I am aware that it is two days past Christmas and two days past the date I should have posted number 25 in my Top 25 Christmas Episodes list.  While a lot of life has gotten in the way of my posting these entries on schedule, this delay was planned.  I’ve timed this to go along with an even more important event going on over at my friend Nikki Stafford’s bog (nikkistafford.blogspot.com), the final installment of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011.  Any ideas about what my top Christmas episode is???

On December 15, 1998, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Amends” showed us that religious hasn’t cornered the market on forgiveness, that even those who claim no God can believe in the power of forgiveness, an act that creates reconciliation.  Joss Whedon is one of those people who, while an atheist, believes that humans themselves have the potential for great goodness, and it is shown in almost every moment of “Amends.”  While haunted by the most powerful form of evil, Angel shows that love has more power and is willing to sacrifice himself for that love.  Oz’s love for Willow gives him the power to resist another form of temptation. Love motivates the goodness of the living and the undead, then, and that love, especially in Angel’s case, is the “amends” that compensate for the truly terrible acts of Angelus, which have been haunting Angel in his dreams.  As proof of this, Angel’s sacrifice is rejected by a true Christmas miracle…

…which is what makes “Amends” my favorite Christmas television episode.  While the holiday is an observance of a supernatural miracle, we should always remember that miracle was an act of love, and love is not limited to those of religious faith.  We all fall short of whatever standard our faith sets for us or we set for ourselves, but with love, all can be forgiven.  For more of this love and goodness, visit Nik at Night; there will be a lot of it as the Great Buffy Rewatch comes to an end.

Once upon a time (33 years ago), in a city far, far away (Montery, California), a certain soldier who is now a college professor joined with a few other soldiers to sing Christmas carols at the Fort Ord base hospital.  When we arrived, we were directed to the psychiatric ward as that was where the most patients could be found to enjoy our gleeful singing.  I remember feeling very cautious since I had never been to the floor in a hospital that doesn’t typically even have a number in the elevator.  The most vivid memory I have is of one patient, perfectly harmless, who followed us from room to room requesting his favorite Christmas carol, “God Bless America.”  We must have belted out his “carol” ten times that evening.

A year or so earlier than this experience, a couple of my two favorite TV characters from the period, Laverne and Shirley, had a similar Christmas visit to a psychiatric ward.  I didn’t see the episode until much later, probably on Nickelodean, and it gave me quite a chuckle, mostly because of its similarity to my own experience.  On its own, however, Laverne and Shirley’s second season “Oh Hear the Angels’ Voices” is a delightful Christmas episode.  The two wacky friends try to do something good, it backfires on them (Shirley’s parents had used the threat of a mental hospital as a discipline tactic when she was a child), and as is often the case in a Christmas show, the episode ends on a fuzzy note with viewers knowing that we should all do something equally giving at Christmas. 

I think since I have already caroled at a psychiatric ward, I’ll try a different charitable activity this Christmas …. 

One more episode on the Christmas list.  Anyone want to take a guess which it will be?

Whew!  I finally got to Festivus. It’s not Chistmas, and it’s not Hanukkah, but it has become an important part of popular culture, and it is fun to say!   

Most people were introduced to Festivus in the Seinfeld episode, “The Strike.”  While it was actually created in the 60s, Festivus wasn’t widely known until Seinfeld writer Daniel O’Keefe, son of the holiday’s creator Dan O’Keefe, incorporated it into “The Strike.”

Festivus is a great holiday, mostly because it is just so darned honest.  You get to tell people how much they have failed you in the “airing of grievances.”  Then you get to wrestle!  If we all celebrated Festivus on December 23, we’d be free of emotional baggage and have a much merrier Christmas. 

“The Strike” is a great holiday episode, not only for the brilliant way it weaves so many stories together (George’s holiday greed, Kramer’s 12 years of unemployment, Jerry and Elaine’s continued dating drama), but because it introduced us to an idea that has become not only so culturally familiar, but culturally celebrated!  Who says pop culture is useless!

Yes, I know I’m running three days behind on my Top 25 Christmas Epsiodes list.  Christmas has gotten in the way of the Christmas list, but as the mushrooms simmer in red wine and the sticky buns rise, I’m going to try a little catching up.

Six Feet Under always had a snarky undertone (and sometimes explicit tone), and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” the program’s 2002 Christmas episode (airing in April…what is it with April Christmas episodes on HBO?), is no exception.  The death of the week is a Hells Angel who crashed while waving to some children on the street as he was going to a job playing Santa.  It’s a Hells Angels kind of Christmas as the Fishers agree to open the funeral home to Jessie’s friends on the holiday for a send-off celebration.

Ruth Fisher is trying to bring some celebration to her own family’s Christmas, the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death.  As always where patriarch Nathaniel is involved, much backstory is revealed to the viewers, but in “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” characters also reveal secrets to each other, which provide some nice parallels in the narrative.

For many people, the holidays require a lot of extra emotional energy to rise above the family tensions, especially if Christmas is going to truly become “the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”  A robbery and two broken legs put Nikolai on the Fisher sofa for Christmas, compounding the Fisher’s family stress.  Fisher stress usually makes for the best Six Feet Under episodes, and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” is no exception…it is a Most Wonderful Christmas episode. 

