Morgan Kohan in Sullivan’s Crossing. The show’s success with a new audience on Netflix in the U.S. has been has been ‘very exciting,’ Kohan says.Jessie Redmond/CTv/Supplied
A warm-hearted Canadian romantic drama has knocked the bloody Korean thriller sensation Squid Game out of the top spot on Netflix’s TV charts in the United States.
The CTV series Sullivan’s Crossing was the most-viewed show on Netflix U.S. in the first week that its first two seasons landed on the streaming service south of the border – with its initial season racking up three million views in the first six days.
Those were big enough numbers to make it the number three most-viewed show in the world on Netflix in the period between July 7 and July 13. (The show is currently only on the American version of Netflix and the Canadian one, where it was added earlier this spring and also hit the national top 10.)
For Morgan Kohan, the B.C.-born actress who lives in Toronto and plays the lead role of neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan, Netflix’s acquisition of the show has meant a giant leap in fanbase that was already large and growing in North America through its three seasons on CTV and The CW channel in the United States.
“We knew we had something special, especially since it did so well even out of its first season on CTV from the beginning,” she said in a phone interview this week.
“We’ve had such a wonderful audience, but then to see it blow up so quickly with a whole other audience – I think we were all hopeful, but it definitely has been very exciting.”
Sullivan’s Crossing, based on a book series by the American author Robyn Carr with the setting relocated to Canada, follows Maggie as she returns to her hometown in Nova Scotia after a legal suit derails her successful medical career in Boston.
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The main cast features familiar faces from American teen and family dramas, including Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls) as Sully, Maggie’s father who operates the series’ titular campground, and Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill) as Cal, the campground’s handyman and a love interest.
Carr herself is a well-known quantity in the U.S., with another of her romantic book series’s small-screen adaptations, Virgin River, currently Netflix’s longest-running series; Roma Roth, Sullivan’s Crossing’s Canadian executive producer, got that American show off the ground as well.
Kohan previously starred in the Hallmark drama When Hope Calls, but Sullivan’s Crossing has been her primary entry point to fame across North America.
As with the star of any show that jumps into the Netflix top 10 in the U.S., Kohan is now the subject of a new level of entertainment coverage as well as dubious content farm articles and AI sludge aiming to capitalize on a spike in Google searches for her name.
Kohan, who plays neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan, and Chad Michael Murray, who plays her love interest Cal, in Sullivan’s Crossing.Jessie Redmond/CTv/Supplied
“I’ve seen a couple articles like, yeah, ‘Who is Morgan’ and that’s fair, like, I don’t even know who I am,” she says with a laugh.
That Kohan’s TV success has come without leaving Canada is an interesting contrast to her character – who moves back north of the border to clear her mind after building her career is the United States and decides to stick around.
“I was thinking of going down to try and do a pilot season in L.A. when it was kind of making sense for my career, and then COVID happened and everything shifted, and you didn’t have to be in the room for auditions anymore,” she says. “I just love Toronto, so I’ve been happy to stay here. I’m very lucky to have found success here.”
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Sullivan’s Crossing, which initially premiered on CTV in 2023 and also stars Tom Jackson and Andrea Menard in its main cast, is the network’s most watched Canadian drama; on Bell Media’s affiliated streaming service Crave, it was a top 20 series each week of its recent third season run.
Both CTV and The CW, which also streams the series in the U.S. on its website, have renewed the series for a fourth season – so there will be more of Maggie’s saga coming for audiences in all its linear and streaming television silos.
“I’m excited to explore this character as long they’ll have me,” Kohan says. “It’s a beautiful show and she’s a beautiful character.”
