Hallmark moves heavily into original drama series

Hallmark Channel has ordered its second ever original scripted series and is prepping two more pilots.

The US cable net has greenlit ten-part series When Calls the Heart, based on the bestselling book of the same name by Janette Oke.

It follows a young well-to-do teacher who receives her first classroom post in a prairie town in the Western Frontier. it will be produced by Believe Pictures Jordan Films and Brad Krevoy Television production.

Hallmark will transmit a two-hour pilot of the show in October and the full series will follow in January 204.

It added that it is developing two more pilot-to-series projects, My Gal Sunday, based on a book of short stories by best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark and Dead Letters, which will be a new show developed by Martha Williamson, creator of Touched by An Angel. It will follow a group of postal workers who become elite lost mail detectives.

The nets first original, Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove, will also debut with a two-hour pilot. That will go out in July and the regular series will start a week later.