The Televigion Week – Merry (17/12/24)

Hello and welcome to another Televigion Week, with more than a sprinkling of Christmas cheer. It’s all generally positive this week, and nicely surprising.

I’ll be posting a proper update on what is to change for Televigion in 2025, but in short I’m hoping to make these posts more about what television means to me than simple reviews of shows. It’s not a drastic change, but I want to explain why I love the screen arts so much, through examples of what I’m watching.

Dash and Lily

Dash & Lily is on Netflix

As mentioned last week, I had a chat with GauntletGirl about Christmas RomComs, of which she is a mega-fan and doing some excellent tweet-alongs¹ of her recent watches. I asked if she could recommend something in the genre that might appeal to me. This was her suggestion and she clearly knows me well, as I genuinely enjoyed this.

The setup is that a recently heartbroken joy-of-Christmas-denier teenage boy called Dash finds a red notebook in his favourite bookshop, containing a hidden trail of clues and dares to an old-soul full-of-the-joys-of-Christmas teenage girl called Lily. Then the ensuing everything. It is a 2020 adaptation from a series of young adult novels I didn’t know, though I have seen the film adaptation of another by the same authors Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist².

So I knew roughly what this was would be going in. And yes it’s full of artifice and not exactly hard-hitting, but it is winning and full of charm, with good funny lines and interesting takes amongst the stereotypes and clichés.

Episode one is called Dash, and it’s all about him. The actor playing him struck me as an odd looking fellow, if no-one minds me saying, and the slight awkwardness of his demeanour is a little offputting as the lead in episode one. The character might also be a little too “I am angst, see me emote” for my liking. And I do also feel a bit strange watching teenagers in a RomCom – are they not too young for all this flirting and nonsense? Doesn’t teenagers mean high school? But they’re living reasonably adult lives in New York, I’m old and confused… But I’m approaching it like I do any Young Adult novel I’ve picked up – adjust your expectations and there are joys to be found.

I’m also pleased that it tells the story from both sides, as it could be a bit difficult to take another angsty boy chasing a magical manic pixie dream girl. But episode two is called Lily. I started it immediately and warmed to her much more. The show also managed to achieve my favourite thing a show can do – a genuine surprise! Dash’s friend from the pizza place, Boomer, is seen talking to Lily, when we’ve been told in episode one that he didn’t see her dropping off the red notebook! It was a lovely twist to keep you hooked and find out more.

I’ve decided that this show is actually very good, allowing for my heightened tolerance for schmaltz and sentimentality given the season. It can’t be denied that I’ve had a huge smile on my face at the end of each episode so far.

In contrast, The Televigion Wife couldn’t get on board with how trivial it all is, which I can understand is a concern others might share. But as a light confection to give a bit of a Christmas glow to the evening, I’m very happy.

This is not the start of a new favourite genre, but I’ll happily check out similarly well made examples. Please let me know any others you know of!

That Christmas

That Christmas is on Netflix

This is a new animated film for 2024, written by Richard Curtis (you know, from everything) and Peter Souter (no, me neither). It is based on a series of children’s stories written by Richard Curtis and might have had a cinema release, if not for various acquisitions, mergers and deals. So instead it is out on Netflix and may disappear from view at any given moment, at the whims of the algorithm and profit margins.

Richard Curtis is, for me, equally capable of the highest heights and things I have no interest in, but that comes with the territory of being ultra-prolific with a long and successful career.

This film throws together a lot of Christmas elements that I don’t need to describe, and is clearly made up of three disparate stories from different children’s books that aren’t tied together particularly elegantly. But it does have Brian Cox as Santa, which should be standard casting from now on. However, using him as a narrator to introduce all of the characters feels a bit lazy. I think if someone younger and hungrier for success had written this, we might have felt more for the characters in these interesting situations. And the point about the necessity of community is a strong one, but isn’t quite communicated or earned. Also, our four year old daughter did also have to ask what was going on a few times, if that is any indication of clarity of story through visual storytelling.

But there are many touches of Richard Curtis magic. There’s a conversation in post-it notes from a busy working mum to her lonely son that is truly lovely. And there are multiple great jokes that made us laugh as a family snuggled under a Christmas blanket with a Moana 2 tub filled with popcorn. And the line “Christmas is an emotional magnifying glass” will live in my head forever.

Overall it is a mix of lovely moments, but doesn’t manage to do what it hopes to. Probably a perfect analogy for Christmas.

