Hallmark+’s new limited series, Paris Is Always a Good Idea, finds Mean Girls actress and rom-com queen Lacey Chabert whisking fans away on a European adventure.
But will it be enough to convince you to book your ticket? That’s debatable.
Chabert trades small towns for big cities with rich history and plenty of love interests as she steps into the role of Chelsea Martin, an executive working for a non-profit who is obsessed with work. While it’s admirable, especially since it’s for a good cause, she has no life outside of it, a fact that the first two episodes (of six, airing Thursdays) repeatedly remind viewers of.
The limited series, based on Jenn McKinlay’s bestselling novel, romanticizes Paris—and Europe—in a more realistic way than Emily in Paris, providing a refreshing change of pace. Unfortunately, it’s Chelsea herself who stands in the way of both the story and her own happiness.
When her company sends her to Paris to close a $50 million deal, she’s forced to confront the source of her pain in a place she’s avoided for a decade. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear why Paris is such a sore spot. Her parents’ epic love story began in Paris, and upon her mother’s passing, her mother’s final wish was to send her family on a sightseeing hunt through the city, which Chelsea was never able to see through, abandoning her sister, Annabelle, and their father, in the process.
When her family learns of her work trip to Paris, they decide to join her, as Chelsea eventually realizes that they never completed the hunt without her. She’s finally in a place where she can honor her mother’s wishes, but nothing goes according to plan, as too much time passed, and it turns out to be a disaster. Though she does take inspiration from her mother’s suggestion to revisit past lovers to see if any of them are her perfect love story.
It might just be me, but Chelsea never fully clicked as a character. Something felt missing, and perhaps it’s because we don’t see enough of her relationship with her mother or who she was before becoming a workaholic. As a result, much of her journey feels a little too clichéd.
We get glimpses of her experiences through flashbacks to her gap year, which is when she pressed pause on her love life and never hit play again, but it still barely scratches the surface.
And the theme of “too much time has passed” weighs heavily here.
Now, I haven’t read the book, but I feel as though the limited series didn’t work in the project’s favor, as I can imagine a lot more time was spent on all of her different European experiences in the novel than what the screen allowed.
From the brief synopsis, it’s obvious that several changes were made in the adaptation, particularly the timeline. The book’s seven-year gap feels more convincing than extending it to ten, because a 20-year-old and a 30-year-old are fundamentally different people with different outlooks and goals. In Hilary Duff’s wise words, it’s like trying to fit a square into a circle.
You can absolutely reconnect with a former love—and even fall in love again—if both people are in the same place in life. But it’s naïve to expect to simply pick up where you left off a decade ago. Experiences, situations, and other relationships change people. And yet, those are things that Chelsea hasn’t had in the span of 10 years, as she’s closed herself off.
As a result, Chelsea doesn’t really know who she is as a person in the present, having lost sight of herself after her mother’s death. She shut herself out from the world, including dating, and never actually faced or confronted it, making her European getaway a bit muddled; not only is she dealing with her grief, but she’s trying to find herself again and define who she is right now, and she’s looking for love. It’s a tall order.
Losing someone should remind you of how precious life is and how little time you actually have to live it, but since Chelsea never faced the pain, she seemingly never tapped into that lesson. We see it with her reaction to her father’s decision to fall in love with someone else.
Ten years later, and she can’t accept that he moved on. And though she was described as a hopeless romantic before she closed that part of herself following her mom’s death, it’s almost like she can’t reconcile two truths: his wife was his soulmate, and now she’s gone, and life isn’t meant to be lived alone. Her mother would want him to move on. And he’s clearly ready to be happy with someone else, while honoring what he had with his late wife.
Her growth begins to take shape when her meeting in Paris is delayed for a few days, and she’s convinced to take her first vacation in years with her sister, jetting off to Ireland in an attempt to reconnect with her first love.
This is where she gets her first real lesson in change—and a much-needed wake-up call. She’s been living in her head for far too long, and while the trip begins as a quest for love, it ultimately will lead to something deeper: a stronger relationship with herself, a reconnection with her sister, and a clearer understanding of the life she wants beyond work.
