THE RAVEONETTES – The Christmas Song (2011)

Looking for a song to listen to while nestled in a cozy sweater, dreamily staring out a frosty window? THE RAVEONETTES are here to keep you company with The Christmas Song!

MILLENNIUM S02E10: Midnight of the Century (1997) [REDUX]

Merry fucking Christmas, if you celebrate it!

Ready to read about one of the most emotionally devastating Christmas episodes of TV ever? Good.

I’ve previously posted about the Christmas episode of MILLENNIUM, Midnight of the Century, but felt like it needed a deeper look.

A brief summary of the MILLENNIUM series, despite the fact that — like HARLEY QUINN and RATED Q, I will also never, ever shut up about MILLENNIUM — it was a three-season show about intuitive, sensitive FBI profiler Frank Black, embodied by Lance Henrickson’s gruff voice and serious but soulful presence. He has a spiritual sense of premonition, visions, and general human sensitivity and empathy, far beyond most.

In the season that this episode takes place, Frank is no longer with the FBI, but a freelancer. He’s estranged from his wife Catherine and daughter Jordan because of where his abilities have taken him. He’s also disowned his father Henry because he feels that Henry let his wife — Frank’s mother — wither away and die alone.

Similarly, for all intents and purposes, Frank is alone and he’s struggling with that.

This episode — Midnight at the End of the Century — takes place around Christmas. Catherine hands Frank a drawing that their daughter Jordan made. It’s of an angel, and Catherine notes that Jordan said grandma helped her draw it.

Not Catherine’s living mother, but Frank’s dead mother.

This is entirely an episode all about generational and inherited trauma, and the helplessness of the parents who see their brethren walking the same doomed trail as they have, but still wanting and hoping for better. Well-wishing.

Frank: “You know Jordan. She’s just …sensitive.”

Catherine: “Telling me that she colors with her dead grandmother is a little bit more than sensitive.”

Frank: “Come on. You know Jordan. She’s got a gift. You can’t suppress it.”

Catherine: “Your gift gave you a nervous breakdown. This gift makes you see horrible images. It—it’s turned you away from your family, from your daughter. It’s caused you to turn toward the Millennium group.

“Frank, you never even consider that this gift that you have could be lying to you. Because you don’t see yourself withdrawing from your family, hiding behind your… ability.

“If this has happened to you, what is it gonna do to Jordan?

“I want her to have a choice. I want a childhood free from this.

“I want her to know that she has someplace to turn other than within herself…”

Frank: “Like me. Right? It is what it is. There is nothing we can do to fix it.”

Catherine: “… time’s running out.”

All of this provides an impetus for Frank to seek out his estranged father, played by the magnanimous Darin MacGavin (who starred in KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, the series that spurred Chris Carter to create THE X-FILES and MILLENNIUM). Frank is seeking an explanation as to why he believed his father cruelly locked his wife in a second floor bedroom until she died.

As you might suspect, the answer he receives is more complicated than that.

I do not want to spoil matters in the off-hand chance you wrangle a copy of this episode, but I do want to note that there is a significant plot point regarding tiny ceramic angels bestowed by the packaged tea that they routinely buy.

You have to have been a specific age and have a specific sort of parent to have remembered these sort of tea-centric figurines. If you bought a box of Red Rose Tea, you’d receive a Wade Whimsey, a small, themed ceramic figure.

My mother collected them and they stood in a glass cabinet in our dining room, looking over us as we supped. So, yeah, you could say that this episode really hits home for me, and I’ve never seen any other work mention them, much less lean on them as a significant plot point, and definitely not as a Christmas-centric endearment.

This episode has Frank — yet again — wrangling with his past. However, this time it’s a moment of reconciliation, one of understanding, of letting go.

Midnight of the Century is a soulful and emotional episode that leaves the viewer worrying about how inherited traits might complicate their life going ahead, while also mulling over the fallout of said traits, how denial of said traits by the progenitors might affect their brethren, and simply living with one’s self.

Is it Christmas-y? I’d argue it is. What is Christmas if nothing else but acknowledging and living with the fallout and repercussions of Christ being born?

Is it full of cheer? No, not at all, but there is a very specific sort of peace that comes with it, even if it is full of hopeful sorrow.

Merry fucking Christmas.

