A Heartland Season 14 Wrap-up
The full Season is available to watch in Canada for free on CBC Gem
Did you watch the Heartland season 14 finale on Sunday? It's been quite an emotional roller coaster, to be sure. But watching the cast perform in ways they haven't before, at least when it comes to this kind of grieving and moving forward and caring for each other has been something new to Heartland in a lot of ways and I quite liked this season as a whole. What did you think? I'm so curious to know how you, the fans, felt about this season.
• Watch Heartland on CBC Gem for Free
Speaking of seasons... can you believe we have been following the Fleming/Bartlett family for 14 seasons? During this adventure, they went through all kinds of life-changing experiences and we got to watch them grow as characters. And, I think it's safe to say that they all turned out alright. Many of us have grown, and grown up with them as well, with the fans of this iconic series as multi-generational as the family depicted on screen.
I thought would be nice to close out the season with some trivia that you may not (or maybe you do!) know about Season 14.
Here's the official Heartland Season 14 synopsis from the production notes:
"While some journeys end, others are just beginning. Season 14 of Heartland finds horses healing Amy (Amber Marshall) as much as Amy heals horses. While Amy struggles with a life-changing challenge, the entire town of Hudson will have to deal with an unexpected disaster that threatens to derail Lou's (Michelle Morgan) first term as mayor. But, the family will pull through together and be stronger as a result. Family is courage, and times change."
Obviously, it was kept a touch vague as there were some major spoilers that could have come out. That said, many fans sensed that something big would happen this season and, knowing the show as well as many of you do, predicted correctly. And we lost Ty.
It was very difficult to lose a favourite member of the Heartland family, to be sure but, as it says in the synopses, "Family is courage, and times change." And the Heartland fan family too can weather this kind of storm.
And the production itself had many challenges too, as all of the world did, with creating a season of a TV series during the COVID-19 pandemic and Executive Producer Tom Cox commented on it shortly after production wrapped, "We're grateful to have completed production of Season 14. We spent several months developing [COVID-19] health protocols and production practices that helped make filming safe for our cast and crew, ensuring that our new episodes are as beautiful and engaging as ever."
The production began filming on September 8th, 2020 and finished on December 21, 2020, with the premiere original set to begin on January 10th, 2021 on CBC and CBC Gem.
As you know, it takes a huge group of people to make the series and they are all amazing and talented people. And that's including the cast, the crew and everyone at the production company and I want to give all of them a shout out for making such a great season! The executive producers are absolutely lovely: Michael Weinberg, Tom Cox, Jordy Randall, and Heather Conkie, who also served as the showrunner. And Heartland is produced by Dean Bennett.
This writers of season 14 include Heather Conkie, Mark Haroun, Ken Craw and Alexandra Clarke. And we have some long-serving Heartland directors this season, as well as some new ones, including some of your favourite cast members who do great work behind the camera as well as in front of it: Pierre Tremblay, Ken Filewych, Chris Potter, Michelle Morgan, Winnifred Jong, Jill Carter and Dean Bennett have all contributed to directing episodes this season.
I think it's safe to say that we, as fans of the longest-running Canadian 1-hour drama, love and appreciate the effort that everyone; cast, crew, executives, producers, writers and directors all put in to tell us these lovely and heartfelt stories.
Here again is the full list of episodes produced this season (with links to watch if you are in Canada):
5. Outsiders
7. Courage
Oh! I wanted to mention: This Sunday, Episode 1401 will be playing at 7pm/7:30NT on CBC (and on CBC Gem, of course). If you missed the original broadcast or want to watch it again at the regular time, it's happening this Sunday night.
Also, for our fans who are not in Canada: I know a lot of you have questions about where to watch Heartland in your country. I'm working on a future blog that will hopefully address some of those questions. I don't know if I know what I am getting myself into by trying to compile all of this information, but we will see what happens. Look for that soon - maybe next week if things fall into place.
Finally, as of today, I don't have any news about a possible Season 15 of Heartland but I will keep trying to find out more and, as soon as I know something, I'll post it in a future blog, or on the usual social media channels if I find out before the next blog comes out.
And finally, a shout out to the wonderful Heartland fan out there for being with us this season. You are the reason this show exists and I just want to say thank you for being such a lovely community. Until next time!