Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sullivan’s Crossing’ On The CW, Where A Neurosurgeon Goes Home To Nova Scotia To Reconnect With Her Father

There is one scene in shows like Sullivan’s Crossing that seems to be required: The main character driving along a coastline or wooded road, eventually passing a sign for her home town. They’ve been in the big city but something — a job loss, a divorce, some other humiliation — has brought them home. And, yes, Sullivan’s Crossing has that very scene.

SULLIVAN’S CROSSING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of Boston, then a shot of a hospital. Two teenagers are brought into the emergency room.

The Gist: Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan), a young neurosurgeon, is pulled into the emergency because the nurses couldn’t find another doctor. She tries to get one teen stable while the other, with a compound fracture in his leg, is second in the triage order.

She doesn’t have a lot of time to decompress, as she’s due at an award ceremony where her stepfather is going to give her the award for the best up-and-coming neurosurgeon. Her boyfriend Andrew (Allan Hawco) surprises her and tells her he’s considering a job in Boston and that they should live together. At the award dinner, as she’s accepting her award, both she and her boss, Dr. Bob Hollis (Bob Mann) run into some serious trouble

We then see Maggie driving into Timberlake, Nova Scotia, and into a large campground called Sullivan’s Crossing. It seems to be a place she knows but hasn’t been to in many years. At the campground, she has a warm reunion with Frank and Edna Cranbear (Tom Jackson, Andrea Menard), but she’s looking for Harry “Sully” Sullivan (Scott Patterson), who owns the place with the Cranbears.

Yes, Harry is her father, as we see when she asks to stay in her old room at his house and there’s a flashback to when she and Sully painted the mural in that room when she was a child, shortly after her parents split up. But it seems like the two of them haven’t had much contact, as the first conversation between them is certainly uncomfortable.

As she gets settles, she lies down on the dock outside the house. Cal Jones (Chad Michael Murray), helping Sully at the house, offers to give her a tour of the grounds, not knowing who she is. When she turns him down, he’s annoyed that she thinks he’s hitting on her. On the dock, she also sees her childhood friend Sydney Shandon (Lindura), who is in town to help her brother Rob (Reid Price) and his son Finn (Zayn Maloney) after Rob’s wife died.

Maggie gets a call from Andrew, wondering when she’s coming back to Boston; she needs to think some things through. Besides, even though the feds dropped the charges against her, her reputation is basically ruined; even Andrew’s job offer was rescinded via guilt via association.

But her decision to stick around is called into question at the local block party, especially when Cal tries to apologize for earlier and tells her she’s “lucky” to have Sully in her life, then Sydney chides her for not staying in touch when she left during her college years.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Given that Sullivan’s Crossing is based on a series of Robyn Carr novels, and she’s also an executive producer, the comparisons with Virgin River aren’t exactly a stretch.

Our Take: Virgin River EP Roma Roth is the creator of Sullivan’s Crossing, and it really doesn’t stray all that much from the formula that has made Virgin so successful: There’s some conflict, but it’s mostly just about Maggie readjusting to life back where she grew up.

Like Virgin River, the scenery — this time of Nova Scotia — is spectacular, the soundtrack is full of romantic indie folk, and the storytelling is very, very leisurely. There are scenes where Maggie simply looks out onto the lake behind Sully’s house, or where she tells Edna that she’s like a second mother to her, or Frank telling her that sometimes it takes a lifetime to make the journey from the head to the heart.

Roth is no hurry to give us a lot of details about how Maggie left Sullivan’s Crossing, became estranged from her father and her friends, or even just what happened with her boss in Boston. We would have wanted to hear a little bit of that exposition in the first episode, but knowing what kind of show this is, we probably shouldn’t have had such high expectations.

The show is meant to be a “warm bath” show, where you get in and live with the members of this town and watch the main character find her place in it. Is there a good chance that Maggie and Cal are going to get together? Sure! Will the gruff Sully soften enough to let Maggie back in? Probably! Will Maggie adapt from being a hotshot neurosurgeon to being a smalltown doctor? Who knows?

But viewers of these shows aren’t looking to get to these story points any time soon; they’d rather luxuriate in the experience and the romantic vibe. If you’re looking for more, you’ll probably be disappointed.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode. Can’t imagine there will be much that isn’t network-friendly.

Parting Shot: As she’s about to leave to go back to Boston, Maggie gets a phone call that changes everything… Looks like Maggie’s stay at Sullivan’s Crossing has just been extended!

Sleeper Star: Aww, we just have to give this to Scott Patterson, mainly because Sully isn’t all that far away from an older version of Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We just don’t ship off our elderly into care homes. Have you forgotten what it’s like here?” Sully tells Maggie when she says a neighbor with dementia should be evaluated. Yeah, you and your modern medicine and things like memory care aren’t welcome at Sullivan’s Crossing!

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’ve been hankering for another heaping helping of slow-moving, romantic drama a la Virgin River, then Sullivan’s Crossing should help satisfy that craving.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.