Mainlining Christmas

I knew that this show existed, although I don't recall ever seeing an episode before. It's odd, but kind of charming. From what I gathered of the premise, Holmes has been awoken/resurrected in the far future, Captain America style, except with even more super-science. Watson is rebuilt as some kind of robot, and the new Lestrade is a lady cop. I liked her, she seemed to be the muscle. Overall I enjoyed this. It had some awkward made-for-children 'humor' and some cut corners in production here and there, but as a rather unique version of Holmes, I'm actually really on board with this. The tone of the setting was really interesting, and the whole pastiche seemed to be right on the best line between taking the source material seriously while being delightfully tongue in cheek when appropriate. I was wholly amused with the adaptation of the Blue Carbuncle story, in this case a popular animatronic toy with a program hidden inside, rather than a goose with a gemst

I'm a recent convert to Phineas and Ferb. The series is evocative of Dexter's Laboratory, almost to the point of feeling like a rip off. But - frankly - Phineas and Ferb eclipses Dexter's Lab. The show's concept may feel derivative, but its use of tone, subtlety, and complex characters built on a deceptively simple backdrop consisting of an intentionally repetitious formula make it stand out as one of the best animated series to come along in a long time. Fortunately, there are a couple of Christmas episodes: an extended special in season two and a half-episode in three. I'll tackle the short at a later date; for now, I'm focusing on the 33 minute "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation". In addition to being longer than any of the previous episodes, this also has the distinction of being the first episode of Phineas and Ferb that doesn't take place over summer vacation. Not surprisingly, they've animated a special opening, which is basicall

Continuing our string of Christmas episodes on the "Christmas Cartoon Collection" from series I've never heard of, we reach "Gadget Boy's Adventures in History," which is apparently a spin-off of the series "Gadget Boy and Heather," which I've also never heard of. You may be asking yourself, "What the hell is Gadget Boy?" And the answer is, "You don't want to know." But since I'm a horrible person, I really want to tell you. Gadget Boy is basically a reboot of Inspector Gadget, only instead of being an incompetent adult cyborg inspector who's constantly being saved by a brilliant human child, he's an incompetent child android constantly being saved by a competent adult woman. In case you were still wondering, he's still voiced by Don Adams. So, let's review: Inspector Gadget was an animated spin on Get Smart, itself a parody of the spy genre. The Adventures of Gadget Boy and Heather was an a

Before we wrap up our second year of Mainlining Christmas, we really need to correct an oversight. We've been meaning to get around to covering the three Futurama Christmas specials since day one, but we kept putting it off. Ironically, we were putting them off because we wanted to save them for when they were needed. Say, when we'd exhausted our supply of holiday specials and were waiting for Netflix to ship us something. Well, it turns out that's never going to happen. Contrary to our naive assumptions, the internet contains hundreds if not thousands of hours of holiday cheer. I dare say we could run this blog every Christmas for a decade and not run out. Lucky us. So, rather than rob our list of reviews of these three for yet another year, we're tackling them now. After some of the crap we've seen recently, these are a welcome relief. XMas Story (1999) This was the first of the Futurama holiday specials, and it introduced us to Robot Santa Claus, voice

I remembering watching this show back when it started. I saw the first season, but gave up after a few episodes in the second, so I never got to this one. Before I go on, I'd like to point out that seeing Joseph Gordon-Levitt when he was that young is really messing with me. To think that kid grew up to become Cobra Commander. The episode is entertaining enough, and thanks to the series' concept, is actually about Christmas, not just set during the holidays. Like pretty much every single episode of the series, this was a comedy of errors about the disguised aliens trying and ultimately failing to understand our strange world. Ahem. That's why I got tired after a season back in the 90's. Fortunately, having not seen an episode since then, I was ready to jump back in. You get subplots for each of the main characters, though Dick clearly had the most screen time. He was cast as the episode's Scrooge, though he was always kind of Scrooge, so that's not a

