Spoiler alert! This story discusses the first episode of Paris Is Always a Good Idea, which premiered July 30 on the 2026 TV schedule and can be streamed exclusively on Hallmark+.
Lacey Chabert’s newest project on the Hallmark calendar, Paris Is Always a Good Idea, premiered Thursday, promising a fabulous love story, as her character Chelsea Martin revisits old boyfriends around the world a decade after her summer abroad. I was more than ready to dive into all the amazing globetrotting, so it surprised me when the entire premiere episode of the book-to-screen adaptation revolved not around love, but rather Chelsea’s grief over her mother's death. Henry Czerny spoke with CinemaBlend about why that loss is so important to this story.
Henry Czerny plays Chelsea’s father Glenn Martin, who — along with her sister Annabelle (Rebecca Hanssen) — accompanies his daughter on a work trip to Paris in hopes of getting closure in the city where he met his late wife. One reason Paris Is Always a Good Idea works better as a series than a movie is because it allows that time for the family’s grief to be explored. I asked Czerny what made that such a vital plotline in a series about love, and he said:
I don't think you can have one without the other. I don't think you can have a full life without exploring the stuff that you don't want to feel. That makes the stuff that you love feeling so much more lovely. I'm not wishing it on anyone, but I don't know anyone who's immune from emotional struggle of some sort whatsoever. And embrace those, too, because they're stepping stones toward a sunrise or a sunset like that. Trust me, the view is coming, don't worry, stay with it.
The long-lasting effects of losing a loved one are explored in Paris Is Always a Good Idea — in both the Hallmark series and Jenn McKinlay’s novel — as Chelsea’s mother passed away 10 years before we meet the Martins. The streaming adaptation, however, alters the story a tad to make Christine (Anna Wilson-Jones) a significant character in the premiere.
It’s revealed that Christine left her family with a request to travel to Paris after her death, and she provided an itinerary (complete with prerecorded messages) of places she thought would be meaningful to Glenn, Chelsea and Annabelle. Chelsea had never felt ready to let her mother go, so a decade passed before her work trip in the City of Lights presented the opportunity to honor the itinerary.
The fact that an entire episode was dedicated to Chelsea’s mother — the impetus behind her journey to seek out three former lovers — speaks to Henry Czerny’s point. Death may be an inevitability of life, but losing someone doesn’t mean you can’t still find happiness. I look forward to seeing how this important message continues through the series.
The first two episodes of Paris Is Always a Good Idea are available to stream now on Hallmark+, with new episodes dropping weekly on Thursdays through August.
