'The Good Witch's Garden' the Hallmark of wholesomeness

Friday, February 6th 2009, 11:46 PM

Catherine Bell with Chris Potter in a scene from "The Good Witch's Garden," a Hallmark Channel original telemovie.

Hallmark's fans will remember Catherine Bell's Cassie Nightingale from "The Good Witch," a major hit when it premiered early last year.

So they'll love Cassie just as much when she falls in and out of danger in the speedily produced sequel, "The Good Witch's Garden."

The speed shows in the dialogue, which is a little more formulaic than in the original. That makes it a little more obvious that many of the characters seem to have arrived here on an express from a 1950s sitcom - notably Catherine Disher's Martha Tinsdale, who plays the self-important, humorless town matron that every wise-guy comic from Groucho Marx to Phil Silvers used to lampoon.

But the sequel survives because it's got a good old-fashioned Hallmark romance at the core and because the story, while not totally fresh, is crafted well enough to keep moving, with sufficient tension so you want to see what will happen next.

Okay, it's Hallmark, so we know what will happen in the end. But getting there, in this case, is entertaining enough.

Bell, from "JAG" and now "Army Wives," plays Cassie as wise and serene.

She's still living in Middleton, a wholesome suburb that, come to think of it, could have hosted a 1950s sitcom itself. She has fixed up the 200-year-old Grey House and is tending her amazing gardens while gently fending off suspicion from Mrs. Tinsdale that something spooky is afoot. When one of her plants seems to grab Mrs. Tinsdale's foot, Mrs. Tinsdale demands that police chief Jake Russell (Chris Potter) investigate. He's glad to comply, since he had a date with Cassie anyhow. Yes, Jake is still in her life.

The drama begins when mysterious stranger Nick Chasen (Rob Stewart) moves into town and starts sweet-talking all the ladies, including Cassie and Mrs. Tinsdale, in a way that makes it clear he is up to no good.

That's exactly what he's up to, as Cassie soon discovers, and the rest of the movie becomes a race to thwart Nick's nefarious scheming.

This creates some mild ripples between Jake and Cassie. But without giving anything away, let's say that in Middleton, where good deeds are as common as jaywalking in Manhattan, all things are possible.

dhinckley@nydailynews.com

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