A PAIR OF HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS GETS A LESSON IN FATE 101

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINEE BARBARA EDEN, RENA SOFER AND DEAN MCDERMOTT STAR IN 'ALWAYS AND FOREVER' A HALLMARK CHANNEL ORIGINAL MOVIE PREMIERING OCTOBER 24

Longtime TV Mainstay Max Gail Costars

When a pair of high school sweethearts who ended up living happily never after bump into each other at the most dreaded of social gatherings � the high school reunion � they each begin to wonder if it's not too late to recapture what they once had in "Always and Forever," a Hallmark Channel Original Movie premiering Saturday, October 24 (9/8c). Golden Globe nominee Barbara Eden ("I Dream of Jeannie"), Dean McDermott ("Tori and Dean"), Rena Sofer ("24") and Max Gail ("Barney Miller") star in the film, which reminds us that Shakespeare had it right all along: The courses of true love never did run smooth. The film encores on Saturday, October 24 (11pm/10c), Sunday, October 25 (1am/12c) and (9pm/8c), Friday, October 30 (9pm/8c) and Saturday, October 31 (3pm/2c).

Back in 1989, Grace and Michael were high school seniors who had the type of romance that only high school seniors can have. But, like so many teenage relationships before theirs, it was not meant to last. Grace left for college, someone broke up with someone (who remembers anymore?), and the perfect sweethearts were no more. Twenty years later, Michael (McDermott) travels around overseeing construction for a hotel chain, while Grace (Sofer) returned home to start a design firm. In town for work, Michael's sister convinces her perpetually single brother to attend his 20-year high school reunion, while Grace's boyfriend, Phillip, convinces her to do the same.

Shocked to have run into each other after all this time, Grace and Michael reconnect, and as they reminisce over old times, the memories and laughs lead to rekindled feelings from their abandoned relationship. Now, with Grace's mom (Eden) pushing her daughter to end up with the man she thought was right for Grace all along and Grace's father (Gail) wishing Grace's mother would just stay the heck out of it, Grace must decide between the reliability of a relationship with Phillip or the uncertainty of a romance that already burned out once before.

"Always and Forever" is an LG Productions Films production in association with Larry Levinson Productions. Larry Levinson is the executive producer. Randy Pope and Michael Moran are the co-executive producers, and Erik Olson and Brian Martinez are the producers. Kevin Connor directed from a script by Riley Weston.

Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming to a national audience of 87 million subscribers. The top tier program service is distributed through more than 5,450 cable systems and communities as well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country. Hallmark Channel consistently ranks among the highest-rated cable networks and is the nation's leading network in providing quality family programming. Hallmark Channel's sibling network is Hallmark Movie Channel which focuses on the greatest family movies of all time.