As the last holiday of the year before the New Year celebrations, and since it is a time for family gatherings, for better or for worse, Christmas becomes a time of reflection. In no television episode is this presented more clearly than today’s subject, The Sopranos “…To Save Us all From Satan’s Power.”

Family is big for Tony Soprano, in their multiple forms, so it makes sense that Christmas is a time when Tony is particularly sensitive to family issues.  “…To Save Us all From Satan’s Power” airs one year after Tony is forced to take out his good friend, Big Pussy.  Flashbacks help build the guilt Tony is carrying, which is confirmed by his asking Paulie Walnuts if he feels any guilt over killing Pussy after learning he was an FBI informant.  The flashbacks also provide Tony with important information about Pussy’s “mole” activities, including his wearing a wire at the previous Christmas party at which he put on a Santa suit for his annual playing of Santa.  One of the brilliant qualities of The Sopranos is its ability to make us feel bad for its brutal, criminal lead character, and this is one of those times. 

There is nothing he can do about Pussy, but Tony makes up for it by trying to “save” his own family members.  He gifts his sister Janice with the beating up of the Russian who injured her in an earlier episode.  He beats up Jackie Aprile, Jr., Tony’s daughter’s current love interest and son of his dead best friend, when he sees Jackie getting a lap dance at a strip club.  His loyalty and adherence to his own admittedly immoral code of honor make Tony even more endearing, in a very uncomfortable way.

One of the highlights of this episode is Bobby Bacala taking over Big Pussy’s role as Santa for the Satriale’s Christmas Party.  Bobby has the size to pull off Santa, but not the personality.  His painful shyness in the role prompts Silvio to suggest that they send him to Santa school before the next holiday.  Another highlight, and perhaps the truly “highest” moment in “…To Save Us all From Satan’s Power” is the gift Tony receives from his daughter, Meadow – a Big Mouth Talking Bass.  Viewers will remember that one of Tony’s clues about Pussy’s disloyalty came through a fever dream when Pussy appears to Tony as a talking fish.  And Pussy is now “sleeping with the fishes.”  Meadow doesn’t know any of this, of course, which gives the moment much irony.  The true implication of the gift is only apparent to Tony and the viewing audience, making it one sizable and painful inside “joke.” 

“…To Save Us all From Satan’s Power” embodies all the reflection and family centric qualities of a Christmas episode – but it did not air during the holidays. It first aired in April, 2001.  Perhaps this was best since it so wonderfully captures the complex emotions of Christmas, many of which make celebrating difficult.  So while I count it as one of my top 25 Christmas television episodes, you might want to wait until after the holidays to watch or re-watch it. 

Like numbers 18 and 19 on this list, today’s Christmas episode does not end on the warm and fuzzy, light-the-fire-and-fill-the-eggnog note that we expect out of holiday television programs.  But then, a Twilight Zone episode ending on the happy would be even more frightening than usual. 

“Five Characters in Search of an Exit” is a twisted homage to Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.  Anyone recognizing the allusion to Pirandello’s play from the episode title will anticipate a blurring of the line between the real and unreal.  In “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” that line is between human and the human representations – dolls.  In this case the dolls believe they are human and are trapped in a metal container.  They don’t remember or know much about their lives pre-container.  They spend most of the episode attempting both self-discovery and escape.  The “reality” of their situation is revealed in the final moments of the episode.

Six Characters in Search of an Author ends in the characters’ stories being written tragically.  There is a parallel in “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” as the episode’s author, Rod Serling, writes an ending for the trapped Major, clown, hobo, ballerina, and bagpiper in which their lives are realized in the episode’s narrative, but they are not the lives the characters imagined for themselves.  Like Six Characters, however, the real “lives” created for the Major, clown, etc., while tragic, provide pleasure for outside beneficiaries.  In Six Characters, it is the audience watching the play.  In “Five Characters,” it is the children who will receive the dolls as a result of Christmas charity.  With both texts, we resist the urge to feel good about endings which create joy for all but the characters themselves. 

If you watch “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” and I hope you do, you might also find some similarity to another story, the much less serious Toy Story.  Toys are such an important part of Christmas, and bringing them to life in stories of determination and survival fit well the holiday theme of hope – with the Twilight Zone Christmas episode, that hope is just too temporary.

Christmas has finally interfered with my Christmas episode list!  In an effort to catch up today, I’m combining two episodes that are actually a two-part episode series, and I’m calling them two blog entries. 

The sixth season of The X-Files is full of tidbits of answers to some of the mysteries the program built not only concerning the paranormal and alien, but about the connection of lead characters Mulder and Scully to those mysteries.  In the two-episode holiday offering of 1997, “Christmas Carol” and “Emily,” some of the secrets of Scully’s earlier abduction are revealed.  For the audience, the episodes offer new evidence that Scully is evolving from scientist skeptic to believer, the character’s primary character arc.

