There are a couple of series I have on rotation for casual viewing – you know, the kind you have already seen, so it feels familiar to return to. Apart from Friends, Gilmore Girls has been that for me recently, and I’ve gotten used to the characters. So, it was a pleasant surprise to find Scott Patterson, who plays Luke in Gilmore Girls, having a central role in the 2023 show Sullivan’s Crossing.

The two characters have some similarities. Both are slightly grumpy men who like to keep to themselves and not talk about their feelings, but you know they are good-hearted, kind people. Patterson’s character in Sullivan’s Crossing, Sully, has a troubled past with lots of incomplete relationships. He is estranged from his one daughter, and when she returns to her small, rural (and beautiful) hometown, Sullivan’s Crossing, from Boston, they get a second chance.

Maggie, the daughter, is the protagonist of the Netflix series, and a big neurosurgeon from the big city who escapes to the countryside after some legal issues put her career on pause. Along the way, she’s also avoiding her boyfriend, a picture-perfect doctor who her mum just loves. But ‘good on paper’ is never enough for matters of the heart, is it?

When Maggie meets Cal Jones, played by Chad Michael Murray, feelings get tangled. There is a fair share of love affairs, secrets, work scandals and complicated family relationships in Sullivan’s Crossing. Filled with medical emergencies and stunning scenery, the show feels eerily similar to another Netflix hit Virgin River, about a nurse who hides away in a small town, gets tangled up with the community and seeks refuge in nature. Their commonalities are no coincidence since both shows are adapted from the books of Robyn Carr.

What I enjoyed about Sullivan’s Crossing though is its diversity in characters, its inclusion of indigenous cultures and their rituals, values and ceremonies, co-existing with harmony and respect with their more western residents, while also featuring openly-LGBTQIA+-friendly storylines.

The first two seasons are now up on Netflix, ten 45-minute episodes. The whole series is four seasons, though, and let’s hope they are released on the platform soon because the end of season two left us with a tragic cliff-hanger!