A romance that spans centuries carries Hallmark Channel’s 3-part special event, “Providence Falls,” streaming Saturday night.

In 1844 Ireland, impoverished thief Liam O’Conner (Lachlan Quarmby) falls for Cora McLeod (Katie Stevens), an aristocrat’s daughter. Things don’t work out, they can’t run off together to America.

Here come the Angels of Destiny to save Liam’s soul and set things right by sending the Irish lad to present day Providence Falls, Oregon, armed with memories of their thwarted affair.

Only Cora, a police detective newly partnered with Liam, has no memory of their distant past.

“This story really checked a lot of boxes of things that I wanted to do in my career,” Quarmby said in a joint virtual interview. “It has the police procedural elements. There’s fantasy, time travel, a period piece, romance. Different elements that all come together and a beautiful challenge.”

“Being in a period piece was one of my dreams,” Stevens agreed. “But the story is just so beautiful! The themes it tackles, the questions it’s going to have the audience ask themselves and try to get the answers to, is something everyone can relate to.”

Usually, a police procedural grittily inhabits a city’s mean streets.  Here there are fanciful offshoots.

“That’s because,” Quarmby explained, “these police officers are thrown into being police officers by divine intervention. So they’re thrust into that world and have to figure out how to juggle both.

“From an acting point of view, playing a police officer you still have to play it as real. Solve the crime for real. But there is so much more, a bit of both worlds.”

Stevens felt like there was Cora today and then, entirely separate, 19th century Cora.

“I had to do the 1844 history. She’s an aristocrat’s daughter who lost her mother and her whole life is being decided for her with who she’s going to marry.

“I had to ask: What is life like for women back in that time? Then, moving over to Cora the detective in present day, her father being the former chief of police, what was her life growing up? Being part of that cop world? Moving in a destiny that almost was set for her as well as it was the other Cora?

“It’s fun to come up with backstories that people out there won’t really know that we did all of that. But we have that information for our characters.

“Cora in that time is so desperately wanting to live a life where she chooses for herself. When she meets Liam, he’s so spontaneous, so different. He represents all of those things that she is longing for in her life.”

“Providence Falls” streams Saturday on Hallmark

Katie Stevens and Lachlan Quarmby star in the century-spanning romance “Providence Falls. (Photo Hallmark Media)