Dream Productions

Dream Productions is on Disney+

This is a four-episode mini-series set in the dream making studio inside an almost teenager’s head. Less obtusely, it’s from the world of Pixar’s Inside Out, a film I first saw in a surprise screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival³ and cried at least twice in a very large and mostly empty cinema, with only a handful of other twenty- or thirty-something bloggers and reviewers sniffling quietly at a certain Bing Bong moment.

Dream Productions is set between the first and second Inside Out films, and developed alongside the second, with the same cast. It appeared on Disney+ on Wednesday 11th and was a post-bath and pre-bedtime watch for me and the Televigion Daughter (who is four)⁴. She was very much on board, and we even paused the show for a discussion partway through about why the main character Paula was sad. She was desperate for episode 2, so that’s a glowing review.

I also very much enjoyed it. I appreciated the animation touches to make it feel like a documentary, and it has solid jokes and a setting to hopefully interrogate the power of dreams and the working of the human mind. Or potentially just haa a playground to find humour in the processes of film-making and creativity.

It’s definitely a good sign when you can recognise a voice cast without looking them up, and I knew the main character Paula was played by Paula Pell⁵, the studio head by Maya Rudolph and Xeni the daydream director⁶ by Richard Ayoade, all with distinctive and fun performances so far.

It seems to be getting favourable reviews⁷ and when the Televigion Wife watched episode one later the same evening (post yoga) she put down her illustration work to watch properly.

There is a lot to enjoy in Dream Productions, but it is clearly a lighter confection than the emotional intelligence being offered by the Inside Out films, which I can’t recommend highly enough if you’re not aware of them⁸.

Mince Byes⁹

So it’s been a positive Televigion Week. You’ll notice there’s a little more family viewing than in other weeks, which feeds into my love of community viewing and understanding how the same show can be interpreted by others. Basically I’m trying to say, keep the messages and comments coming, I love it. And do make sure to make television part of your Christmas traditions, otherwise when else will you manage to watch Doctor Who with relatives who only ever watch the news.

The Televigion Backlist

The backlist is empty! But fear not, there will be roughly four hundred and thirteen things I plan to watch but can’t over Christmastime, so this is maybe a good thing. A quick recap of my top five..

The Televigion Christmas List

1. Doctor Who – Joy to the World – It feels like a long time since we’ve had new Doctor Who, and it was a short run then. The guest companion is Nicola Coughlan, who is excellent, and Steven Moffat has written some very good Christmas specials.
2. Bad Tidings – Previous Sky Originals for Christmas have been fun, but this one is co-written by Laurence Rickard and Martha Howe-Douglas of The Six Idiots (Horrible Histories, Yonderland, Ghosts) with Chris McCausland who also stars with Lee Mack. I’m hopeful.
3. Inside No. 9: The Party’s Over – A documentary about the excellent anthology show, which could well turn out to be a secret episode, given their history. At the very least there will be grumpiness and fun from two amazing writer-performers, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.
4. A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone – Just to round out the (visible) League of Gentleman, this is Mark Gatiss’ latest Ghost Story for Christmas. Another quite variable set of stories, but when it works it is formidable.
5. Gavin and Stacey: The Finale – I feel more like I ought to be excited for this, more than that I actually am. I liked the show well enough, but couldn’t have told you what happened last time it was on, and James Corden seems like he might not be a good person. Regardless, it’s the comedy centrepiece of Christmas, so I’ll be watching.

Footnotes

1. Yes, I know, Twitter doesn’t exist any more, nor do tweets. I refuse to say skeet-along.
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2. I remember being quite excited for that film coming out, due to my love of Michael Cera from Arrested Development, and it seeming like the kind of “not very indie but seemed like it was” film that was roughly my identity in 2008. See also 500 Days of Summer and our own remake 500 (Ordered) Days of Summer that took us on an all expenses paid trip to California. ↩︎
3. I had the freedom to be chasing the writing dream more actively, wangled a press pass and wrote four articles for a magazine. They are no longer available online. ↩︎
4. I think I’ve mentioned her somewhat advanced taste in films and TV, and she was very excited for Inside Out 2 in the cinema, having loved the first one. She may not have understood the intricacies of emotional interplay going on, but then again, she might. ↩︎
5. She is yet another SNL alumni, a writer on 30 Rock and hilarious as a performer in the sitcom Girls5Eva. Overachiever much. ↩︎
6. Another example of the thought and fun employed to build the world of Inside Out, dealing with daydreams. ↩︎
7. Including this Guardian review and another from the AV Club ↩︎
8. Yeah, I know.
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9. Oh good lord. Thank goodness it’s Christmas. ↩︎