The Real West starring Kimberly Sustad was only okay. It felt like it was made based off the popularity of Yellowstone.

I just watched a couple of 2024 mysteries, the Alison Sweeney one and the Curious Caterer from April. I didn't realize they're doing another Curious Caterer this weekend.

These mysteries are so lightweight I can't really focus my attention on them.

Watched the new Curious Caterer and liked it more than the previous one. Maybe just my mood.

Also watched a couple of new “series” that they may or may not ever continue. Jazz Ramsey: A K-9 Mystery with Rachel Karsten is ostensibly about a K-9 unit, but Karsten is a dog trainer and usually leaves the dog behind. She’s also a former firefighter so it’s a little less absurd when she horns in on police investigations by Corey Sevier.

Nelly Knows Mysteries has Pascale Hutton, who apparently does movies only with Kavan Smith. It’s more lighthearted, and they really lean into her interfering with the investigations.

Both were fine.

Great American Family has already begun their 24-7 Christmas movies schedule. Started this weekend. I think they've already premiered one or two 2024 originals in the lineup.

It was easy to remember their channel when it was 1620 on my Comcast, but I always have to look up that it’s now on 1461. In the next three days, they’re running all Christmas movies, but only one from 2024, with Kristin Wollett who I’m not familiar with. So I assume that’s the one you’re talking about,

Her IMDb includes such credits as Locker Room Woman, Park Mother (uncredited), and Female Wedding Singer.

Picked off another couple 2024 mysteries. The Cases of Mystery Lane was the second in the series, and the podcast plot gave it an OMITB feel. These are light comedy with Aimee Garcia and Paul Campbell, and it did have funny moments.

Amanda Schull and Brendan Penny were in a new “series,” Family Practice.” Schull is not a family practitioner but a former veteran now working as a doctor who is also a single mom, hence the title. This was a “serious” one, but also fine.

Clearing off room for the new holiday stuff coming up!

The Christmas movies have officially started on the Hallmark channels. I'll start mixing them in with my Horror Challenge viewing.

There's three movies that premiere this weekend.
Twas the Date before Christmas- It on my watchlist on Peacock and stars Robert Buckley from One Tree Hill.
Holiday Crashers- premieres tonight 10/19. The plot revolves around the leads crashing work Christmas parties. Sounds fun.
Scouting for Christmas- Sunday 10/20 stars Tamra Mowry. I'll be skipping this one.

I think Merritt Patterson's new one premieres tonight on Great American Family.

It's a Wonderful Lifetime 2024 schedule
https://people.com/lifetime-2024-christmas-movie-schedule-exclusive-8728339
https://www.aenetworks.com/article/lifetime-reveals-full-holiday-movie-slate-for-annual-its-a-wonderful-lifetime-programming-event-2


Another guide for this upcoming holiday season:
https://tvline.com/lists/christmas-t...s-movies-2024/

I think Hallmark is off to a good start. ‘Twas the Date Before Christmas with Amy Groening (from The Santa Summit) and Robert Buckley was an easy watch, and we got a film with Lyndsy Fonseca to kick off the Countdown, so yeah….pretty nice start.

If you watched the recent Halloween one, that counts for the challenge!

I've used three wild card entries for Hallmark movies on the horror challenge but you might be right that last fall movie had ghosts in it I think.

Holiday Crashers was also a fun watch. Hallmark let Daniella Monet get away with being adventurous in this film, at least for a Hallmark film. As noted on a podcast I listen too all the time, she had that great wedding outfit that let her mid-riff be revealed (flowers to Monet for not being afraid to show off her body, curves and all), and she got to wear two brightly colored pairs of leather pants.

Lyndsy Fonseca seems to get more attractive as the years go by, she looked wonderful in some of party dresses she wore in the film.

The podcast noted that this was one of the strongest starts to a Hallmark Christmas countdown in many, many, years. You could say that was damning with faint praise but I could also hear it in the voice of the podcasters that both films lived up to and even exceeded expectations for the first batch of films as we usually get the better films being reserved for closer to and on Thanksgiving weekend, but not this year. Back to back films with very recognizable actors who are fan favorites that bode well for the rest of the Countdown.

