HeartBeat: Changing Places

The feature-length episode chronicling the Rowans and their early days in Canada, where Nick (Nick Berry) is a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police could have either been a final farewell or the pilot for a whole new series.

Of course, it was the former not the latter, a final episode paying tribute to the star who launched the Heartbeat show and made it so beloved all over the world. You could make a case that the show hasn't been as good since Berry departed.

The fiction Thompson's Landing, where Nick was posted after training in Calgary, is a Canadian frontier town version of Aidensfield. There's even a female version of Claude Greengrass and a hard-nosed sergeant who would put Blaketon to shame. Plenty of explosions, mystery and even a bar fight or two as well.

A good episode, with a British connection, and a satisfying ending, allowing everyone to rest easy in the knowledge that Nick, Jo and Katie got their Happily Ever After.

I was delighted to hear that the original "P.C. Rowen" (Nick Berry), that quietly efficient English bobby was going to re-emerge on Knowledge Network - as a Canadian Mountie. Nor was I disappointed in the opening show, which, I believe, is going to make this viewer as addicted to it, as he is to the original (still appearing on both the Knowledge and Women's Television Network, here in B.C.) I didn't give it a 10 since it a a bit more Wild West-ish than the original, lots of gunplay - tho not by Rowen, who relied on his usual resourcefulness - explosions, jailbreaks, hostage-taking, etc and, at present, it lacks the colorful English characters, and English beauties of the original. For all that, I look forward to another 10 years plus, of Mountie Rowen