Season 2 is SO different than 1

Also, Rosemary is very annoying, I don't like The whole Hamilton/Elizabeth's family storyline, Elizabeth doesn't journal anymore, Jack doesn't draw, there was very little teaching to speak of (isn't that why Elizabeth left in the first place), and why get rid of all the other characters?

Re: Season 2 feels wrong in so many ways.

I agree! In season 1 women looked somewhat authentically correct to that time of the century - hair and clothes - nice and neat. Season 2: looks like Coal Valley got new hairdresser and tailor! Even children dressed in very bright and colorful clothes, not like kids of miners. I don't know, season 2 got me very disappointed from the start. I probably will not continue to watch :(

I agree with you. I miss the vibe of season 1. Even though it was just a feel goody, low budget, cable TV show a bit on the schmaltzy side, it was a good "charming" kind of schmaltzy. It was fluffy comfort food but the little details of that season (Elizabeth's journals, the attempt at more accurate period clothing, the incidental music, the side story lines that featured Elizabeth's teaching adventures) gave the show a lovely quality that's totally missing from season 2.

I'm assuming Hallmark decided to hooch up the costumes, hair/makeup, and set designs to try and make the show seem more updated and polished, but in my opinion, it backfired and has made the show seem cheap and kinda kitschy. The costumes are a hodge-podge of styles and periods. It's like wardrobe just decided to help themselves to whatever they could scrounge up from someone's attic or rummage sale without even considering if it's period appropriate or not. This might be understandable for a community theater production or high school students putting on a play, but not for a professional TV show. Even if low budget, they managed to do a much better job with season 1.

Some of the Season 2 dresses are pretty, but they don't match the time period and that looks lazy. Lazy = diminished quality. Amateurish. And the coats ... Those blasted pale blue and Easter egg color coats have to go! Hope Valley is a dusty, dirty, mining town. Why they have Abigail and her ilk waltzing around town in a light blue coat is beyond me. Elizabeth we can cut a little slack because she's a city girl with a rich daddy to send her fancy, frilly, impractical clothes, but Abigail, the other widows, and children look ridiculous. The set looks wet and muddy. You would think it would be easier on the wardrobe peeps to work with darker color coats because mud/dirt wouldn't show as much. They must be working overtime trying to clean all those pastel coats and dresses.


Same with the hair. It would probably be easier on the hair crew if they pinned it all up. It's wet and windy in Vancouver (or wherever they film the show). I've noticed the hair looks messy in a lot of the outdoor scenes because of this. It's all stringy and windblown. It would be easier to maintain if they just pinned it up.

The hair started to change slightly in season 1. I think towards the mid to late season Elizabeth started to wear her hair down and then Abigail followed. The introduction of Rosemary was the beginning of the end for me. I have no problem with the actress or anything, but the character is just way over the top and looks WAY too modern with the beachy highlighted hair. She just has a very modern look to her in general, even in season 1 she in particular did.

For whatever reason, Hallmark seems to think they need to overdose in pastel colors, overdone makeup, and cookie cutter, gingerbread towns that look like Laura Ashley threw up all over them in order to keep their viewers watching. Not true. What they need to do is get back to the roots of the show. Cut the contrived soap opera antics. I've had enough of secret exes and secret ex daughter in laws popping up out of nowhere. Hey, where's Gowan's long lost love child? Is that next?

Anyway, the show just needs to find it's way back. As cheesy as it sounds it needs to get back to the children and the citizens of Coal Valley. Yes, Jack and Elizabeth are the focal point of the show, but the show is also very much the people of Coal/Hope Valley and I hope they go back there. It was a simpler time back then, so I can totally be happy with simpler plot lines. I want Elizabeth's journals back too!

I can't get over how much more artificial everything looks. From the town to the costumes, to the caked-on makeup. These are supposed to be hardy mining town women and they're more made up than the girls at the Clinique counter. And the wavy, loose hair is completely inappropriate. It would be distracting even if the story hadn't become so predictable.

I came to imdb just to see if others saw it too. It is SUCH a dissapointment. They all look like they would be in any city today. One guy was wearing blue jeans in the episode I just watched. That is so not right. I wish they'd go back to authentic. Shame on them.

Agreed. Season 1 had its silly moments clotheswise - how the men from the mines were rarely really dirty, when they should have come out of there black as pitcha nd filthy and just about everything in the town should have been coated in a slight dust, and yet its pristine, but they got the clothes and hair at least mostly right. i saw picture of s2 and i swear i thought it was from a dream episode or something, that Elizabeth was trying to imagine their lives 100 years on. its lost its charm entirely. i remember reading once that a phrase of the era was 'loose hair, loose woman' in regards to a woman having their hair down. women would have washed their hair about once a month at best and so it was pinned up for practically and also to just hide it's lack of being clean. and there are so many early 1900 hairstyles that are flattering and beautiful.
the tonged hair just makes them all look from 2010 not 1910 and when they've got their (super modern) coats on, they all look like a bunch of modern women that haopen to be outside! those clothes!! these are miners wives, they're poor. VERY poor, and yet, apparently they have super modern clothes, clothes they change daily rather than having only a couple dresses they rotate and can afford expensive dyes. the linens all being pure white despite the fact they'd most likely be washed in a river....
I'm not expecting historic perfection, but it's now just a modern show with slightly retro clothes.

In season 2 most of the women are wearing their hair down and the clothes don't seem right.

I watch this because the ridiculousness is entertaining. So many goofs. Why is there a pitcher and water basin sitting on a barrel in the saloon?? And I have never seen a town where a car and stagecoach travel the same street.