Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe (2011) Matt Smith, Claire Skinner, Bill Bailey

It’s Christmas Day, so Larry and I pulled some Christmas crackers, put on our paper crowns, and watched the new episode of Doctor Who.

I’m glad that they’re finally airing Doctor Who episodes in the United States on the same basic schedule as in the UK. That being said, neither Larry nor I were huge fans of this episode. No big shock—I never seem to like the Doctor Who Christmas episodes as much as other people. Really I feel like this episode was a bit of a Christmas present from Steven Moffat to his mother or something, which is fine, except that I’m not Moffat’s mum.

On Christmas Eve, 1938, the Doctor falls to Earth in a spacesuit and is helped back to his TARDIS by Madge Arwell (Skinner). The Doctor says that if she ever needs his help she should ask for it by making a wish. (The Doctor is apparently some sort of Christmas angel/Tinkerbell/Jesus figure now.) Three years later Madge makes that wish after her husband is lost in the war. She is determined not to tell her children and ruin their Christmas. She takes them to an old house in Dorset where the Doctor is posing as the caretaker. His Christmas gift leads them to another time and place—one full of magic and danger and important lessons about the strength of women and mothers and wishing or something.

I’m such a Scrooge, but I just found the resolution of the plot to be a total copout. Larry agreed. (Stacey, feel free to argue with me about this.) I know, I know, Christmas miracles yada yada…it just didn’t work for me.

I did enjoy Bill Bailey’s very brief appearance, especially when he says to Madge, “Ma’am, please stop crying. I can’t interrogate you while you’re crying.” HA! I also enjoyed some of the quieter moments, such as the one between the Doctor and Madge about not letting the children know their father is dead. “What’s the point of them being happy if they’re going to be sad later?” asks the Doctor. “The answer of course, is that they’re going to be sad later.”

Larry liked the fact that Amy and Rory’s front door is painted TARDIS blue, which he found “ridiculously cute.” But overall he didn’t find the episode fun. He said, “It was ridiculously predictable and didn’t feel that Christmassy.” I think it was Christmassy enough, but I absolutely agree that it was predictable and just not that much fun.

You can do better, Moffat! Make your mum proud.

And that concludes the official DocSmartypants 25 Days of Christmas schedule. Hope you enjoyed. Happy holidays!

Merry Christmas!

(click to see the photos)

Somerville Holiday Lights

Last year on Christmas Eve, Larry and I were watching Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes face off against his nemesis at Reichenbach Falls. Larry was briefly traumatized, we watched another episode, and in the end it all worked out, despite some brief confusion over the fact that between those episodes they swapped out the actor playing Dr. Watson. Keeping with tradition, we decided to watch The Blue Carbuncle this year, the most festive of the Holmes mysteries.

On Christmas Eve, Sherlock Holmes (Brett) and Dr. Watson (Burke) look into the mystery of how a stolen gem ended up inside of a random goose. It’s more exciting than it sounds.

This is actually one of my favorite of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes stories, and it is the only one to my knowledge set at Christmastime. Brett was such a fantastic Holmes—by far my favorite of the classic Sherlocks. And Burke is a great Watson (although I came to love his replacement, Edward Hardwicke, just as much). I like my Watsons competent—as he was in the books—and both Burke and Hardwicke play him that way.

Half of the fun of any Sherlock Holmes story is the interplay between Holmes and Watson. There’s lots of it on display in The Blue Carbuncle. Brett and Burke have terrific chemistry, gentling snarking at each other in such a playful way that you completely believe that they are best friends. (Or life-partners, if you prefer that theory.)

Adding to the Christmas spirit is the conclusion to the story, in which—SPOILERS—Holmes takes pity on the thief and let’s him go, arguing that sending the clearly distraught fledgling crook to prison will only make him into a hardened criminal for life. “Maybe I am committing a felony,” he tells a disapproving Watson, “but I may be saving a soul.”

“After all,” he adds, “it is the season for forgiveness.”

Tune in tomorrow for Day 25: Doctor Who Christmas Special: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe.

White Christmas (1954) Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen

Confession time: I didn’t watch White Christmas. I have watched it—loads of times. In fact I watch it every year, and I swear I own a copy. But when I went to watch White Christmas I could find no trace of it in my home: not on DVD, not on VHS, not on TV, not even on Netflix instant queue. So I guess I will go out and buy a new copy tomorrow, if I can find one. But in the meantime we watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir instead, and I will write about White Christmas from memory, since clearly my copy was stolen by the ghost of Rex Harrison.

