You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: Can you please tell me when the next season of “When Calls the Heart” begins on Hallmark Channel?
A: The 10th season of the show is coming on July 30 and an 11th season has already been ordered. Erin Krakow, the show’s star, told TVInsider.com that the 10th season “is going to be epic. It’s going to be a very exciting, dramatic, romantic season. There’s music. It’s really jam-packed, and I’m very proud of it.”
Q: Is “Outdaughtered” coming back with new shows any time soon, or did we see the last of the Busby family?
A: A new season, the show’s sixth, begins July 11 on TLC with more adventures of the now-8-year-old quintuplets and their family. The network promises “more height, more spunk and a whole lot of heart.”
Q: What was the first late-night network talk show and when did it run?
A: That honor goes to “Broadway Open House,” an hourlong show which aired on NBC in 1950-51. “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows” notes that the talk-variety series “was two shows in one,” with comic Jerry Lester hosting three weeknights and Morey Amsterdam hosting the other two. It was also known for Dagmar, a voluptuous blonde on Lester’s show. She reportedly became so popular that a resentful Lester left the show; Amsterdam had already departed the other nights, and the series was gone after about 15 months. Late-night TV would change far more dramatically in 1954, with the arrival on NBC of “The Tonight Show.”
Q: In the movie “Madea’s Family Reunion,” who played the bus driver, and why hasn’t he been on TV since that movie?
A: Boris Kodjoe played bus driver Frankie Henderson in Tyler Perry’s 2006 movie, and you just may have missed his many screen roles since then. For one, he has been on ABC’s “Station 19” since its second season; it has been renewed for a seventh season. He was also on the medical drama “Code Black.” And you could have seen him on “Lip Sync Battle” competing against his wife, Nicole Ari Parker.
Q: In a show about India, a couple return from their honeymoon to find the guards dead as well as their child and his mother missing. The actress portraying the mother played the top chef in “Downton Abbey.” Can you please tell me the name of the show and how it ended?
A: I suspect you saw “Beecham House,” a series that aired in 2020 on PBS’s “Masterpiece.” It was set in colonial India and the cast included Lesley Nicol, who played Mrs. Patmore on “Downton Abbey.” As for how it ended, it did so abruptly, its cliffhanger ending unresolved, because it was canceled after a single season.