I haven't been feeling too Grinchy yet this year, but bashing It's a Wonderful Life feels like a good place to start. I have such oddly mixed feelings about this movie. I sympathize . I appreciate the overt message: each of us touches others' lives in ways we can never imagine, and you don't have to have a perfect life for life to be worth living. I'm just not as fond of the packaging. Spoilers follow. First off, of course I find all the beginning narration with the talking nebulas completely idiotic. I actually considered for a while whether the movie might be better without the supernatural elements, which is an odd idea for me. But Erin gave me a horrified look when I floated the idea by him, so I guess I can't say that. It's well done. Well filmed, mostly well acted, parts were funny, but I just didn't enjoy watching the film. I found the pace slow, and the characters felt always on the edge of slapstick, never like real people. Like the

This was probably the biggest omission in last year's lineup of Christmas classics. Easily one of the top three most famous Christmas movies of all time (along with A Miracle on 34th Street and the grossly overrated A Christmas Story ), It's A Wonderful Life is a quirky, stylish flick. Ironically, I think this movie is probably best the way it's least viewed: beginning to end. As one of the mainstays of holiday television, I suspect most people have seen this in bits and pieces. But the movie's most effective when you see how the pieces snap together, and to do that, you've actually got to sit through the whole thing. At two hours and change, you'll want to avoid the extra padding added by commercials. This movie has a reputation for being slow - I suspect most of that comes from the fact so many people grew up watching it with commercial interruption. Most of it: to be fair, there are plenty of slow parts left over. It's A Wonderful Life is fundam

Let me start by saying I didn't know anything about this show going into this episode, other than that it's sort of The Last Scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Series. What I knew by the end is that it's really just that: a series of wacky adventures based loosely on a bunch of made-up magical artifacts based even more loosely on historical figures and events. (I have since watched another, more recent episode, which sucked much less than this one.) This Christmas episode features a cynical banker-type being tormented by a spectral Santa, who threatens to make him “disappear” unless he changes his ways. There's a sub plot about reuniting another character with his father. It's not boring, but all of the plot turns are horribly cliché and I just want to smack all of these characters for overacting and being morons. The dialogue is fairly clunky, although the cheesy B-grade CG special effects amuse me. There's some decent use of silly creepy Christmas mus

This might change after I see this a few more times, but for the time being I consider Arthur up there with the best Christmas movies ever made. The top three - Nightmare Before Christmas, Elf, and Miracle on 34th Street - are now the top four. At its core, Arthur Christmas is a brilliant little picture about a dysfunctional family at Christmas time. The reason we should care is that this family is heir to the Santa dynasty, a lineage of Father Christmases going to back to St. Nicholas. There's a lot to like in this one. Right off the back, the portrayal of the operation is ingenious and original. Comparisons to the Star Trek Enterprise are obvious - I'd argue that there are at least as many parallels with Battlestar Galactica. This Santa's using technology a few hundred years ahead of the rest of the world. Intriguingly, they've also got some more traditional magic in reserve, though that's generally become obsolete. The elves appear quickly and instantly s

Is this really as bad as you've heard?  Yeah.  It might be worse. If you haven't had the pleasure, this is a variety show featuring a surprising number of cast members from the movie.  Most of the established characters get a scene or two, although Chewbacca has a larger role.  It's his family celebrating "Life Day," after all, and he's trying to get past an imperial blockade to get home in time. Of course the real stars are Chewbacca's family, who are given extended scenes in which they go about their lives, talking and arguing without translation.  When they bother to call humans, we find out - again and again - that they're worried Chewie won't make it back. Around this riveting frame story, we get a number of short "comedic" bits, as well as some "musical" numbers (yes, those quotation marks are called for).  A few of the musical acts aren't awful - Jefferson Starship's number is fine.  The there's the Di

First of all, I'd like to send a very special "thank you, but I thought we were FRIENDS" to Jeff Burns for sending us the link to this delightful holiday classic. I actually remember seeing this when it first aired.  Hey, I was a child of the 80's, and Alf was a part of that.  I remember Gordon Shumway, Melmac, and even that music video he made for the Tanners' daughter.  I have good memories watching this show as a child. Yes, Virginia, children are stupid. That editorial, by the way, gets read twice during the special.  It's the abridged version you hear everywhere, of course, with all the great fairy references omitted. The "plot" of the hour-long special revolves around Alf getting in a fight with the Tanners and winding up trapped in the back of a van with a bunch of Christmas presents on their way to the hospital.  He winds up getting handed over to a dying girl, who teaches him the true meaning of melodrama in a long, drawn out, sapp