I say this even though Scouting For Christmas was just okay, as I liked the cast but there is a review site that noted that there was a noticeable lack of chemistry between the main stars that frustrated them and I have to agree. Still, there have been much worse Countdown films. I also like the lady who played the control freak Scout Master.

I watched the Christmas Wreath GAC film, and am in the process of watching the GAC with Merritt Patterson, and Christopher Russell, two stars of Hallmark films, but I have to say both films did not get close to being as good as Twas the Date and Holiday Crashers.

GAC is clearly still trying to fill in their roster with stars who can really act well because too many of the GAC films have main cast members that sometimes show off an acting ability that is not much better than what you would get in community theater plays, as the saying goes. In fact, having watched my niece star in some really well put together High School play productions (where people paid pretty good money for seats, and there were sell-out crowds) sometimes the acting is very cringe compared to the talent in some of the school plays I have seen.

Not to bring politics into this thread (again), but I wish GAC had a main spokesperson for their channel that was a bit less outspoken with her personal views, as that is probably hurting GAC's recruitment efforts, what with attracting more folks with honey vs vinegar and all that.

To be fair, maybe they are aware of this because I saw a nice bit during the commercial break in one of the their repeat airings of The Spruces and the Pines (a film that is a fave of mine, this is my 4th or 5th watch of this film) where Danica McKellar talks about her newfound appreciation of Christmas as she leaned into religion a bit more the past few years with nary a vibe that she was sneering at those of us who are a bit more open-minded than than Candace Cameron Bure.

I need to look at the Lifetime schedule, but this does not feel like the year where I am eager to watch Lifetime Holiday films. In years past they had some fun ones, but so far I have heard no buzz at all about any of the films on their upcoming slate. I think UP also throttled back this year which is kind-of a bummer but I guess I am more likely not to have to cram in catching all the Hallmark films before Christmas, due to less to watch on channels like Lifetime, UP, and ION (which used to have a small number of originals that I would watch).

I know that BET+ has leaned in big-time to Christmas originals this year and last, but thank goodness I did not subscribe to another streamer. I feel that between Netflix, Hallmark, and Lifetime, I would barely have time to start trying to catch all the BET+ originals.

Still, knowing BET+ has a bunch of originals that I am well aware of makes me slightly sad as I need to stick to my guns and not just subscribe for a few months to watch as many of them as possible, lol!!

I probably won't watch the 5 year Christmas Party as they shouldn't have let Katie Findlay cut her hair so short. She looked gorgeous in The Bridge with longer hair.

She does other work outside the network so that's a bit of an overreaction.

I agree with you, it has taken me a moment to get used to the fact that she seems to like having short hair. Fortunately, Katie Findlay can actually act and I still feel her films (especially on Hallmark) are better than average. She definitely looked great with longer hair, but I will just have to accept that she is not a fan of maintaining longer hair.

The 5 year Christmas Party is supposed to be one of the better Countdown films, so I will definitely be watching.

https://deadline.com/2024/10/hallmar...m_term=6431290

Hallmark sued for age discrimination.

The suit is from a longtime casting director and she alleges that Hallmark is not hiring "older" actresses anymore. Ex. Holly Robinson Peete and Lacey Chabert.

Lol.

Djariya beat me to the punch but now we finally know why Chabert was happy to jump to Netflix.

Hallmark, I have some advice for you to take to heart, be careful how eager you are to put your older talent out to pasture. Some of that younger talent we see on UP, GAC, and Netflix originals produces some very cringe acting.

Wonder if this year is the beginning of the end when it comes to my anticipation of Hallmarks Countdown to Christmas schedule.

I enjoyed A Vintage Christmas, the new Merritt Patterson movie on Great American. Though the name must have been picked completely at random, I have no idea how it applies to the story or characters. We are beginning to run out of viable Christmas movie names unless they start going with Japanese light novel naming conventions.

I saw the poster for the Katie Findlay movie, and yes, her hair is very short. I like her so I'll watch it regardless, though.

They probably have AI bots scraping lyrics to every Christmas song and deduping them against existing titles. Coming next: "And Soon Miss Fannie Bright Was Seated by My Side" starring Autumn Reeser as a character not named Fannie Bright.

Nothing wrong with wanting to find new talent for your movies but Hallmark has always cast actresses who are over 35 in their movies.

I might as well just lay down and die if Lacey Chabert is "too old."