Season 6 of Netflix’s popular romantic drama Virgin River, released today, features Mel’s late mother Sarah and biological father, Everett, in flashbacks. As Deadline reported exclusively in February, the storyline is part of an effort to explore a potential prequel that tells the origin story of the two characters, played by Jessica Rothe and Callum Kerr, respectively. It is being spearheaded by Virgin River executive producer/showrunner Patrick Sean Smith.

During an interview with Deadline about the new season, Smith provided a status update on the project.

“It’s still in development, so I’m working on that now,” he said of the prequel, which would take place largely in the 1970s.

“I personally see it a little bit like Queen Charlotte to Bridgerton,” he said, referring to Netflix’s hit series Bridgerton, based on Julia Quinn’s books, which got an original prequel, Queen Charlotte, from Shonda Rhimes. Virgin River too is a book adaptation of Robyn Carr’s novels.

“I think if there’s an opportunity to take what Virgin River as a book series was, which was each book was focusing on one couple and expanding the world outside of it, to put Sarah and Everett in the foreground of their own story, while populating, as Virgin River has, the world with supporting characters and other relationships — but all still running it through the romance lens — to me, is what defines a lot of what an expansion of the show and the franchise would be,” Smith said. “So it’s still keeping things romance-forward, character-based, solid story engines, the beauty of the area, but then putting that in a time period that can inform some of the issues of the time, and that can still speak and feel relevant to issues of today, which I think is what Virgin River itself has done beautifully in its balance of not being so boxy, but also having something to say that still matters.”

In the flashbacks, Everett (Kerr) is a singer-songwriter with a poet’s soul. One day he’ll pursue his dreams of the stage, but for now, he’s skimming through life in a VW Van, until a chance meeting with a beautiful hitchhiker, Sarah (Rothe), may just show him there’s more to life than he ever thought possible.

In addition to his acting career, Kerr is a Nashville-based musician.