By admin 
Hallelujah! The BBC has finally got Christmas right. The Gavin & Stacey The finale had everything we want from a festive comedy: laughter, love, tears, warmth, tension, hope, heart and an uplifting ending.
It started with a classic deception. “It’s a wedding, Gav, a wedding,” exclaimed Smithy, getting ready for his bachelor party.
As Nessie proposed to him at the end of the 2019 episode’s cliffhanger, you assumed they would tie the knot. But no. Smithy had entered into a pathetic marriage to the snobbish Sonia (Laura Aikman), who disapproved of his friends and is said to have sucked the spirit out of him.
“You said it yourself everyone tells you you’re punching above your weight,” the Essex bridezilla hissed as their wedding ceremony fell apart.
“I’m not saying that, you’re saying that,” Smithy replied.
Best friend Gavin and his parents helped the scales fall from his eyes. Pam stood up first and told him, “I think you’re making a big mistake.”
Others followed, but Mick, his surrogate father, stayed put. “Mick?” Smithy asked poignantly and then he too stood up and grabbed it.
The 90-minute episode tied up all the show’s loose ends, except for the unexplained mystery of Uncle Bryn’s fishing trip. There was joy in abundance: the drinking scenes, the sexual tension between the corn on the cob, Mick’s bachelorette speech, Dawn and Pete’s booze-fueled reunion, Neil the Baby’s moving rendition of Paul McCartney’s Blackbird…
There was a scandal – Gwen’s affair with Dave Coaches, Dawn and ‘Chinese’ Al “in the car wash next to Dominos”; there was danger: could Smithy reach the port of Southampton before Nessa left? Could he win her back?
Good jokes too: Nessa vaping and smoking at the same time, her Bluetooth bra, Nessa on her rickshaw asking Stacey, “Do you want music?” and then repeatedly play the same two notes on her harmonica…
Like the Trotters and the Royles, Gavin & Stacey grew from a comedy to a cultural treasure. Congratulations to writers James “Smithy” Corden and Ruth “Nessa” Jones for creating a Christmas miracle.
Now the bad news. This success raises a big question: what else do we have? BBC Got comedy?
They currently have no sitcoms to fill the void next year, and won’t stay that way as long as their hopeless commissioners are obsessed with box-ticking and minority humor. They may have a fine college degree, but in terms of what makes most of us laugh, they’re more in touch than the armless men of Silent Hill.
It was traditional Christmas misery on ho-ho-hopeless EastEnders. The sinful Cindy had betrayed Ian Beale (again). When her ex, George Knight, rejected her, she bedded his son Junior instead. Pill-popping Lauren revealed their fiery affair via the gift of a USB stick for Ian to play at the Queen Vic’s karaoke night (awkwardly echoing the way Sharon’s affair with Phil was broadcast via a baby listening device).
Then someone left Cindy for dead. Glad tidings of comfort and joy! Like Dirty Den, if she pops her clogs, it will happen be her second death on the soap. This is at least the second time Lauren has shown a love rat on Christmas Day.
Once admired for his realism, Enders now relies on resurgent characters (including Kath of Kath’s caff) and recycling yesterday’s gloom. It’s about as real as Walford’s fake snow.
Poor Ian. When it comes to women, the poor guy is fatter than Cliff Richard’s Christmas gravy. But what did he expect? Cindy previously slept with his two half-brothers, tried to kill him and kidnapped their children.
Which just shows how much the writers hate small businessmen.
There are too many overwrought, underwritten soap operas on TV and not nearly enough laughs.
Doctor Who was just as frustrating. Disney money spruced it up – I loved the T-Rex – but the scripts stink like a rotting Sauropod.
The show’s writers (in this case Steven Moffat) enjoy throwing in political messages, but real tension and compelling sci-fi plots are beyond them.
Here, Villengard, a faceless weapons manufacturing company more evil than Putin’s to-do list, tried to build a star with “star seeds.”
Aside from the inconvenient fact that stars don’t grow from seeds, star formation takes millions of years. Therefore, the episode took place in a Time Hotel, which is only open to the public one day a year through the door in each hotel room that is always open. locked.
The Doctor, a Time Lord with a Tardis, had to spend an entire year in a hotel, waiting for the day to arrive. Eh? And people were ‘absorbed’ into the new star, rather than burned. Yes…
Ncuti Gatwa has the charisma of a hundred chorus girls, but he is constantly let down by the scripts.
Fun moments included Nicola Coughlan’s Joy becoming the star that hovered over Bethlehem when Jesus was born – joy to the world indeed.
There was some nonsense about a briefcase that strapped itself to people’s wrists, a dig at Partygate Tories, Covida lesbian in love on the Orient Express, and time was wasted on the doctor’s loneliness. Whoa hum.
It has become a poorly written children’s program with pretensions and without decent stories.
Here’s a new idea. Recruit real science fiction writers to give us stories with real villains, scary aliens, and plots that kids can follow.
Historically, the Daleks were based on the Nazis and the Cybermen were a variation on communism. No one would argue that there aren’t contemporary geopolitical villains who could inspire similarly chilling creations.
Small joys of festive television: The Chase: Celebrity Special… Andre Rieu: Christmas in London… The Piano at Christmas… Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl… Iron Bibby, the World’s Strongest Man.