I watched Midsomer Murders (John Nettles, John Hopkins, Jane Wymark, Alice Patten, Daphne Oxenford); Absolutely Fabulous Christmas Special (Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield, Jane Horrocks) and The Vicar of Dibley (Dawn French, Gary Waldhorn, James Fleep Emma Chambers, Rachel Hunter (!).
I love Christmas Day evenings when the kids have finally gone to bed (well, sitting upstairs watching their new Shoebox Zoo dvd) and I can at last relax on the settee with my legs up on the cushions with the expensive and delicious box of chocolates my cousin gave me sitting on my lap (the box of chocolates that is; not my cousin.) I then eat until I feel sick, and then eat some more, whilst watching the Christmas specials on telly. So my evening went in this order: Midsomer Murders, then Absolutely Fabulous and then The Vicar of Dibley, that I’d recorded earlier.
Midsomer Murders was great. Full of all the classic coincidences involving the family and the murderers all singing at the same church carol service. A fantastically spooky old house and traditional in-family fighting at Christmas! Along with a smattering of In-law humour back at the DCI’s house, it was a really good episode. I hope there are more to come next year, and this time ITV, please put it in a proper series at the same time every Sunday evening. This year it was ridiculous trying to watch out for the occasional odd episode. Sort it out!
So then it was Ab Fab, which wasn’t. It was a poor episode, let alone it being a Christmas special. Some lame excuse about kitchen redecorating to get Saffy so upset and Eddy needing regression therapy??? No where near a decent plot to hold the jokes together. Disappointing and lazy writing.
Luckily I then watched Vicar of Dibley which cheered me up again. It didn’t come close to the classic nativity one where Alice gives birth to baby Jesus, but it was still very funny and it was nice to see the old characters of the village doing their predictable stuff again. I’m looking forward to the New Year’s Day episode. Is Geraldine going to leave forever? They’re going to have to do something dramatic to pick up the pace a bit now I think. We’ll watch it and see.