JINGLE JANGLE: A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY (2020)

(Netflix) Ordinarily I’d refrain from suggesting a newly released, heavily promoted Netflix holiday film here, but I haven’t seen much discussion about JINGLE JANGLE over the last several weeks, so hopefully the following will prod you into checking it out:

I went into JINGLE JANGLE not knowing much about it except for the cast and that several critics I respect gave it high marks. Consequently, I assumed it was a slightly conventional, well-made modern Christmas film. Instead, it’s a fantastical musical that feels like an extremely successful adaptation of a pre-existing, beloved Broadway blockbuster.

To summarize: it’s the story of Jeronicus Jangle (young Jeronicus played by Justin Cornwell, old Jeronicus played by Forest Whitaker), the greatest inventor of all time and his downfall, how he lost his prior inventions — stolen from him by one of his -own inventions- and his apprentice Gustafson (young Gustafson played by Miles Barrow, old by Kegan-Michael Key) — and the loss of his family and his talent.

The years go on and Jeronicus is now a pawnbroker, instead of the head of a magical shop of wonder, but his young granddaughter Journey (who prefers to measure and build) is so enamored by the stories her mother relays that Journey schemes a way to visit him. Journey arrives two days before Christmas, two days before the bank is set to claim his store unless Jeronicus shows the bank representative (Hugh Bonneville, apparently just happy to be included) an invention that is wonderful, something revolutionary.

Yes, all of that’s relatively conventional, as are the remaining beats to the story. However, they’re all done so effortlessly cleverly that it feels like new. The storybook framing devices are visual marvels and are worked in seamlessly. Jeronicus’ shop is a marvel of production design, with exquisite attention to detail. Even the sound design’s perfect, as one of the inventions has a ‘voice’ that seems modeled after Edison’s dolls.

Then there are the musical numbers — songs by John Legend and Philip Lawrence, choreographed by THE GREATEST SHOWMAN’s Ashley Wallen — which are perhaps best shown rather than explained:

This Day:

Magic Man G:

Director/writer David E. Talbert initially penned this as a stage play, and it shows, but in the best way. It feels like he endlessly workshopped JINGLE JANGLE and came up with something that perfectly translates to the silver screen. I would definitely not be surprised to see it migrate back to the stage.

Trailer:

MILLENNIUM S02E10: Midnight of the Century (1997)

(DVD) While I have a favorite Thanksgiving film (PIECES OF APRIL), and a favorite New Year’s Eve film (AFTER THE THIN MAN), I don’t have a favorite Christmas film. However, I do have a favorite Christmas TV episode, and MILLENNIUM’s -Midnight of the Century- is it.

MILLENNIUM is about Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), an offender profiler who has astounding intuition. Also, he can see angels and demons. In the second season of the show, he’s joined by Lara Means (Kristen Cloke) who also suffers from being bestowed the same ‘gift’. These are people who feel too much, feel too hard, who have insight and empathy they don’t want, but feel they have to utilize their gifts to help others.

MILLENNIUM’s holiday episodes, including the Halloween episode -The Curse of Frank Black- (also my favorite Halloween episode of all time) hit pause on the machinations of the Millennium Group that Frank Black is involved with, and instead focuses on Frank Black reflecting on his past, present, and future. -Midnight of the Century- features him mulling over the ramifications of passing along his ‘gift’ to his daughter, reminiscing about how his mother struggled with the same ‘gift’, and confronting his father (Kolchak himself, Darren McGavin — although I suspect most know him as the father in A CHRISTMAS STORY) about his mother holing herself up in their spare bedroom until she died.

It also includes a terrifically poignant story that involves a barely disguised Red Rose Tea figurine, the likes of which I grew up with.

It’s not all devastatingly sad, though: Frank Black takes a bit of time to detail why the killer in SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is a spree killer, not a serial killer.

A hallmark of second season MILLENNIUM episodes are their exceptional music programming, and this episode doesn’t disappoint as it utilizes Tchaikovsky’s Arabian Dance (from his Nutcracker Suite – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPuf9krTR4w) as a haunting refrain.

It’s a quiet, contemplative episode that’s not only a substantial character study, but also perfectly captures the many facets of Christmas. While it is certainly not the most uplifting Christmas episode of a TV show, it is one of the most remarkable.