The basic plot of White Christmas is that Bob Wallace (Crosby) and Phil Davis (Kaye), who met in the war, have a successful song and dance act. But Bob is a hopeless workaholic and Phil wants some time off, so Phil plots to find Bob a love interest. They meet the Haynes sisters (Clooney and Ellen), who have a small act of their own, and they all end up at a struggling inn in Vermont that is run by Bob and Phil’s former commanding officer (Dean Jagger). To help the inn stay in business, Bob and Phil decide to bring their whole troupe up to Vermont and stage a big Christmas show, starring themselves and the Haynes sisters. There’s fake romance, real romance, misunderstandings, lots of great songs, a few not-so-great ones, a touch of patriotism, and of course, a white Christmas.

Danny Kaye absolutely delighted me when I was a child. I will now concede that he is a shameless ham, but that doesn’t stop my enjoying him in White Christmas. Bing Crosby, on the other hand, seems to have had the majority of his personality surgically removed. Is it possible that Kay was some sort of charisma vampire, sucking the life energy out of his costars? It would certainly explain Clooney’s performance, too. Ah well, despite some overacting on the left and some wooden acting on the right, I whole-heartedly love White Christmas.

I can still remember the first time I watched this movie when I was a kid, and it got to the scene where Bob and Phil stand in for the sisters so they can make a getaway from the nightclub they’ve been performing at. The guys do the “Sisters” number, and I laughed so hard that first time that I thought I might pass out. Even now it gets me—particularly the little looks they give each other and the obvious glee with which Phil thwacks Bob with that feather fan. Genius!

Obviously the number everyone thinks of when they think of this movie is “White Christmas.” I love that song, but there are plenty of other good ones in this movie. There’s also some fantastic dancing, especially from Vera Ellen (if you can pay attention to her footwork rather than how painfully thin she is).

White Christmas is a holiday staple for a reason: It’s a classic. It’s funny and fun to watch—full of color and music and dancing—and it’s got the obligatory happily-ever-after ending. I can’t really ask for much more. If you have a copy of White Christmas, go watch it. And if you have my copy (I’m looking at you, Ghost Rex Harrison!) please give it back to me, because Target is sold out.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 24: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Blue Carbuncle.

Here’s a Christmas bonus I think you can all appreciate: Elf! Knowing that Elf is a popular Christmas movie that hadn’t made my list this year, the lovely Laura took time out of her busy schedule to watch this with me and write it up for you. Enjoy!  —DocSmartypants

Elf (2003) Will Ferrell, Ed Asner, Bob Newhart, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel

Elf is the story of a human baby who accidently gets transported to the North Pole on Christmas eve and is raised as an elf. The baby grows up to be Buddy (Ferrell), the largest and least productive “elf” Santa’s workshop has ever known. After a few too many bad days on the assembly line, Buddy’s true human nature is finally revealed to him and he embarks on a quest to New York City to find his biological father (Caan). The quest is complicated by the fact that Buddy’s dad, a high-powered publishing executive is *gasp* on Santa’s naughty list! Many adventures follow and Buddy ultimately triumphs in connecting with his father, finding love, and saving Christmas.

Elf is probably the last Christmas movie I saw in a theater, and I loved it immediately. It is the youngest film on my must-see Christmas movie list by about 50 years. Even after many, many viewings, I still find Elf positively charming. I love the jazzy soundtrack, I love the homage to other beloved Christmas specials, I love Ed Asner’s long-suffering Santa, I love that Zooey Deschanel doesn’t destroy this movie by her very presence. Seriously. I think this is the ONLY movie Deschanel hasn’t made unwatchable for me. You could paint eyes on a toaster and get a more dynamic performance than Deschanel seems capable of, but I digress. Elf succeeds as an adorable Christmas film despite the unfortunate love-interest casting choice.

The best part of the film by far is Will Ferrell’s wide-eyed, cheerful, innocent, trusting portrayal of the man/elf Buddy. This film is marketed as a family-friendly movie kids will love. And it is. Plenty of stuff here for the kiddos. But, at its heart, Elf is for adults. Most of the characters in the movie are busy, somewhat cynical people who enjoy the holiday season on some level but have come to view it primarily as another set of obligations to add to their already bursting schedules. None of these people have any idea what to do with Buddy, this man who loves everything about Christmas, takes people at their word, and can barely navigate daily life in New York.

