Special Specials

Thank you, Doctor Who and BBC, for giving Syfy the idea of producing Christmas specials for summer shows.  FYI, though, Syfy: A Christmas special, i.e. an episode of an off-season show made to air around Christmastime, doesn't necessary have to be about The Meaning of Christmas.  The Doctor Who specials are rarely about The Meaning of Christmas; they just have, you know, exploding ornaments and such. 

This isn't some kind of Jewish-viewer bah humbug sentiment; I grew up loving Christmas TV, and still have my favorites.  No, it's just that watching Pete and Myka of Warehouse 13 try to save a guy who almost dies because he plans to work on Christmas is, you know, painful.  The narrative attempts to pound The Meaning of Christmas into our heads through repeated hammer blows. . . .all without mentioning religion, of course. The other plot of the Warehouse 13 special, the one in which Claudia reunites Artie with his estranged father, is hilariously written and brilliantly executed by Saul Rubinek (Artie) and Judd Hirsh (his dad).  Because it involves authentic emotions, rather than grinding a Christmas axe, that plot is touching as well as funny.

The Euereka Christmas Special suffers from some of the same problems, though not to the same degree.  I enjoyed the main plot of this one; I laughed when the characters were supposed to be funny; I even appreciated the depiction of Santa as a brilliant physicist, and the way the storytelling frame (Jack is telling the story to a group of kids) left it up to the viewers whether or not they wanted to believe.  (We English majors call that genre "The fantastic" -- the literature that invites the reader to hesitate between two possible interpretations of the story, one supernatural and the other not).  If only Alison hadn't gone on quite so long about the Meaning of Christmas, I would have been perfectly happy with this episode.

Does it bother you Christians out there the way TV shows such as this push The Commercially Viable Meaning of Christmas, i.e. the one that has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus?  Or if the Meaning involves family togetherness, as well as presents and food, is that enough?