I've never seen an episode of Eureka before, but a friend recommended it and it was on Hulu.  Overall, I thought this was pretty good, though it had some issues.  The main problem was the drama.  Some writers can handle it; others can't.  If you're working in television (or any other media for that matter) a good rule of thumb is never to start a monologue with the words, "When I was young."  If you must go down this path, make sure you do so no more than once per episode. Yeah, this one was really slow at times.  Fortunately, there were enough clever moments and fun ideas to pick up the slack.  The episode took an interesting approach to the legend of Santa Claus, all the while dealing with your requisite Christmas cliches.  Fortunately, it offered a twist to just about everything going on, and there were some great jokes. As for the rest, I can't speculate whether I'd have liked it better if I knew the characters or premise.  Regardless, seeing as

Invader Zim is a weird show. It's one I really wanted to like, and kinda did like from time to time, but I generally don't enjoy watching it. If you missed it (it's obscure for some), it's an animated series with a twisted aesthetic, about an alien who is trying, and failing, to take over the Earth. Some episodes were disturbingly brilliant, others just disturbing. This was the last episode that aired in its original run (more episodes were finished but not aired for several years after the show was canceled) and actually given the “Two Million Years in the Future” frame scenes, it almost works as a weird ending. Zim discovers that humans await the return of “Santa” to save them, or something, and Zim decides to play upon their gullibility, disguise himself as Santa, and enslave all the humans. It comes fairly close to working. This episode is mostly worth watching for the ending, which is pretty fantastic, but getting there involves sitting through a lo

This one isn't an official release: instead, it was put together as a fan video and released on YouTube. At thirteen minutes, it's pretty substantial, and the production values are pretty solid, all things considered. I've never read the comic this was based on, but it's a pretty safe bet they adapted it more or less faithfully. This is more or less exactly what it should be. I'm not really sure that's a good thing, though. Whether or not you should press play comes down to whether you like Lobo. Personally... I don't, at least not when he's the protagonist. As a supporting character, he can be a lot of fun, but on his own, I find the attempt to shock and repulse me kind of tedious. That said, I can understand the appeal of twisted humor. If you're a fan of the character, you'll want to check this out: it's probably the closest thing you'll get to a movie for a long, long time. If you don't know who Lobo is or what I'

I knew a little of what we were getting into with this one.  I knew that this episode had won an Emmy, and I'd seen a bit of it online when I was making lists of specials to track down. Even I didn't expect it to be this good, though. From a reworked holiday-specific title sequence through to the last joke, this is a great episode.  Not quite 100% pitch perfect, but one of the best we've seen yet. I don't want to give too much away, but Brain's current plan involves conning Santa's elves into making large numbers of hypnotic dolls.  There are one or two awkward jokes, but the climax makes up for it.  One part made even my Grinchy heart melt a little. Check this one out if you can.  I think you'll be glad you did.

Not to be confused with the classic "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," this is an hour-long Christmas special about a ridiculously small group of Martians coming to Earth to blow it up. I'm assuming this was intended to be shown on television, though I'm having a hard time finding evidence it actually ever aired. There's no Wikipedia page up for the special, and the page for PorchLight Entertainment , the company which made it, reads like it was written by someone working for the company. Or their mother. All things considered, this really isn't a bad special. There are some solid jokes surrounding the Martians' misconceptions of Earth based on television broadcasts, as well as the similarities between the little green men from Mars and Christmas elves. Plus, they're ostensibly here to blow up the Earth, which always makes for good comedy. The thing is, while this isn't bad, it isn't exactly good, either. The animation is pretty

This was a very confused movie. I'm not saying that just because I got a little tipsy before watching it, but you may want to keep that fact in mind. The first five minutes are insipid crap, and then the action moves to Mars and I started to... enjoy the movie! The premise is, the kids of Mars are addicted to Earth TV, and they are depressed and not eating. The leader of the Martians calls up his deputies and seeks the advice of the Ancient One. The Ancient One tells him the kids are sick because with the Martian advanced learning technology, the kids learn how to be adults too fast, and never learn to have fun. He recommends seeking the specialist in childhood joy: Santa Claus.  And so the Martians set off to capture Santa. Now, for all the inherent silliness, most (not all) of the actors playing Martians are acting just as serious about their roles as most any cast member of Star Trek, Forbidden Planet, etc. There is a serious problem on their planet, this will fix it, so t