Buddy is the embodiment of Christmas spirit and childlike wonder. He doesn’t have any special powers, he is a human after all, but he ends up saving Christmas because he inspires others to lower their defenses and tap into their own Christmas spirit. (He also helps fix Santa’s sleigh after it crashes in Central Park.) I think I find Elf so appealing because it shows a man who unabashedly loves Christmas and isn’t afraid to proclaim it loudly. Buddy’s character is a like a bridge from harried adulthood to a time when Christmas was magical because ANYTHING was possible.

If you only watch one minute of Elf, it should be this minute:

A Christmas Story came out in 1983, and my family has watched it pretty much every year since. It is permanently tied to my memories of Christmastime. I can quote from it endlessly. I know not everyone is a fan, but as far as I am concerned this is one of the funniest, most spot-on portrayals of a child’s experience of Christmas I’ve seen. It’s not a movie with a grand romance; there’s no holiday miracle or Santa-Claus-is-real reveal; it’s just a kid being a kid and dreaming of a toy he wants for Christmas, as kids do.

Even though the film is set in the ’40s, and the family isn’t really much like my own, I can relate to a lot of the moments in A Christmas Story. I remember being forced into an uncomfortable snow suit as a small child, the family going out to a lot to find a Christmas tree each year, that moment of quiet contemplation after all the gifts have been opened and the wrapping paper carnage still covers the floor. I remember stupid playground double-dog dares, and desperately hoping and dreaming about that one gift you pray you’ll be getting on Christmas morning. One year I picked a stuffed animal out of a catalog (probably the Sears Wish Book—remember those?), and I carried the picture from the catalog around with me for weeks, I was so excited. And while I don’t remember ever being traumatized by a department store Santa, even that may have happened at some point.

One of the things I think A Christmas Story gets right is how big the small things can seem in a child’s life. The epic importance of a secret decoder ring and the dejection when it doesn’t live up to expectations. The feeling of DOOM when you know you’ve upset your parents. The way Christmas can feel like the most important day of the year—at least until some other important day comes along. And A Christmas Story manages to poke fun at this but also kind of respect it. I also like how real the parents seem: they’re flawed but loving.

I will close by saying that I remember a huge debate on the school playground after this film came out about whether your tongue actually would freeze to a flagpole in the winter. My god, kids are stupid. Lucky for us, winters in Washington State weren’t usually quite as frozen as the one in A Christmas Story. Seriously, kids, sometimes you should believe what you see on TV.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 23: White Christmas.

Yet another Christmas bonus! Stacey watched Holiday Inn, and since I wasn’t writing it up, and she had time and was nice and sober, she wrote the Great American Novel of blog posts about it for you all. Enjoy!  —DocSmartypants

Holiday Inn (old enough to be in black-and-white) Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, some chick who can sing and dance because they could all sing and dance back then.

The other night, my mother, sister, and I all watched Holiday Inn, because my mother and sister had never seen it. They were, as everyone always is, surprised when “White Christmas” showed up in the movie. And that is, really, the entire reason why Holiday Inn gets watched at Christmastime, because other than the presence of that song, it’s not in the stereotypical vein of a Christmas movie. Christmas does happen in the movie, three times, complete with movie-perfect snow and Christmas trees with lit candles on them (Were people just more responsible in the olden days? Smarter? Possessing more common sense?). But the plot doesn’t revolve around any of the emotion of Christmas (whether happy or stressful) that most other Christmas movies focus on. It begins and ends at Christmastime but I think, if the Christmas scenes didn’t include the singing of the song “White Christmas,” no one would really think of this as a Christmas movie.

The plot of the movie: Bing Crosby plays Jim, a singer who’s part of a successful performing trio with Ted (Fred Astaire) and Lila. As the story opens, Jim and Lila are getting ready to quit the grind of show business and get married. Except that it soon becomes clear that it’s only Jim who wants to sit around doing nothing. Lila decides to run off with Ted. Jim hears this news and is like, “Huh. Okay, then. Good-bye.” And he moves to his farm in Connecticut.

