Take Sullivan's Crossing at face value. The Canadian series, which made its American debut on The CW on Oct. 4, combines contemporary chick lit with the sensibilities of a 2000s teen drama. It even features two early-aughts heartthrobs: Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls) and Chad Michael Murray (Gilmore Girls and, of course, One Tree Hill).
Based on bestselling romance author Robyn Carr's book series, Sullivan's Crossing is the CW version of Netflix's mega-popular Virgin River (another Carr adaptation). Their similarities are abundant, from the shared cast members and small-town setting, right on down to the red-haired medical professional lead. Only this ginger doctor with the complicated past is delightfully bratty.
Sullivan's Crossing, which was renewed for Season 2 in June 2023, follows Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan, who fronts Hallmark's When Hope Calls), a celebrated Boston neurosurgeon in deep legal trouble. There's the first point of difference between Sullivan's and its ilk. Maggie is, like, facing jail time for medical negligence — or at least the revocation of her medical license. In the opening minutes of the premiere, she's accepting a Rising Neurosurgeon Award when the FBI puts her in cuffs. This is a soap opera, after all.
The Feds are on her tail and, more importantly, she's steeped in the sort of self-alienation crisis that characterizes this streaming-friendly genre ("I feel like somewhere along the way I lost myself," she says.). So she books it to her hometown in rural Nova Scotia. That's when Scott Patterson (of 'Luke and Lorelai' fame) does his grumpy but honorable thing as Maggie's father "Sully" Sullivan, the owner of Sullivan's Crossing campground.
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Where Virgin River sent Mel into picturesque unknown territory, Sullivan's Crossing returns Maggie to the place—and the people—who raised her. But her relationship with her poor, outdoorsy father broke down sometime after her mother (played by Virgin River's Lynda Boyd) remarried a wealthy neurosurgeon. Mags has been traveling in stuffy Boston elite circles ever since. Her Hallmark villain boyfriend—also a doctor, and pointedly a recent divorcee—is a gaslighting snob who says things like "we make sense."
Maggie's hometown is more bayside cottages than sweeping mountains, but it still scratches that itch. And its quaint cast of characters do the usual truth-telling. Frank and Edna Cranebear, the surrogate parents who call her "Magpie," run a backwoods haberdashery. A woman, Connie (played by Lauren Hammersley, aka Charmaine from Virgin River), is in charge of the local fire department and first responders. (No doubt Maggie will volunteer her neurosurgeon services at some point.) Maggie's childhood best friend Sydney never left the town, and the least Mags could have done is called once in a while.
Another key difference between Mel and Maggie: The latter is boldly unlikable. She storms out of the first bonfire back home because, well, everything is about her. We learn that patients at the Boston hospital adore her, but her first reaction to old man Roy's dementia episode is basically 'Stick him in a home!' She gives the firecracker Mary Sue thing a whole new meaning.
Then there's the Chad Michael Murray of it all, which is admittedly a huge draw. He plays Cal, an appropriately gruff handyman working under Sully's auspices. Maggie's spotless white trench coat in the woods is almost as predictable as Cal's pristine white muscle tank, untouched by whatever entry-level lumberjackery he's engaged in. Again, face value. They're primed for an enemies-to-lovers romance worthy of your laundry-folding time.
You can pretty much chart the trajectory of Sullivan's Crossing. Cal has already asked Maggie whether she gets tired of telling everyone she's fine. Maybe—just maybe—by the time her jerk boyfriend invades, Cal will demonstrate his superior appreciation of Maggie's quirks. More flashbacks to her happy girlhood with Sully should paint a fuller picture of her present-day daddy issues. As for her journey of self-discovery, she's got a lot of changing to do. Let's just hope she can swing it before the FBI comes knocking again. Frank seems like the type to have a doomsday bunker, no?
New episodes of Sullivan's Crossing air Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW and stream free the next day on The CW app.