Set during a Christmas visit to her brother’s home, one of the highlights of the episode are flashbacks to Scully’s childhood that explain some of her adult personality traits and motivations.  Gillian Anderson’s fourteen year old daughter, Zoe, plays the 1976 version of Scully.  Another special element of the episode for me is the role of a small gold cross necklace that links Sully’s past to the present situation of locating the child born from the experiments conducted on her during her abduction.

As much as I think Christmas Carol retellings are overdone, something I’ve noted on this blog list before, The X-Files presented us with a Christmas Carol episode we might not have noticed if not for the title.  This is because Scully’s ghost of Christmas past is not some Scrooge, but her own young self, a truly unique borrowing from the Dickens’ classic.

While the end of “Emily” does not leave us wanting to break out the eggnog in celebration, its poignant final moments do leave us knowing more about Dana Scully, who we have spent six seasons cheering on, hoping that she will open her heart and her mind to the possibilities that only belief, not science, can provide.  As such, “Christmas Carol” and “Emily” are indeed holiday gifts for viewers.   

Today’s entry is not about an existing television episode; the show I’m writing about today doesn’t air until tomorrow.  And it’s not about Christmas; it is actually about the end of Ramadan.  In the spirit of Christmas and “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men,” I’m going to write about TLC’s All American Muslim.

All American Muslim is not the best program to ever air on TLC, but neither is it the worst.  It is a tastefully produced and interesting show that lets viewers get to know some of their neighbors in Dearborn, Michigan.  Those neighbors just happen to be Muslim, which has created quite a pretty tasteless stir.

The episode airing tomorrow, Sunday, December 18, is about football.  “A Chance at Redemption” looks at how the high school football team is doing post Ramadan, during which they practiced through the night to avoid breaking the fast, is about as All-American as it gets.  I would speculate that football is the biggest religion in America.  While Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus and Jews celebrate the miracle of the oil and African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa and Muslims celebrate Ramadan, Americans celebrate football.  It is part of our national Thanksgiving, and it is part of our Christmas day activities, right there between seeing what Santa delivered to good boys and girls and the large Christmas feast.  And we cap of our holiday season by watching two college football teams fight it out for number 1 status in early January.

The title for this week’s episode is ironic, especially in light of the advertising controversy surrounding All American Muslim the past few weeks.  Bowing to pressure from the Florida Family Association, which argued the show is "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values," both Lowe’s and Kayak.com have removed their advertising from the show.  While the subjects of All American Muslim have no connection to the agenda the FFA contends, and indeed in other episodes have grieved along with their fellow Americans for the tragic losses of 9/11, those Christians who believe these claims, the FFA, have forsaken the greatest of all Christian qualities, forgiveness.  For a faith based on the idea of redemption, there is little room for it in the un-neighborly, unloving, unforgiving agenda of the FFA. 

Just as it would be unreasonable to charge that 20 Kids and Counting, which focuses on an almost village-sized conservative Christian family in Arkansas, is propaganda that hides the agenda behind radical Christianity’s “clear and present danger to American liberties,” an agenda that has manifested itself in senseless violence against those of other faiths and ideas (think abortion clinic bombings), it is unreasonable to make the claim about this American Muslim community.  The most simple logical fallacy I teach is the hasty generalization, but sadly it is the one for which I can provide the most examples for my students.  The FFA’s charges against All American Muslim will give me yet another example.

While my boycott of Lowe’s for bowing to the hasty generalizations of the FFA is unlikely to produce any pain in their pocketbook, I’m hoping that my watching “A Chance at Redemption” tomorrow will at least make them rethink their corporate decision making.  If all of us watch tomorrow night’s episode, the numbers might just convince Lowe’s to ask for their own chance at redemption.

Today will be double entry day.  My day was so consumed with holiday baking yesterday that I failed to attend to the Christmas Television epsiode list.  I'll try to make up for it today!

There’s nothing like professional rivalry and a good bet to get people in the mood for Christmas! That’s the set up for NewsRadio’s “Stupid Holiday Charity Talent show.”  Unlike many Christmas episodes that suspend ongoing story because it can’t coherently contain a holiday focus, NewsRadio uses  “Stupid Holiday Charity Talent show” to continue an existing conflict in the plot – Matthew (Andy Dick).  He has been let go from WNYX, and Mr. James (Stephen Root) tells the other employees that he will give Matthew his job back if one of them wins a talent show.  This situation reinforces everything we love about the characters in this program; they are either very talented but too insecure to assert themselves, or they are talentless but too naïve to know. 

If for no other reason but to see Phil Hartman, you should watch “Stupid Holiday Charity Talent show.” You might even begin to think of knife throwing as a holiday tradition – somewhere! After all, “Come on, people! In the right hands, knife targeting is safer than driving.”

Today's episode is a new favorite of me, Modern Family's "Express Christmas."  Like the characters who try to slap together a Christmas celebration after discovering they won't be together on the holiday - and this only leads to chaos - I've held this episode for a day when my own chaos limits preparation of the day's entry.  With final grades to figure and conference proposals to write, not to mention trying to make myself presentable for my husband's company holiday party this evening, I'm calling today "Express Blog" day.  But the episode is the important thing anyway, and you can see it HERE.