There’s oodles of Southern charm and finger-licking chicken in Hallmark’s “The Chicken Sisters” but what’s really cooking is a 100-year-old family feud.
In the fictional, sleepy Southern town of Merinac, all has not been well with Mimi’s and Frannie’s, dueling fried chicken restaurants.
“This is such an interesting and funny idea: Two chicken restaurants that have been warring for 100 years in this little town,” said Lea Thompson (“Back to the Future”).
“Then to plop a reality cooking competition show in the middle of that is a fun catalyst for drama and comedy and character.”
“The Chicken Sisters” began as an adaptation of KJ Dell’Antonia’s bestseller, a Reese’s Book Club selection.
“It was a really cool thing when KJ came to visit the set,” said Schuyler Fisk who plays the daughter-in-law of Thompson’s Nancy in a joint Zoom interview. “We’ve kept in touch a little bit and she has had the nicest things to say about the show.
“Which is like the highest compliment you can get! Because these are characters and a story that she created in her brain as her book.”
“One of the things that attracted me to this,” Thompson added, “was that I think we’re all feeling a lack of community right now.
“What with COVID and our addictions to our phones and all of that, what I loved was that this is about community and about family. About found family and real family. And everyone trying to realize that what separates them is so much less important than what joins them together.
“That’s just a beautiful thing to be part of: All these characters that are so different trying to figure out how to get along and how to how to make their own lives better — by helping each other.”
To make that sentiment sing, the 8-part series’ small town setting was essential.
“I came from a small town in Minnesota,” Thompson offered. “Schuyler, you live in a small town. I think that’s universal. Characters are more drawn out and sculpted in a small town, because everybody has their places.”
“The way it was written was done in such a smart way. It didn’t minimize or make these small town characters a joke at all,” Fisk said. “These people are multi-dimensional. They’re flawed. They’re interesting. They’re being challenged in their own lives.
“I felt the small town part of it was almost like another character. You feel it so strongly in the show, but it doesn’t come off in any cheesy way. It just feels like there’s a comfort there, the feeling of this warm small town.
“But that’s tricky, because everyone knows everyone’s business in a small town. So, it’s complicated.”
Following the first episode on Hallmark Sept. 10, new episodes premiere every Thursday starting Sept. 12.