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I really, really thought that I was going to be one of those obnoxious people who finished their Yuletide in the first week after assignments went out. Yeah..... that didn't happen. The good news is that I'm finished with it now and pretty pleased with what I wrote. Now it's just hanging around waiting until AO3 will let me upload it.
On the subject of the holidays, I was really surprised this year at how many shows did a Christmas episode. Warehouse 13 (which I don't watch regularly but watched this one with my mom), Glee (which I stopped watching right before the Christmas episode), Community (WHOSE CHRISTMAS EPISODE I WILL BE WATCHING EVERY DECEMBER 24TH FROM NOW UNTIL FOREVER), and Leverage (whose x-mas episode I watched last night).
And frankly, really disliked.
It was just not a good episode. There were some character touches that were nice but only because I have grown to love these characters. The plot sucked and I just found myself totally not caring through much of the episode. Plus, I found Parker's love of Christmas, frankly, quite out of character. Like, I could have believed it if they told me why she was like this about this particular holiday and there was a dark flashback related.
I'm going to quote the review of Mixology Certification that I already did in a previous post because it sums up why this episode didn't work:
See, there's a kind of melancholy that bubbles up around the holidays, a melancholy that unites all of the greatest Christmas stories, from A Charlie Brown Christmas to It's a Wonderful Life to A Christmas Carol. I realize this is such a snobby thing to say, but the people who think Christmas is about unalloyed joy, about smiling until you're gritting your teeth, I don't think they GET IT, not really. Christmas is about another year coming to a close and drawing the people you love closer to you because you don't know what you'd be without them.
That is why Leverage's Christmas episode sucked; there was none of the melancholy of the holidays. That's why HIMYM's Christmas episode from a few seasons past was also so good: you thought that the episode was about the trappings of Christmas and a screwball attempt to "steal" Christmas and only realize at the end the emotional propelling the story was, really, about Ted's anger and resentment at Lily for leaving not just Marshal, but him.
On the subject of the holidays, I was really surprised this year at how many shows did a Christmas episode. Warehouse 13 (which I don't watch regularly but watched this one with my mom), Glee (which I stopped watching right before the Christmas episode), Community (WHOSE CHRISTMAS EPISODE I WILL BE WATCHING EVERY DECEMBER 24TH FROM NOW UNTIL FOREVER), and Leverage (whose x-mas episode I watched last night).
And frankly, really disliked.
It was just not a good episode. There were some character touches that were nice but only because I have grown to love these characters. The plot sucked and I just found myself totally not caring through much of the episode. Plus, I found Parker's love of Christmas, frankly, quite out of character. Like, I could have believed it if they told me why she was like this about this particular holiday and there was a dark flashback related.
I'm going to quote the review of Mixology Certification that I already did in a previous post because it sums up why this episode didn't work:
See, there's a kind of melancholy that bubbles up around the holidays, a melancholy that unites all of the greatest Christmas stories, from A Charlie Brown Christmas to It's a Wonderful Life to A Christmas Carol. I realize this is such a snobby thing to say, but the people who think Christmas is about unalloyed joy, about smiling until you're gritting your teeth, I don't think they GET IT, not really. Christmas is about another year coming to a close and drawing the people you love closer to you because you don't know what you'd be without them.
That is why Leverage's Christmas episode sucked; there was none of the melancholy of the holidays. That's why HIMYM's Christmas episode from a few seasons past was also so good: you thought that the episode was about the trappings of Christmas and a screwball attempt to "steal" Christmas and only realize at the end the emotional propelling the story was, really, about Ted's anger and resentment at Lily for leaving not just Marshal, but him.
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