Turns out farming is lots of hard work. So, after about a year (and apparently a minor nervous breakdown), he decides to turn the farm into an inn and to open it only on the 15 holidays a year (three of which occur in February, btw).

Jim shows up at Ted and Lila’s show saying that he’s looking for talent for his new Holiday Inn. His former agent sends aspiring singer/dancer Linda Mason his way. But first, before Linda shows up at the inn, there’s this kind of convoluted and unnecessary meeting between Jim and Linda at Ted and Lila’s show. I guess this is supposed to establish that they have chemistry or something?

Linda shows up at Jim’s really kind of incredibly gorgeous inn, and the pair of them sing “White Christmas” together, and therefore their destiny is sealed, because “White Christmas” is a serious, lifetime-commitment song, not a fling kind of song. Everything seems hunky-dory at Holiday Inn.

Until Ted shows up again. Because ruining a guy’s life once isn’t enough for a lifetime. (I say this on the assumption that a normal guy would be pretty devastated if his fiancée run off with one of his friends. Truthfully, Jim doesn’t seem all that affected by it. Unless he’s suppressing it and this is why he has a nervous breakdown and then goes a little bit crazy and controlling with Linda. Actually, that does make some sense.)

Anyway, I’ve digressed a bit: Lila has left Ted for a Texas millionaire (I love the Texas detail in there—those darn Texans! So rude and uncouth and not-to-be-trusted!). In reaction, Ted shows up drunk at Jim’s wildly successful Holiday Inn, and Ted and Linda dance an implausibly well-choreographed “spontaneous” routine together. Ted passes out, then wakes up in the morning with nary a memory of this magical dance, but the crowd is buzzing with it and Ted and the agent decide that the mystery girl has to be Ted’s new partner.

Jim knows, of course, that the mystery girl is his Linda, but he doesn’t want to tell Ted who she is because Jim is in love with her (because they sang “White Christmas” together, see above), and he knows that Ted will steal her from him just like Ted stole Lila. Jim tries to hide Linda from Ted (including a scene where he apparently awkwardly semi-proposes while applying blackface to her), but eventually Ted figures out who she is. Ted moves into Holiday Inn, determined to convince Linda to be his partner. Eventually, Linda does acquiesce, mainly in the face of Jim’s attempts to manipulate her and control her future so he kind of deserves it a little. Linda goes off to Hollywood with Ted, leaving Jim sad and depressed and all alone at Thanksgiving in his now-closed inn. Until his wise black cook tells him he should fight for Linda. (I actually really like that scene, because the cook has a line about “You could melt her heart like butter, if you’d only turn up the heat,” and it’s not the most brilliant line in the world but it says a lot about Ted’s character, and more on that later.)

So Jim goes to Hollywood to fight for Linda, on the eve of her wedding to Ted. Linda is getting ready to film the final scene of the movie she’s making. A final scene involving a set designed to look just like the inn, movie-perfect snow, a Christmas tree with lit candles, and the song “White Christmas.” What do you think happens?

I actually think I kind of love Bing Crosby, especially in this movie. First, he’s very good-looking. Second, he has a great voice. And third, he plays the sort of character here that I really love. He’s the somewhat aloof and droll one, the one who stands a bit to the side commenting, because he’s the straight man, the sane one, the responsible one, the smart one. While he seems to be a romantic, he’s also strongly pragmatic. He isn’t going to be the one with the burning passionate speeches, because he’s going to be the steady one who’s going to be there at the end of it all patiently reminding you of what the point was in the first place. Yes, he has his zany moments, but he’s really the character you’re supposed to be identifying with, and I do. I like that he wants to spend as much time as possible sitting around and doing nothing, okay? And I like the fact that he’s probably reached that point because he’s exhausted from dealing with Ted for however many years they had an act together. I am familiar with Jim’s predicament, and I feel for him and love him for it. In fact, Jim should call me and we should get married, because I’d never be tempted to leave him for Ted. Ted is kind of a jerk through most of this movie, and I think we’re supposed to think he’s some kind of charming, rakish rascal, but no, he’s just rude and mean. Can you imagine just announcing you’re moving in with the person whose fiancée you’d stolen, with the purpose of stealing his new fiancée? Like, who does that? I don’t get why Jim isn’t just like, “No, you’re not staying here, get out.” And I wonder if some of this is some kind of changing social value at work or something. Like, was Ted considered more charming originally? Were women like, “Oh, that Jim, he can be a bit of a stick in the mud because he can’t dance”? I’m not sure. It’s interesting to think about, though, especially as you watch Ted steal Jim’s girl. Again. And Jim looks so sad and bereft and you’re like, “Awww, poor Jim, call me on your ancient telephone; I’ll sing ‘White Christmas’ with you.”

