommended by two friends.

All I’ve seen so far (3 episodes) is the tired cliche of city girl moves to small town and meets a love interest who’s lived there all his life. Seems obvious she’s going to struggle at work and to be accepted but clearly will succeed.

Do I persevere?

It's terrible, utterly implausible storylines, and acting - but still relaxing & easy to watch, beautiful scenery & the lovely small-town vibe you can pretend you'd like to live in. There are so many invented jobs, for everyone, that allow the characters to waft around happily & do no actual work - including Mel who does approx 1 hour a day as a nurse / midwife.

My favourite bit of bonkersness is the plane crash Jack and Mel were in which never gets referred to again.

I think Mel refers to the crash vair fleetingly about two series later where Jack is taking her off on another mystery date somewhere and she does a little laughing shrug and kinda says 'you know like the last time the pilot had a heart attack' and they have a quick couply smirk and a chuckle, and the plot just rolls on to a homespun fentanyl death or something going down at the bake truck. Ahhhhh, love it.

Yes - no one ever worries about money, pays for anything ('put it on my tab'; 'settle up with me later'). Mel walks away from her job with no notice. When do they make the food? Preach rarely chops an onion. Lizzie never rolls dough. Yet the bake truck is groaning with croissants and doughnuts.

YES! Who does the baking??

I've lost interest but I will watch the rest of it, my DH put it on as he thought I'd like it and was hooked up until the last series. DH lost interest after series 2 and regretted suggesting it as he found Hope so irritating! I love Doc but found myself counting how many time he said to everyone 'Oh come on now'

Who eats it all, they seem to be forever taking each other pies and muffins but Connie is about the only one who is plump.

How does it compare to Hart of Dixie which sounds very similar, does anyone know?
Loved Firefly lane so can definitley recommend that.

oh I love that for the teeth.

I love the scenery in VR but some of the characters- sheesh! Who in their right minds would put up with Hope? 😂

And if you think VR is bad then don't watch Sweet Magnolias.

Both fall under the secret pleasure banner for me and I very much doubt my family would enjoy either. Same goes for Outlander and The Crown.

My favourite part was the way two of them literally got away with murder because every time someone in authority rumbled them they turned a blind eye because the victim was a bad man and the perps were good peoples. I couldn’t watch season 5, though, with the meth lab or whatever it was on Jack’s caravan site, that was clearly going to get magicked away after ten minutes of gun to the head peril.

Hart of Dixie was funnier and more knowing.
I managed one episode of Chesapeake Shores and just couldn’t.

The best worst bit of Chesapeake Shores was when the dad (can't remember his name) had a plane crash, survived but the treatment for his injuries led to an addiction to painkillers, which was remarkably quickly resolved a couple of episodes later, and never referred to ever again!

The producers/writers seem to like to introduce just a tiny bit of jeopardy, but then resolve it really quickly, so us tender viewers are too troubled by it, I think.

Painkiller addictions seem to be a very common theme in US dramas of late - unfortunately it's genuinely a huge problem there but can be a bit of a lazy 'bad things happen to good people' plot line.

Worth watching for that reason is Painkiller

Light, frothy viewing it is not. But it's compelling and very shocking.

I tried the first episode and had to turn it off after the lead woman told someone "did you know that there is a Starbucks in Kuala Lumpur". And he repeated it like "in Kuala Lumpur, well I'll be damned". And I realised the writers had plucked a foreign place name out of the air under the assumption that it must be obviously be a rural backwater as it's not in the US of A. Rather than, you know, the capital of Malaysia........even for a comfort watch yada yada, that was shocking.

@Isanyonereallyanonymous I

How does it compare to Hart of Dixie which sounds very similar, does anyone know?

It is VERY like Hart of Dixie - in fact the grumpy doctor who is running the practice that the main female character joins (nurse practitoner in VR, doctor in Hart of Dixie) is played by the same actor.

The difference is that Hart of Dixie is a quite a lot lighter and more comedic. Both are the same gentle, cosy, river drifting along backwater, bit of love interest, warm watching.
VR is very odd as woven into it are these randomly very dramatic story lines like a lumbar yard run as a cover for money launderers/drug dealers or Iraq war PTSD.

I watched VR first and then HoD and loved them both. As others have said, if you liked HoD and this sort of thing generally, Chesapeak Shores is great but I think with all of these things you need to give it a chance to get into the characters.

If anyone needs an antidote, then Shameless US and UK are on Netflix.

That's one hell of an antidote!!!