Netflix's Cozy 74-Episode Romance Series Is the Perfect Fall Binge
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Michael Block is a 14 time GLAM Award nominated writer, producer, and host of the podcast Block Talk. Throughout his time in the entertainment industry, he has worked on and off Broadway as a stage manager, written several produced plays, critiqued hundreds of theatrical performances, drag and cabaret shows, and has produced events randing from drag competitoons to variety concerts!
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In his free time, he makes one-of-a-kind jewelry and gift baskets with his mom. He is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.
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When the leaves start to change, and there's a slight chill in the air, it offers the perfect opportunity to stay inside, cozy up with a hot mug of tea, snuggle up under a big blanket, and turn on your favorite streamer for a comforting binge-watch of your favorite show. But what if there was another fall alternative to your annual revisit of Gilmore Girls?
Netflix’s cozy romance Virgin River provides the perfect autumnal comfort watch with a story that evokes the same warm feelings from Gilmore Girls' classic mother-daughter duo. Virgin River follows Mel Monroe, played by Alexandra Breckenridge, who answers an ad to work as a midwife and nurse practitioner in a remote Northern California town. Believing it to be a perfect place to start fresh and escape a life of trauma, Mel soon discovers that small-town life is not what she expected. Virgin River is a low-stress, heartfelt romance that offers Hallmark vibes on a Netflix budget.
Come for 'Virgin River's Favorite Couple: Mel and Jack
Right from the start, it's evident that Virgin River's main character will fall into an emotional and romantic entanglement with Jack Sheridan (Martin Henderson). As her source of introduction to the town, Martin takes an early interest in Mel, serving as a close confidante. As the series goes on, their relationship deepens and becomes even more romantic than it was at the beginning. Not only are Mel and Jack the central couple we root for, but their journey shares similarities to the greatest love story of Gilmore Girls: Luke and Lorelai (Scott Patterson and Lauren Graham). Like Luke with his diner, Jack owns the local bar, which serves as a familiar haunt for our characters to convene, gossip, and vent. Both men have hard exteriors, but deep inside, they are big softies. Lorelai and Mel have overcome major personal challenges, but don't let their past prevent their future. In the end, love wins, though Mel and Jack make it to the altar much faster than Luke and Lorelai.
Most strong comfort shows keep romance central. Rather than push a will-they-won't-they narrative through multiple seasons, Virgin River allows two individuals with personal baggage to understand that they need one another to be whole again. The tension may be comparatively occasional, but Virgin River has other stories of struggle to tell instead. There are certainly complications in Mel and Jack's relationship, something viewers can relate to, but their enduring love is the epitome of romance — and becomes the show's primary draw.
Stay for the Wonderful Supporting Characters of 'Virgin River'
Once you're pulled in by Mel and Jack's relationship, Virgin River is filled with wonderful and endearing supporting characters. The series boasts a close-knit community where their primary purpose is to support one another. Unafraid of exploring deep, personal struggles, including trauma, illness, and loss, Virgin River is an idealized portrayal of small-town life where everybody knows your name and your problems.
The characters are not cookie-cutter archetypes, either. You have the unique dynamic of Hope McCrae (Annette O'Toole) and Doc Mullins (Tim Matheson) as the town's wise elders with a rich past. Preach (Colin Lawrence) is not only Jack's right-hand man and chef at the bar, but is easily the most endearing human in town. There are some town troublemakers, like Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) and Lizzie (Sarah Dugdale), but they have redeemable moments. The list goes on, as the colorful cast of characters provides a nuanced, layered ensemble that keeps the series flowing.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Romance Is Your Favorite? Harry & Sally · Love & Basketball · Heated Rivalry · Titanic
Four great love stories, and four completely different ideas of what love actually is. One is a friendship that took twelve years to admit itself. One is two people who refuse to stop competing. One happens entirely behind closed doors. And one lasts five days and never stops mattering. Eight questions decide which one is really yours.
🍂Harry & Sally(1989)
🏀Love & Basketball(2000)
🏒Heated Rivalry(HBO Max)
🚢Titanic(1997)
01
How does your love story start? The first scene tells you what kind of story this is going to be.
02
What do the two of you keep arguing about? Every great romance has one fight it has over and over.
03
How do you show somebody that you love them? Grand gestures are easy to write. This is the harder question.
04
What is actually standing in the way? There is always something. Which something tells you the genre.
05
Which romantic moment gets you every single time? Be honest. There is one that works on you and you know which.
06
What would you actually risk for the right person? Every romance asks this. Most people find out far too late.
07
Where are the two of you in ten years? Some love stories are about the meeting. Some are about the staying.
08
Which of these sounds most like something you would say? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your romance.
Roll The Credits Your Romance Is…
Four love stories, four completely different ideas of what it means to be somebody's person. This is the one that matches how you actually fall, and what it would ask of you.
Harry & Sally
You do not fall for strangers. You fall for the person you have already been talking to for years, which is the slowest and by some distance the most durable way anybody has found to do this.
- When Harry Met Sally made the case that the best romance is an argument you enjoy, conducted over a decade, by two people refusing to admit what is happening.
- You want to be known rather than swept away. Somebody who remembers your worst story is doing better work than anybody arriving with flowers.
- The film is unusually honest about timing. These two are wrong for each other repeatedly until suddenly they are not, and neither of them engineered it.
- You would still be talking about everything at eighty. That is the entire promise.
Love & Basketball
You want a partner, not an audience. Somebody who wants their own life as badly as you want yours, and who would never ask you to be smaller to make the relationship easier.
- This is the rare romance where both people have a real career and the film takes both of them equally seriously.
- You would rather be pushed than protected. The right person for you is also a bit of a rival, and that never entirely goes away.
- It understands the actual problem in ambitious relationships. Not whether you love each other, but whose turn it is this year.
- You would still be competing at forty. That is how you would know it was working.
Heated Rivalry
The intensity was never the problem. The secrecy is. You are drawn to a love that lives entirely in private, and to the particular ache of wanting somebody you are not supposed to want.
- Heated Rivalry runs on the oldest engine in romance: two people on opposite sides, meeting in secret, getting far more attached than either of them planned.
- You keep your private life genuinely private, and something in you finds hidden things more real than public ones.
- The tension is not only between the two of them. It is between what they have and what it would cost either one to say it out loud.
- Years of this, and the whole story is really about whether either of them will finally stop hiding.
Titanic
You do not do this cautiously. When it happens for you it is immediate and total and it rearranges everything, and you would not accept a smaller version of it.
- Titanic gave us the biggest romance in film history and then made it last about five days, which is precisely the point of it.
- You measure love by intensity rather than duration. A few days of the real thing beats decades of something merely comfortable.
- The film is not only about the romance. It is about a woman who went on to live an enormous life afterwards because of it.
- You would still be telling this story at a hundred years old, and telling it exactly the same way.
Netflix's 'Virgin River' Is Still an Underrated Hit
You might be questioning how you can classify Virgin River as an underrated series, but the reality is, despite seven released seasons and an eighth on the way, as well as consistent viewership, it's rarely mentioned in the same category as other mega hits on Netflix like Squid Game and Stranger Things. As one of the most comforting options out there, Virgin River is escapism at its finest. It's sweet, charming, and while it does push those difficult conversations to the forefront, it's an easy watch.
Virgin River has been one of Netflix's steadiest series thanks to its picturesque cinematography and wholesome charm. You almost wish you could be whisked away to the titular town and its mountain views yourself. With seven seasons to treat yourself to, you could truly spend every weekend on your couch watching until Christmas.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.