Haven’t We Seen This Movie Before?

WE’VE BEEN WATCHING A LOT OF TV LATELY.

The movie theaters are closed and most of our favorite eateries are Drive-Through only again.

Like most people we have been grounded by this virus thingy. As a result my wife, the lovely and Queen of All Cable Channels, Dawn, and I have been living in our sedative chairs in front of the 40″ Flat Screen. I have to admit that I am not as savvy as I should be about navigating my way around all of the channels that are available. Therefore, Dawn is also wearing the Captain’s Hat. she hits a few buttons on the remote and about five million options appear. I sit in awe. The World is our Oyster Pizza.

We have watched some very good Mystery/Cop shows from Scotland that required us to turn on the English subtitles because the Scottish Brogue was so thick it was unintelligible to our Yankee ears. We found that to be exhausting so we switched over to Australian shows. There we found a winner in the Aussie version of “Masterchef” – a Culinary Cooking Contest. It has been on the air down Under for twelve years. We are up to Season Five…Mate.

When ever we feel the urge for something a little closer to home and seasonal Dawn hits a few more buttons and, Lo and Behold, we are booked into an evening of “The Hallmark Channel Christmas Movies!!” The folks at Hallmark have been busy year-round making Christmas movies and they are airing them around the clock. While they may be prolific they have very limited subject range: Christmas. If it ain’t about Christmas, it ain’t on The Hallmark Channel! All of their Christmas movies are two hour long G-Rated Romance Novels with gallons of Hot Chocolate and fake snow. All of the movies share a rotating roster of actors. We have seen the same people portraying Small Town shop keepers, Big City lawyers, and Princes/Princesses from miscellaneous European Duchies. I didn’t know that there were so many of those still around.

There is one problem with the movies on the Hallmark Channel…the stories are all the same. No matter how much they try to shuffle the deck one movie is pretty much the same as the next one or the one that just ended.

Each film has a young and attractive woman or man who is unhappy with their life and goes to some small town to try to find the “Christmas Spirit.” There is a crisis that threatens the town (often in the form of an evil developer who wants to tear down the town and build a Shopping Mall). The young, lonely person meets Mister/Miss Perfect and the tinsel is glittering. Then, just as they are about to solve the crisis and fall in love, a last second snafu threatens to ruin Christmas! Fortunately, someone (sometimes Santa himself) rescues the day and Christmas is saved. The two young and attractive, but unhappy, people share a tender kiss and live happily ever after. I guess that they also get a lifetime supply of Greeting Cards from Hallmark.

The Movies on the Hallmark Channel will never win any Oscars, but they are harmless entertainment that fills up an evening and doesn’t suffer when you leave the room to get a snack from the kitchen. And we don’t need to use any subtitles to understand them.

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