Hallmark is scrambling to write Lori Loughlin off When Calls The Heart's new season
First, let us put your minds at ease: No, Hallmark’s When Calls The Heart is not being canceled. Despite Hallmark firing star Lori Loughlin in the fallout of the FBI’s “Varsity Blues” operation, the soapy Canadian Western—which, as readers of The A.V. Club, you absolutely know and are familiar with—will follow through on its story of schoolteacher Elizabeth Thatcher Thornton, some hunky Mountie, and the wholesome-as-fuck denizens of Hope Falls.
Hallmark itself put out an Instagram post saying it “has no plans” to cancel the series, which, only three episodes into its sixth season, has been put on hold as the writers figure out how to scrub Loughlin’s Abigail Stanton from the remaining episodes, which, we’re assuming, have already been filmed. Lucky for them, it seems there’s plenty of old mine shafts for her character to fall into, sight unseen.
“We know millions of fans are on pins and needles wondering what will happen now,” reads a statement from showrunner Brian Bird. “Let us reassure you, When Calls the Heart has always been bigger than the sum of its parts, and it has not been cancelled. With the full support of the network, we have gone on a creative hiatus to do some retooling on the remaining season 6 episodes. That process has already begun. Hope Valley will return to your TV screens as soon as we can bring the episodes to you.”
This news follows Loughlin also getting evicted from Netflix’s Fuller House, the final season of which will reportedly see no visits from Aunt Becky. Though there are fewer mine shafts for her to fall into in modern-day San Francisco, there are the black holes in the eye sockets of the show’s cast members, the likes of whom have been irrevocably numbed by five seasons’ worth of regurgitating 25-year old catchphrases. Let’s just say she fell in one of those.