Sort of on the same subject of changing social values, it’s amazing to me how much old movies are kind of just collections of symbols to us now. Like, they’ve entered our lexicon so strongly that they read as clichés. I took a course in college called Narrative Theory, and it was all about the shortcuts writers (and film-makers) use to telegraph things to their audience. The class was, in a way, about how clichés aren’t always bad, they’re useful if employed properly to get your audience where you need them to be. In fact, you need clichés, you’d never get anywhere without them. They’ve gotten a bad reputation, but try to set a movie in New York without an establishing shot to telegraph to your viewer This is New York. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’d be a lot worse to have your character say, “HERE WE ARE IN NEW YORK CITY” than to just show the Statue of Liberty and have your viewer immediately grasp it.

Anyway, today we make movies with incredibly complex storylines and characters, we strive for realism in everything. And it’s made movies, quite frankly, work to go see. Now maybe old movies were work at first, for audiences not used to the medium being used to communicate, but now we are so well-versed in the language of film that Holiday Inn and other older movies feel like going back and reading See Spot Run. Let’s face it, there is nothing realistic about Holiday Inn. (See Jim’s continuing tolerance of Ted above.) It’s a series of set pieces that are just meant to telegraph to the audience. “Here is the scene where Jim and Linda have a conversation so you can see they are going to be interesting to each other.” “Here is the scene where they sing and fall in love.” “Here is the scene where Ted dances with Linda and falls in love.” “Here is the scene where Linda gets angry at Jim and leaves.” You never really feel that Jim loves Linda or vice versa, but that doesn’t harm the movie because you know you’re supposed to believe that it’s true. You accept it because it was telegraphed to you, right there: “This is what you, the viewer, knows now. Don’t question it, we’re going to throw in a dance number now to distract you.” If someone made a movie like this today, we would be like, “But they didn’t have chemistry! They had three conversations and were suddenly engaged! The motivations don’t line up!” I am that kind of viewer with a modern movie, but an old movie frees me from that, because I understand that the world it’s engaged in is different.

Which is why (talk about changing social values…) it has a blackface number. It was made in a very different time, and the number is cringe-inducing and appalling to modern viewers. The broadcast I saw actually cut the number out of the show. I admit I’m torn about this. I actually think it can be important to preserve the casual racism of our past, because those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But keeping the number in makes the movie about that, in a way, and kind of robs the movie of its own terms, forcing it to be judged by a different standard. So, I can see an argument for both versions of the movie, but be forewarned going in.

In conclusion, Holiday Inn is an enjoyable little movie. There’s nothing groundbreaking about it, really, except for the awesomeness of the song “White Christmas,” which really does endure in its magic and never gets old for me. It isn’t the best written movie, nor is it the most brilliantly acted, but the actors all exude that charm that actors were expected to have more frequently in those days than in our days, I think.

The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) the voices of the damned

Oh god, it’s another Rankin-Bass monstrosity! Why do these Rankin-Bass movies never make any sense? Is it really that hard to make a Christmas film with a coherent plot? Their movies remind me of craft projects made by little kids: They start out with a solid concept and somewhere along the way it just becomes a Frankenstein’s monster of Elmer’s glue, glitter, feathers, and Froot Loops.

