Plot Summary
As penance for his past indiscretions, Revered Daniel Cooper is sentenced to take over a small church on the small island community of Hope Island, off the coast of the northwestern United States. Though skeptical at first, he finds a charming town of quirky people who accept him with open arms. The days on Hope Island are not without intrigue and conflict, but at the end of the day, they all like each other and everything stays pretty much the same all the time.
Production Quality (2 points)
As a late 90s\early 2000s production, Hope Island can look archaic at times, but it’s not all bad. On paper, the production is fine, including good video quality, camera work, and audio quality. The soundtrack leaves something to be desired, however, and there are some dumb sound effects used throughout. The opening sequence is long and boring, and most of the flashbacks have a very strange and almost un-watchable quality about them. Further, the editing is pretty standard, and overall, this production is just above average.
Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)
It’s really no surprise this vaguely Christian series on the old PAX channel didn’t get renewed. It contains nothing creative and settles for many predictable small-town concepts, elements, subplots, characters, and tropes. The storylines therein are very safe and pedestrian as each character fits perfectly into their molds: the main character with a secret past who comes to a new area for a new start, his obvious love interest (who doubles as the diner character) who doesn’t like him at first, the young white couple whose relationship we’re supposed to be interested in, the quirky self-seeking schemer and his clueless sidekick, and all those one-episode characters who appear only once in over twenty episodes, even though this is a tiny island with a couple hundred people on it. Besides this, there are far too many attempts at comedy that aren’t even funny and are actually quite juvenile. Also, there are some odd attempts at ‘edgy’ content that fall completely flat and feel out of place and desperate. Christian themes are only used when convenient, and conflicts are easily resolved with coincidences and convenient turns. Unfortunately, there’s not much good to note here.
Acting Quality (1.5 points)
As a professional cast, these cast members are mostly fine and typical. However, they have some odd, head-scratching moments at times. Other times, they are too awkward, especially when they are trying too hard to be funny. However, there are enough good moments here to make this section average.
Continuity Quality (0 points)
Hope Island follows the predetermined inspirational series formula that rolls out one thing after the next. Each episode is its own 45-minute bubble of time that has little effect on the following episode and receives little effect from the previous episode, except for the predictable romantic subplot arcs, which are the only notable story or characters arcs present here. This series is basically a collection of shallow conflicts that are introduced and quickly resolved and never mentioned again, thus not warranting any points in this section.
Conclusion
PAX was trying to blaze new trails in Christian\inspirational made-for-TV entertainment before UP existed and before Hallmark rebranded themselves as a plastic dollhouse. Now PAX has turned into that absurd channel called ION and has even more laughable content than Hallmark. Hope Island is a microcosm of the late 90s\early 2000s attempts at mainstream Christian content that didn’t work out, not only because of its split personality of trying to please two different audiences or because of its underwhelming production and acting quality, but mostly because it’s so boring. It was hard enough to sit through over twenty episodes of this; I can’t even imagine what another season would be like. Alas, we never saw another season, which is a blessing. Now, as I continually say, it’s time for a real, truly quality Christian series to be made.
Final Rating: 3.5 out of 14 points
Box Office Revolution 