‘The Way Home’ Producers on Leaning Into ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Parallels, Planning for Season 3 and Beyond — Plus, the Possibility of Spinoffs
variety.comEmily Longeretta When mother-daughter showrunners Heather Conkie and Alexandra Clarke began working on “The Way Home” with creator Marly Reed, they didn’t intentionally set their sites on the world of “Alice in Wonderland.” Instead, it came completely natural. “As we started looking at this show and the concept, it became so much clearer to us how oddly echoing it all was to the book, and we sort of thought well, if it’s there, let’s use it.
It’s a story about a girl that literally falls down the rabbit hole into a whole other world and is trying to make sense of what she’s seeing and of her adventures there,” Alexandra tells Variety.
With seamless comparisons, they began bringing physical similarities and themes from the 1865 novel into Season 1. “Once we had gone down that rabbit hole ourselves, we were in a discount book store and the first books that were right there right in front of us were ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass,’ right next to each other,” Heather recalls. “We thought, ‘OK, that’s a sign.'” The Hallmark drama includes cheeky references to multiple different well-known stories — everything from “Peter Pan” and “Narnia” to “Not Another Teen Movie” (which also stars “The Way Home” actor Chyler Leigh) — but it’s the “Alice” comparison that viewers keep noticing on social media each week.
Read more on variety.com
