Christmas 2008

When I took a look a the xmas scedule in the weeks proceeding the festive time of year I have to say I was left underwhelmed. I felt there was a severe lack of impact from the shows on offer, unless you were of course a Dancing or Doctor fan.  The brilliance of Wallace and Gromet can not be denied but at a mere 30 mins this can not hold up an entire schedule.  Outside of BBC 1 it was as if nobody else could be bothered. Apart from  Channel 4's controversial decison to let Iran's infamous leader Mahmoud Ahmedinajad present their alternative xmas message we were left with a severe lack of festivities. Not even the usually reliable soaps could provide the backbone to shore everything up. All the shock and surprise of Eastenders big storyline had been bled dry weeks before the big day. The usual release of soap storylines in the press weeks in advance had its usual impact, though thats a story for another day. The subplot of Ian Beale as Scrooge, inviting all the soaps misfits who couldn't be bothered to visit their families was at best lazy. 

So as much as Xmas day tv dissapointed it was the days of xmas eve and New Years day that provided the real gems of the Christmas Tv schedule. First of all there was the xmas edition of Gavin and Stacey - the ever brilliant series didn't fail its audience with its normal portrayal of a family xmas with usual family dysfunctionality that never bordered on the ridiculous. This show purely and simply brings joy, it is uplifting and heartfelt and never fails to bring a smile to my face. If you still haven't seen this show use some of your xmas money to go out and buy both series 1 and 2 on dvd. The acting is brillinat the writing is brilliant, need I say more. 

Our second xmas saviour was the surprise return of Jonathan Creek. I always loved this show but at times the more recent episodes tried to hard to be clever, but with the 2009 version we were given a brilliant mystery that slowly fed us the bits of information yet still left me surprised by the ending. Perhaps helped by the fact it was written and Directed by the brilliant David Renwick this ranks up there with not only the best TV over xmas but also the best episodes of Jonathan Creek.