Glad TV tidings

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This article was published 17/12/2022 (1008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Most TV shows, especially the ones that defined the heyday of network television, do the Holiday Episode — a chance to get silly or sentimental against the backdrop of the December holidays, which are loaded with opportunities for tragedy and comedy, both.

To get you in the spirit of the season, the Free Press arts and life team has selected a few holiday favourites to create an assorted box of streaming goodies that truly has something for everyone.

Golden Girls, “’Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas”
Season 2, Episode 11
Streaming on Disney+

Everyone’s favourite Floridian foursome has quite the festive fail in this funny, heartfelt episode. After exchanging homemade gifts (including “The Men of Blanche’s Boudoir” calendar which — fun fact — was filled with nude/semi-nude photos of crew members), the girls get set to fly home to see family over the holidays, only to end up stuck at Rose’s office at the grief counselling centre when a gun-toting Santa comes in looking for someone to spend the holidays with him. Once the situation is diffused, the gals make it to the airport, only to have their flights cancelled due to weather. At a nearby diner, as snow starts to fall in Miami, they realize they’ve still got each other as family. Aww…

— Ben Sigurdson

 

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “Yippie Kayak”
Season 3, Episode 10
Streaming on Netflix

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? If there were any doubt, this episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine should put it to bed. Die Hard superfan and New York detective Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) ends up at a department store with best pal/fellow detective Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) and co-worker Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) at closing time to grab a last-minute gift. In the process they encounter an armed robbery in progress, whereby Peralta tries to live out his Die Hard fantasy — with middling but hilarious results.

— Ben Sigurdson

 

ER, “A Miracle Happens Here”
Season 2, Episode 10
Streaming on Prime Video

It’s Christmastime at Chicago’s County General and, of course, things are pandemonium. Pediatrician Dr. Doug Ross (peak George Clooney) has to deal with some truly wild injuries — see: “nativity on ice vs. zamboni” — while nurse Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) is struggling to retain her holiday cheer in the face of a bunch of bah-humbug docs, but has her spirit restored when she takes care of a patient who looks uncannily like a certain big man in red. (Uncharacteristically cheese for this show, but it works.)

But this episode, directed by the excellent Mimi Leder, is really about Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards). He’s dealing with a disintegrating marriage and a wrongful-death lawsuit (a gutting callback to a soul-destroying Season 1 episode). But when he cares for a Holocaust survivor who is the victim of a carjacking (Joan Copeland), he’s reminded that miracles come in many forms.

— Jen Zoratti

 

Frasier, “The Fight Before Christmas”
Season 7, Episode 11
Streaming on Crave

In this offering that’s continued from a previous episode, we find self-absorbed Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) fussing about his Christmas party while Niles (David Hyde Pierce) gets in a stuttery-stumbly tangle between his new love Mel (Jane Adams) and ex-wife Maris. Roz’s (Peri Gilpin) cutting observations, Martin’s (John Mahoney) kitschy dancing Santa and Frasier’s multiple “accidental” revelations create layers of mayhem. But in true sitcom fashion it all comes right in the end for everyone… except perhaps Daphne (Jane Leeves), who now must grapple with the knowledge that Niles is in love with her.

— AV Kitching

 

The Sopranos, “To Save Us All From Satan’s Power”
Season 3, Episode 10
Streaming on Crave

You think you’re having a “Stress-mas”? Try an hour with Mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), who’s overloaded with Christmas preparations with his family and overwhelmed with memories of Christmases past with his Family.

He’s having flashbacks about his old pal Big Pussy — who’s sleeping with the fishes instead of playing Santa, as he’d done for years for neighbourhood kids — and his panic attacks return. Tony’s moods twist and turn; few have portrayed misery the way Gandolfini does in this episode.

— Alan Small

 

Friends, “The One With Phoebe’s Dad”
Season 2, Episode 9
Streaming on Crave

This Season 2 episode is arguably the most festive of the Friends holiday outings. Monica (Courteney Cox) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) are broke, and are giving out home-baked cookies in lieu of payments — which is how we learn they subscribe to the newspaper, aw. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) believes her dad is the guy that comes with the picture frame and confronts her grandma (Audra Lindley), who doubles down — “here’s your dad at a graduation. And another graduation. And another graduation” — before admitting that he lives in upstate New York, sending Phoebe, Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) on a fact-finding mission. Chandler, as usual, has the best line: when Monica admonishes him for not finishing his Christmas shopping — “tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, what are you gonna do!?” — he reponds, “Don’t you have to be Claymation to say stuff like that?”

— Jen Zoratti

 

Futurama, “XmasStory”
Season 2, Episode 8
Streaming on Disney+

What will Christmas look like in the year 3000? In the Futurama universe there are still plenty of presents, but pine trees have gone extinct and Santa Claus is a murderous robot programmed to shoot anyone out past curfew. In this early episode of the seven-season show created by Simpson’s founder Matt Groening, main character Fry (Billy West) is experiencing his first Christmas in the future after being cryogenically frozen 1,000 years prior. Gather round the palm tree and watch Fry and the gang battle Santa (voiced by John Goodman) and his evil little reindeer.

— Eva Wasney

 

M*A*S*H, “Death Takes a Holiday”
Season 9, Episode 5
Streaming on Paramount Plus

Drama often supplanted comedy in M*A*S*H by the time 1980 rolled around and the Korean War sitcom reached its 199th episode, Death Takes a Holiday.

There’s little to laugh at in this one, but the show has great spirit and sentiment, making this heart-breaking half-hour one of the series’ most memorable. A soldier is mortally wounded by a sniper in the midst of the 4077th’s Christmas celebrations, and B.J. (Mike Farrell), Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and Margaret (Loretta Swit) try to keep him alive beyond Dec. 25, as a gift to his family back home.

— Alan Small

 

Doctor Who, “A Christmas Carol”
Season 6, Episode 14
Streaming on Crave

It’s tough to choose which Doctor Who festive episode to feature, as they’re all instant classics. The beloved BBC science-fiction series, which started back in the ’60s, ran until the late ’80s before relaunching in 2005. Matt Smith plays the eponymous Doctor in this Xmas special, which sees him trying to save a town from a Scrooge-like Kazran Sardick. Making full use of his time-travelling Tardis, the doctor attempts to change Sardik’s past, hoping to give him a happier present, but his meddling doesn’t have the desired results. Filled with action, adventure and romance (in true Doctor Who form), this is a clever heartwarming take on Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol.

— AV Kitching

 

The X-Files, “How the Ghost Stole Christmas”
Season 6, Episode 6
Streaming on Disney+

Ghosts are an age-old Christmas trope. The X-Files uses the tradition to gift Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) with a moment of self-awareness, while adding ghosts to the show’s supernatural canon. The plot is a little outlandish (The X-Files, outlandish? Never.): Mulder and Scully are investigating a haunted mansion on Christmas Eve when they’re visited by two ghosts (played by Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin) on a mission to convince the FBI agents to kill each other. There are twists and blood and a Scrooge-like come-to-goodness moment, but don’t expect it to last. The show relies on Mulder’s unwavering beliefs and Scully’s blinding skepticism.

— Eva Wasney