As you might expect from someone who is considered the queen of Hallmark, Lacey Chabert seems to stay busy. She’s already released one movie on the 2026 TV schedule (Lost in Paradise, which has amusing similarities to a Rachel McAdams horror movie), and we’re already looking forward to her Disney World collab coming to the Countdown to Christmas. Before that, though, Chabert is starring in the book-to-screen adaptation of Paris Is Always a Good Idea, a new series coming to Hallmark+, and she told me why this title works better as a show.
Lacey Chabert is headed to Paris for the series that debuts Thursday, July 30. Paris Is Always a Good Idea sees Chelsea (Chabert) reconnecting with three ex-boyfriends to rediscover herself after her mom’s death. The only problem? She’s also in France for work, and she’s been teamed up with her office enemy Knightly (Scott Michael Foster). Chabert and Foster spoke with CinemaBlend ahead of the premiere, and while she defended Hallmark’s movie format, this story really needed six episodes to unfold. Chabert said:
Look, I think we do a very good job with Hallmark of telling the stories in the movies, you know, the full-circle story, but it was such a treat and a pleasure to have six episodes to do that. It gives you so much more time just to delve into all of the details and all of the nuances of the journey of these characters.
Hallmark really has perfected its movie formula, but with Paris Is Always a Good Idea exploring Chelsea’s relationships in amazing places like Ireland, France and Spain, that would be a lot to squeeze into one of the network’s 2-hour (with commercials) timeslots.
Scott Michael Foster agreed their series benefited from having room to breathe:
Six episodes makes it so much easier to tell all that story, right? And you get to live and breathe in it for a bit instead of just trying to get in and get out. I think it really translates on screen that we’ve really sat with this for a while.
Who would want to rush through all of those beautiful on-location scenes anyway? Lacey Chabert's upcoming Hallmark project may be spreading its story out over five weeks, but she assured me it’s still going to provide all the things we love about Hallmark’s movies:
It’s a love story. My character goes back to relationships that she left behind abruptly 10 years ago and gets to revisit not only the relationships but also who she was during that part of her life, and she’s coming face to face with the fact that she has closed off her heart, and does she have the courage to open up again and see who’s in front of her. It’s also a beautiful family story that I think a lot of people will relate to, and then we get to do all of that in Spain and Paris and Ireland.
Sign me up! If you’d like to also go on this journey with Lacey Chabert and Scott Michael Foster, the first two episodes of Paris Is Always a Good Idea premiere on Hallmark+ on Thursday, July 30, with new episodes streaming weekly on Thursdays.
