TV Talk: Feel-good ‘Highway to Heaven’ is back as a cable movie series

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

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This week, Lifetime delivers the first in what is intended to be a series of “Highway to Heaven” movies with Jill Scott taking over as the angel from the late Michael Landon, who starred in the 1984-89 NBC weekly series.

Scott plays Angela — see, her name has “Angel” in it! — who gets hired as a temporary middle school guidance counselor by the school principal, played by Barry Watson, who starred in the 1996-2007 WB hit, “7th Heaven.”

“I never really tried to put the two together except they both had ‘heaven’ in the title,” Watson said during an August Lifetime press conference that was part of the Television Critics Association summer 2021 virtual press tour.

The first “Highway to Heaven” movie, premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday, involves Angela helping a student whose mother died. The boy is failing math class, and Angela uses her literal God-given talents to help the kid’s family situation.

Lifetime has not announced how many movies will be made; nothing has been filmed beyond this first installment.

The film’s presence on Lifetime at first seems like a head-scratcher — how does “Highway to Heaven” fit in with true crime and wronged woman movies? — but if you think of it in the context of the channel’s popular, uplifting Christmas films, it makes more sense.

“Everybody who watches Lifetime watches Lifetime for specific reasons,” Scott said. “If you want something that is heart-felt, if you want to watch a film where there is some level of justice or completion or forgiveness, these are key components to what Lifetime offers.”

Scott had a connection to the original series through her grandmother.

“(She) thought Michael Landon was fine, okay? She thought that that was a pretty man and every time we watched ‘Little House on the Prairie’ — which we did faithfully — or we watched ‘Highway to Heaven,’ she would always say the same thing: ‘Look at him, just look at him!,’” Scott recalled. “We loved him in our house, and it was exciting and a privilege to have that script come across my desk and it said ‘Highway to Heaven.’ Honestly, I didn’t even read the script initially, I just said yes. And then after I said yes, of course, I panicked and read the script. But initially, I was just like, yeah, I want to be a part of that.”

The first movie, directed by Stacey K. Black (“Station 19,” “Major Crimes”) from an original script by executive producer/writer Cathryn Humphris (“Colony,” “Under the Dome”), leans more into the spiritual than the religious, which Scott said makes it accessible “for everybody who is looking for light in the dark.”

As for her stance on the existence of angels?

“I don’t know about the magic- showing-up-portion of that,” she said. “What I know is that people in my life, personally, have showed up. … I’ve missed gunshots. I’ve missed fights. I’ve missed being robbed by seconds, minutes, moments. And I really believe that my grandmother has been a portion of that, that she’s — and all of my ancestors — just guiding me. If that means angels to some people, then so be it.”