A few months ago, Hallmark invited me to brave the grey and rain of winter to check out its 2026 TV series Hope Valley: 1874. At the time, the cast spoke with us about filming during its sister series When Calls The Heart’s off months, and how the colder, grittier environment was a good thing for the newcomer series. The frontier environment certainly makes this spinoff different from the original, and I wanted to know what the cast would like to see from Season 2.
Hope Valley: 1874 stars Hallmark regulars Bethany Joy Lenz and Benjamin Ayres, plus TV vet Jill Hennessy and younger actors Roan Curtis and Lachlan Quarmby. It’s a big deal to land a series that returns for a second season these days. (See: why streaming shows often get canceled after Season 1.) With that in mind, what’s next to come on the frontier? While the cast doesn’t know, they do have some ideas.
For Hennessy, her music career is an important part of who she is as a person, and she’d love to see her character Hattie use her pipes. She’s thinking a bonfire might be the way in as the show heads (presumably) into 1875 on the upcoming Hallmark schedule. Joy Lenz is also a musician, and she feels like it could be a cool thing for the Hallmark series to dig into, telling CinemaBlend:
I would love to do some scene out on the frontier where we have sort of the stereotypical bonfire. I got a guitar in my hand. We’re singing. I’ll do some harmonies with Joy Lenz. We got Lachlan there, he’ll get to play the spoons or something. We got a little band going. Roan and Jen are all singing. That would be awesome.
For Lachlan Quarmby and Roan Curtis, the stuff he loves most about the show is when some of the period details from the 1800s get highlighted. Curtis told me one thing she really loves about the show’s first season is when moments like learning about how “advanced fishing rods” already were crop up. She also told me she’s constantly on the lookout for making sure period details are right, even asking the directors if the word “wow” was in use at the time while filming a scene. (It was).
Details like this are important to Quarmby too, and he wants viewers to get to see some more historically accurate footage.
Washing my clothes in a stream with one of those washboards… There are certain things you forego for the ease of storytelling, and there are other things you try to do historically accurately. We’re always kind of like picking and choosing what we are going to do. For me, any of those things that are like, ‘How do they wash their clothes? How often?’ I think a nice scene of me just standing in a river just washing my clothes up, that’d be great.
I don’t know if Hallmark would be all in on a shirtless mountie, but I’m certainly not opposed!
Obviously, we’re still in the early stages for Hope Valley: 1874 Season 2, but it’s clear there’s a lot more left to explore in the 19th century universe. We’ll keep you posted as new episodes head down the pipeline and if you’re looking for how to watch the Hallmark series, it’s available on Hallmark+.