As near as I can tell, the “plot” of The Year Without a Santa Claus goes something like this: Santa has a cold, and after the doctor who comes to check on him says no one cares about Christmas anyways—nice bedside manner, Doc—Santa goes all woe is me and decides to take a year off from Christmas. Mrs. Claus talks two elves (with Vixen) into looking for some kids who still have Christmas spirit. She forgets to mention that the elves should avoid the Heat Miser and Snow Miser, and the elves and reindeer get knocked out of the sky when they wander into a small battle between the Misers. They land in Southtown, USA, and Vixen ends up in the dog pound, and Santa comes to help, and Mrs. Claus also comes to help, and somehow the mayor makes a bargain with them that Vixen can go free if they make it snow in Southtown for Christmas. He also promises to make a national holiday in Santa’s honor (not sure when Southern mayors were given this power, but OK, sure). The elves and Mrs. Claus go to talk the Miser brothers into making it snow in Southtown, eventually going over the brothers’ heads and straight to their mom, Mother Earth. Meanwhile Santa just pays the fine for Vixen and takes her home. The snow plan is moving forward anyways, and all the children of the entire earth are so impressed that they send Santa gifts for Christmas, except for one girl who sends a letter about having a blue Christmas without Santa. Santa is then inspired to go through with Christmas after all. So, I guess the moral here is: If you want someone to get you a gift on Christmas, send them a gift or sad letter and it will guilt them into it. Also, if people aren’t doing what you ask, go tattle to their mother and she’ll make them do it, or ask a Southern mayor.

I don’t think Rankin and Bass like Santa Claus very much. In Rudolph, he was a mean-spirited old man who yelled at the elves and tormented a little reindeer just because he was gay—I mean different! In this one, he has some sort of mood disorder and is apparently so depressed that he can’t get out of bed for the one day a year he is expected to work. I was discussing this with Stacey, and she said, “Santa is a pretty unhappy individual for the person who brings joy to little children everywhere. He has a lot of issues to work through. There should probably be a holiday movie called Santa’s Therapist.” And just like that, through the power of even thinking it, you know a certain cable channel already has someone writing the script.

Anyways, this is another of those films that Larry loves and I basically hate. But I do enjoy seeing the touch of childlike glee that comes over him when this is on, so I suffer through it once a year. Really the only parts I like are the fabulous song and dance routines the Heat Miser and Snow Miser perform. Those guys totally crack me up. I love that they apparently spend their days sniping at each other and practicing musical numbers with their minions.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 22: A Christmas Story.

The Office Christmas Special (2003) Ricky Gervais, Lucy Davis, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook

I’m going to do my best to do this episode justice in the write up, but I was shanghaied by the local public transportation system for two hours this evening, so let it be known that my cup doesn’t exactly runneth over with holiday spirit at the moment.

This two-part Christmas special is the final episode of the popular UK mockumentary series The Office. Set a few years after the end of season two, it is meant to be one of those reality show where-are-they-now follow-ups.

The first half checks in with where people are now, particularly obnoxious former boss David (Gervais), office everyman Tim (Freeman), and former secretary Dawn (Davis). We find David drifting a bit, still trying to milk his 10 minutes of fame while also looking for a girlfriend. Tim is still suffering at the same job, now sharing his work area with the world’s most annoying pregnant woman, who has no idea what the word “boundaries” means. And Dawn is living illegally in Florida with her awful fiance who has talked her into giving up her dreams of being an artist. As plans for the office Christmas party progress, we find out that Dawn will be flying home to attend, and the question is, will Tim—twice humiliated in the pursuit of Dawn’s affections—make one last-ditch effort to win her over? (Do it, Tim! Do it for all of us romantic cowards!)

The second half of the episode gives us several awkward online dating attempts for David, the actual Christmas party, and the resolution of the Tim/Dawn storyline.

One of the things I love/hate about the Brits is that they are not afraid to torture you before they give you a happy ending. Watching this Christmas special is like the visual equivalent of being force-marched across Europe, naked, in a blizzard before you’re allowed to open your Christmas presents. BUT when you do get to open your presents, one of them is that adorable puppy you’ve had your eye on forever, and it’s handed to you by the celebrity crush of your choice.

As Larry commented while we were watching: “They’re so good at being awkward—it’s painful.” And he means that in the nicest way possible.

Unlike the Vicar of Dibley Christmas episode I watched this year, this special actually does feel Christmassy. There’s the party, and Christmas music, and Secret Santa gifts, and a bit of a warm, fuzzy ending—as all good Christmas shows should have. One thing I really like about the ending is that it is incredibly sweet and satisfying, but in a nice, small way that doesn’t feel unbelievable. And that’s about all I will say about this since I think only two people who read my blog have actually seen The Office (UK), which is a bit of a shame really because Martin Freeman is the master of the reaction shot, and this show gave him ample opportunity to perfect his craft. Dear Martin, nothing makes me laugh harder than your face. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 21: The Year Without a Santa Claus.