While there are already four seasons of the Netflix drama, just five months of the characters’ lives pass during that time
Virgin River’s Zibby Allen understands viewers questions surrounding the show’s progression.
Allen, who stars as Brie Sheridan, spoke to TODAY about her character on the Netflix drama and what the future might hold for Brie and the other residents of Virgin River.
Though the show recently premiered its fourth season, the story has chronologically only spanned five months in the lives of the characters — an especially interesting pace considering one of the recurring characters, Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley), has been pregnant throughout the show’s two-and-a-half-year real-world run.
Allen, who has also appeared on The Flash and Grey’s Anatomy, said the conversation around the pacing of the show is not lost on her. When asked if it’s something even the cast pokes fun at she admitted it happens “all the time.”
“I’m like, ‘You guys, eventually, you’re gonna have to do a time jump because we’re just aging way too fast for a five-month span,’” she told TODAY. “But yeah, I think that the pregnancy thing was one of the first sort of tells because even I, when I was watching the show before I was on, was like, ‘Oh, this covers way more time in the story.’ And it really doesn’t.”
She said coming back together as a cast to begin filming season 5 of the show feels like a “little Virgin River family reunion.”
“It’s really fun to go back to work on the heels of the launch of the season and to feel all of the love from the audience,” she said of the show’s most recent season, which premiered July 20 on Netflix. “It gives us an extra boost of confidence to go back into this [next season] and carry on with the storylines hearing from the audience how much they matter to people.”
All of the series’ characters went through their own ups and downs this season, including discovering the paternity of Mel’s (Alexandra Breckenridge) upcoming baby, Hope (Annette O’Toole) and Doc (Tim Matheson) navigating the aftermath of Hope’s traumatic brain injury and a new person who comes into Doc’s life from a past he didn’t know he had.
For Allen’s character, this season shows her reconciling with Brady (Benjamin Hollingsworth), a former flame, after he his name is cleared in the shooting of Brie’s brother, Jack (Martin Henderson). Looking ahead to season 5, Allen said she hopes Brie and Brady find a way to make their romance work.
“I really hope that they figure out how to navigate something that’s real,” she said. “I think they’re so different, right? They come from such different walks of life. So the big question mark is, ‘Can they make it last and have a real day-to-day relationship?’ Jack and Mel are very, very different. We’ve seen it work with them. So I’m rooting for [Brie and Brady].”
Allen told TODAY that while she loves all of the fictional couples on the show, her favorite would have to be Hope and Doc because she thinks their love story is one not often depicted on screen.
“I don’t think we get to see very often a love story between people at that stage in their life,” she said of the pair, who are both played by actors in their 70s. “And I think the things that they’re dealing with in their lives together, and separately, are really important to mirror back and acknowledge because it’s a stage and a part of life that we’re all going to be in if we’re not there already.”
