Christmas takes a pretty sound thrashing on most TV shows. It’s easy prey, especially when there are dysfunctional families involved. Carl Reiner’s appearance on Two and a Half Men was one instance where the family ended up munching on turkey and not speaking to each other while Reiner’s character makes passes at Berta and jokes about incontinence. “Fa-la-la-la-la” became one of the punch lines on Big Bang Theory, an ironic comment on the lack of Christmas spirit by one character or another.
NCIS did it right, in my opinion. It brought family together, in the form of Gibbs’ father, played by the ultimate TV dad, Ralph Waite from The Waltons. This is his second appearance in the role. The episode wasn’t schmaltzy or trite–there are real issues between father and son, years of distance that can’t be bridged in one hour of TV, but they made inroads, especially after Papa Gibbs told what happened to him. Normally vapid Tony’s secret Santa gift to the dragon lady in HR was another moment. Abby is like the spirit of just about every holiday in existence and her Gingerbread Abbies were absolutely typical of her joie de vivre. The video conference that McGee set up was perhaps the only trying-too-hard part of the show, but it wasn’t too overboard. Plus they managed to cram in a whole plot about religious intolerance and family honor. Not too shabby.
Still working on Don Quixote. I’m up to the scene where our intrepid knight-errant challenges a couple of wild lions.
I wrote my Storytellers Unplugged essay for tomorrow and posted it on the dashboard so it will show up morning. I also received a good set of notes on a short story I’m revising for a 2010 project. I revamped the story completely in a second draft and now have only a little more tweaking to get it into shape. I have one other story that’s in about the same condition–have to get them both ready by the end of the year, which isn’t all that far off.
Issue 63 of CD magazine is special for one particular reason: I believe this is the very first time that my name appears on the front cover.
