Virgin River

During a recent illness, I was laid up for several weeks, and this was a pleasant, undemanding way of passing the time. It made zero demands on me. Annette O'Toole is always a pleasure to watch, even if her character is annoying. This is an actress who has never gotten the credit she deserves. The men are handsome in non-threatening ways. The heroine is pretty and smart, but not too pretty, and not too smart. It's like a Harlequin romance for TV.

Two things bug me: That's not Humboldt County. Trinity Alps, maybe, or somewhere in the Sierras. It rarely snows in Humboldt, and there are no snow capped mountains. Humboldt, especially the pot growing areas, is cool, foggy, and green. I lived there, and that ain't it.

The other things is endemic to almost all TV and movies: the perfect hair and make up at all times. A woman spends the night in basically a hobo camp and the next morning her hair is smooth, glossy, and blow-dried, her eyeliner and mascara intact. lip gloss undisturbed. It's a pet peeve.