Patrick Sean Smith: There were many, with the first just being the history of the show. We have a wonderful script coordinator, Ildiko Susany, who also wrote episode nine, and everybody talks about Ildiko as the person who knows all. She’s like our Siri if we’re like, “Wait, when did Mel move to Virgin?” because the timeline is very unique. So my biggest challenge [coming in as showrunner] was wanting it to feel as seamless as possible. People care a lot about this show and I want to honour that. I wanted to make sure we weren’t contradicting ourselves, we weren’t repeating [stories], and all the characters were staying in their lanes, while still moving forward.
How much does Virgin River, the series, follow the books, especially in season five?
When Sue Tenney developed the series and pilot, she made some really smart choices of taking from all the books and then bringing the characters in the best way that told the TV story she wanted to. [Virgin River book author] Robyn Carr has been very deferential. She’s like, “I write books; you do TV.” So there’s always been a bit of a separation between what happens in the books and what happens in the show.
A lot of times over the season we would say, “Oh, let’s do X,” and then we check the books only to see, “Oh, my gosh, that happened,” like Lizzie getting pregnant in the books. So it’s always like an extra check when we start to head in that direction to know that it’s also honouring the spirit of the books, but not hamstringing ourselves to only capturing what the books did. Some people have read the books and love watching the series, and some people are just watching the series. You just want to take what suits the direction that you want.
Let’s talk about the season five, part one, finale. Charmaine is still pregnant. [Laughs.]
That was a tough one. [Laughs.] In wanting it all to feel seamless, I felt like if there was a time jump, then it could just inherently feel like a reset button, and I never wanted anybody to come away with that feeling. So the challenge that goes with that is Charmaine remains as pregnant as she was for most of season four through season five.
With that said, I love Lauren Hammersley, who plays Charmaine. She’s an incredible actress. You have so many strong opinions about the character and then you meet the actress and you’re like, “Of course, you’re the most lovely, perfect human being on the planet who’s funny as hell and has just been run through the wringer as a character.” She really appreciated a little bit of a redemption for Charmaine this season, which was my creative intention because I think she was starting to wear out her welcome as a character. That’s not to say she’s not going to come back and create more drama, but I think it’s going to be in a little bit different form.