Fault lines in the TV-verse shifted when it was revealed that Melissa Gilbert’s When Calls the Heart season 12 character had a romantic past with Jack Wagner’s Judge Bill Avery — and then kissed him. But just like that, after two episodes, Gilbert’s Inspector Georgie McGill was gone.
With production on season 13 commencing in just a month, Wagner — who’s appeared as the tough yet tender-hearted former sheriff since the show’s first season — tells Entertainment Weekly that one of the most exciting aspects of heading back to Vancouver to shoot the long-running Hallmark period Western this time around is reuniting with Gilbert.
Comparing Bill Avery with Nick Marone, the character he played on The Bold and the Beautiful from 2003-2012 and will soon reprise, Wagner says, “The difference in being able to do The Bold and the Beautiful, coming back as Nick, are the layers. This guy is completely about romance. And there’s been really nothing romantic for quite a while on When Calls the Heart, except Melissa Gilbert came on last year and is returning, which is awesome.”
Wagner explains, “They have a backstory and a history, and I kissed her in the final episode last year. So that sprung a whole well of romance for my character.”
The TV icon, known for his roles as Frisco Jones on General Hospital and Dr. Peter Burns on Melrose Place, says he’s “so grateful to have this run with the Hallmark channel on When Calls the Heart,” but was getting a bit tired of Bill’s seasons-long dry spell.
Gilbert’s return to the fictional Canadian mining town of Hope Valley is a welcome one for Wagner, as it’s “given me the opportunity to kind of exercise something in myself that has been a little dormant for a while,” he says.
Eike Schroter / Hallmark / courtesy Everett
Gilbert confirmed that she’d be making the trek back to Hope Valley on a recent episode of the Hey Dude… The 90s Called podcast.
“When I go to Vancouver to the set and I walk in and it’s this old town, I feel like, there I am,” Gilbert said, gesturing toward the earlier period series that made her a star – Little House on the Prairie. “It’s a strange and wonderful feeling, and I’m very excited to go back. I’ll be back and forth to Vancouver a bit more I think this year.”
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The actress teased her entrance into the When Calls the Heart Universe to EW back in February, in which she noted the staggering full-circle fact that the show’s co-developer and co-showrunner, Michael Landon Jr., is the son of the late Michael Landon, her costar, writer, and director on Little House on the Prairie.
But she saved the lion’s share of her enthusiasm for her character’s relationship with Wagner’s. “I would love to see what happens with Bill and Georgie going forward, because it is left as a romantic cliffhanger,” she said.
“I also think it’s really great to portray the beginning of a romantic relationship with two people our age. Just because you’re over 60 doesn’t mean you’re dead.”
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