No one knows its audience better than the Hallmark Channel, whose first scripted primetime series, “Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove,” premieres tonight.
The title’s a mouthful, but Macomber, who’s had three previous books adapted by Hallmark for high-rated Christmas movies, is to small-town warm and fuzzy what Stephen King is to small-town weird and scuzzy. Her name’s bound to draw fans.
I’m a hard-core drama junkie who’s never read one of Macomber’s books, and even I could see the appeal of “Cedar Cove,” which stars Andie MacDowell as a small-town judge and Dylan Neal as a newspaperman from Philadelphia who’s now running the local paper.
In the two-hour premiere MacDowell’s character, Olivia, is considering a big promotion that would take her away from the postcard-perfect Pacific Northwest town where she was born and raised and has been dispensing justice for years (and where her mother, daughter and that cute guy from the paper still live).
MacDowell’s Olivia is just headstrong enough to keep the series interesting.
Watch it
“Cedar Cove” premieres at 8 tonight on the Hallmark Channel
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