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Show:		6.0
Picture:		8.0
Sound:		7.0
Extras:		5.0
Score:		6.0

Director(s):	Dean Bennett • Don McBrearty
Writer(s):	Leila Basen, Heather Conkie, David Preston
Starring:	Amber Marshall • Chris Potter • Graham Wardle • Jessica Amlee • Michelle Morgan • Nathaniel Arcand • Shaun Johnston
Genre:	Children & Family • Drama
Website:	http://www.cbc.ca/heartland/
Release Date:	November 10, 2009
Rated:	NR

List Price:	DVD - $13.99
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Heartland is the kind of family show you might scoff at, watch by accident, and then find yourself coming back to again and again to slurp up all the family comfort and light drama you never got in real life...or maybe did, but not against the backdrop of Canadian horse ranches, so it's totally paled in comparison and you're angry.

Now be warned, if it's a TV mother-figure you're after, you won't find her in this case, because she's dead; however; if you're willing to settle for a loving grandfather, a stylish sister, an excitable 12-year-old neighbor, and a hair-in-the-eyes stable boy who lusts after you, then you will happily plant your vicarious roots down in the world of teenage horse whisperer Amy Fleming.

Played plainly by Amber Marshall, Amy will not be the most interesting thing you'll ever watch, to put it nicely. Her “problems” are a slightly awkward relationship with her father, duties on a financially struggling ranch, re-entering show-jumping after a long absence, protecting wild mustangs, and keeping her hormones in check. In short, she's a nice farm girl. And these are nice farm people. They do things like stand in awe of landscapes, and get moved to tears by horse herds. It might look strange at first. It might take some time to get used to. But by the second-to-last episode, when the Flemings drive up and discover the town's pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to rebuild their burnt down barn, because that's what a community's all about; boy, you would be a moose's lover if there just weren't a little something that got stuck in your eye.

This is mostly thanks to the direction, the scenery and calming music of the series, which much like the show's unaffected star, feel ensconced in a cone of dull light. There is a soul to the story that is clearly being upheld with each installment by these components, and even survives awkward characters like the precocious neighbor Mallory, who says the darndest things. And unlike most shows, where there would usually be a million and a half manufactured obstacles to ratchet up the sexual tension between the guy and girl stars, which keep them from kissing until the end—here the pulse created is so convincingly modest and heartfelt, they get to do away with obstacles completely, and just have Amy not “want things to change.”

Not to say that the show doesn't dip. There is definitely irksome cutesiness, and the writing is reminiscent of putrid fare like 7^th Heaven when it comes to the humor sometimes, such as in one sequence where a puny white pony breaks out of its stall and goes on the loose to “White Lightning” (and a quick iMDB check shows there is some writer cross-over). Still, the show restrains itself from going overly cartoon-ish, or anthropomorphizing the animals too much. Rest assured, there is no family dog always good for a barking comedic beat. In Heartland, Amy whispers to the horses, and so they do necessarily have desires and personalities, but, the fact that they have to be whispered to keeps them quiet.

In the finale, the simmering storylines are pushed a little too fast for the sake of it being a finale, but hopefully that is not a sign of a less-controlled second season. There is actually a real humility and depth to the writing, whether it's because one of the head writers is the same person who wrote the books on which the series is based, I don't know. Maybe they just do teenage melodrama better in Canaada.

DVD Bonus Features

Interviews with the cast and crew, broken up by subject. They applaud themselves a bit too much, but you can tell they are kind of high from the countryside. Michelle Morgan, who plays the sister, really comes across the best, and it is clear that casting an actress of Chilean descent as part of a milquetoast family was probably a gamble, and one that paid off well. Smart people are running things at Heartland.