Turns out, a lot can happen in 10 years for the people who aren’t hiding away from the world, like a family with three kids.
Colin, a sheep farmer, may still be working at the same farm when they first see each other after all this time, but his life is totally different from when she last saw him. He’s thrilled to see her and invites her to dinner, which she takes as a promising sign, but what he fails to let her know is that he’d be coming with his whole brood.
Life happened for Colin, while it whizzed past Chelsea.
Chelsea’s trip to Ireland does give her an answer to her “what if,” however, with the closure that comes with closing the chapter on Colin, as she realizes he was never the one, nor was he the one that got away.
The redeeming moment for Chelsea here is that after she gets over her initial shock, acceptance fully sets in, and she realizes that Colin and Aoife are really cute together. She’s also realistic about what choosing Colin all those years ago would’ve meant—a life in a small Irish town with sheep and several kids—and she realizes she would’ve been miserable.
In retrospect, by leaving, Chelsea stayed true to herself and chose herself, even if it meant she always wondered if she made the right choice. Coming to Ireland proved to her that she did, and she felt a sense of relief.
You’d think Chelsea would learn from this and maybe stalk the other two remaining lovers from her gap year on social media instead to see what they are up to, but nope, she dives in headfirst, reaching out to both Sebastian and Marcos.
Sebastian responds first, asking to meet her in Paris, which is where the journey will take us next.
Clearly, Chelsea was living every girl’s summer travel fantasy at one point, but I think that’s the key here—these lovers were fantasy, as Chelsea will realize that they all made sense for a reason and a season.
And we haven’t even addressed the one man that isn’t on Chelsea’s radar but clearly is the reason we’re on this adventure in the first place.
Knightley, Chelsea’s rival colleague, who is assigned to the same project as her negotiations closer, threads in the familiar “there’s a fine line between love and hate” trope.
Chelsea begins her journey to reconnect to her past, and to find Colin, a sheep farmer in Ireland. Annabelle accompanies her, and Knightly grows curious. Photo: Scott Michael Foster Credit: ©2026 Hallmark Media/Photographer: Unai Mateo
From the start, the series frames the story as Chelsea recounting her life story to her soon-to-be husband. It’s supposed to be a mystery, but it seems fairly obvious where her journey is headed—and who will be waiting for her at the altar.
The sworn enemies have a “moment” at the club—because yes, conveniently and spontaneously, they both ended up at the same club in Paris—and Knightley suddenly becomes jealous when he learns that Chelsea went to Ireland to chase down an ex.
The series emphasized that before her mother’s death, Chelsea was a huge romantic, always wondering how her mother knew that her father was the one when they met in Paris. She’s been chasing that high—that moment—her whole life before completely abandoning it when her mother died.
However, it seems Chelsea is looking for this grand meeting when in reality, the love she’s looking for is right there, staring her in the face, and developing organically with the co-worker she hates.
Chelsea remains clueless about his interest; however, she finds herself chatting him up at 2 am when she can’t sleep, and her sister immediately clocks it.
The series has all the makings of the perfect summer series—picturesque scenery, romanticized destinations, hunky love interests, and more—but it falls a bit flat in execution, as we know that we’re watching the real love story unfold while revisiting old flames that won’t actually matter in the long run.
If only Chelsea could see what we see, but as they say, you can’t change someone who doesn’t want to be changed—it has to come from within. And for her, in order to move forward, she has to look back first.
Maybe it was also the fact that Chelsea and Colin had absolutely no spark, so none of it felt truly believable, whereas the budding fling between Annabelle and the bar owner is happening naturally, and the pull between them is magnetic. I’m rooting for them, as I find myself more invested in their moments than in Chelsea’s and Colin’s.
Either way, after the two-episode premiere, Chelsea’s journey to happiness and love (starting with loving herself and her life rather than just going through the motions, I hope) will continue with episode 3 on Aug 6.
And if I’m being completely honest, I’ll keep watching strictly because I’m thrilled to see Scott Michael Foster back on my TV screen!
What did you think of the first two episodes of Paris Is Always a Good Idea?
It will air exclusively on Hallmark+, with new episodes releasing every Thursday.