Favourite TV Christmas specials (1 Viewer)

fernandopartridge

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Dec 9, 2011
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Add yours to the list

The Office
Blackadder's Christmas Carol
Whatever happened to the likely lads (1974)
 

dutchman

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Mar 6, 2010
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Spon End
Rising Damp - shown on ITV3 every year that I can remember.
Y_1447_0015

The sad thing is that every year my Christmas becomes more and more like Rigsby's.
 
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Sky_Blue_Daz

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Mar 20, 2011
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knowing me knowing yule

Both Gavin and staceys

Father ted

Its always sunny in Philadelphia

Still game christmas specials are worth a watch
 

Hertsccfc

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Apr 29, 2018
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The Office and the Royle Family (although on this the Christmas Specials were not usually as good as the standard episodes).
 

Sky_Blue_Daz

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All of the Only Fools and Horses episodes, The Jolly Boys Outing probably is my favourite

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My personal favourite is to Hull and Back
 
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Bugsy

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Aug 13, 2012
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There’s a Guardians of the Galaxy one just out! And I watched a Mythic Quest one yesterday, so I’m going to say yes? No idea about broadcast TV, I’ve only watched World Cup games on it the last decade or so.

I've watched that guardians of the galaxy one, was ok-ish, they catch Kevin Bacon to give as a present lol

There's 2 doors down Christmas special on 23rd and the Detectorists on boxing day, other than that I'm not sure, although talking about Xmas specials, watch Harry Enfield and chums Xmas special which I haven't seen for awhile and that made me laugh last night.
 
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chiefdave

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Sep 27, 2008
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Does Inside No. 9 count? They’ve got a couple of good Christmas-adjacent episodes.

Christmas one this year which sounds good. It's the first episode of a new series and I think they've got another series already filmed, either that or they filmed this one back to back with the last one, lost track.

Creepy anthology series Inside No 9 returns with its second Christmas special this week — but after 2016’s video-nasty-themed The Devil of Christmas, this new story offers something a little more familiar.

“We wanted to build on that wonderful Christmas ghost-story tradition of MR James and Charles Dickens,” series co-creator and star Steve Pemberton tells RT. “It was something we hadn’t really done before, so it felt exciting to us, even though it’s a very traditional format.”

In The Bones of St Nicholas, a prissy academic (Pemberton) pays to camp overnight in a church on Christmas Eve, for mysterious reasons — but his plans are thwarted when others arrive, including the church warden (Simon Callow), who has a bone-chilling tale about what might be lurking behind the Christmas tree…

The evocation of MR James and Charles Dickens was, says Pemberton, “followed right through with the casting of Simon Callow, who’s played Dickens on stage and screen [in his one-man Dickens shows and in Doctor Who]. We wanted to make space in the middle of the script for his character to sit and tell the audience a ghost story. We actually pared back a lot of dialogue from this episode, because the important thing that MR James identified about a good Christmas story is atmosphere.”

And adding to that atmosphere? The chilly, bauble-bedecked church in which the episode was filmed at the end of September — in reality, St Mary’s in Rostherne, Cheshire.

“It was all filmed in the day, and the art department blacked out the light with big curtains around the church,” Pemberton’s co-creator and co-star Reece Shearsmith explains. “They did a brilliant job in the middle of this desolate field in a very old-looking church. It became twinkly and beautiful and Christmassy immediately, the moment we walked in. It’s a very Christmassy special.”
 
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fernandopartridge

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Dec 9, 2011
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The Office and the Royle Family (although on this the Christmas Specials were not usually as good as the standard episodes).
The latter day Royle Family specials were awful, especially where they abandoned the original premise of the show. The last good one was the one where Sheila died.
 

ajsccfc

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Dec 10, 2008
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There's a point in the Royle Family where all the characters went way too broad. Dave in particular was a bit dippy in the series but by the time he's having a bath with the turkey they've turned him into someone who wouldn't be allowed to cross the road unaccompanied.
 

fernandopartridge

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Dec 9, 2011
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There's a point in the Royle Family where all the characters went way too broad. Dave in particular was a bit dippy in the series but by the time he's having a bath with the turkey they've turned him into someone who wouldn't be allowed to cross the road unaccompanied.

Yes, turned both him and Denise into ridiculous imbeciles that were caricatures of their original character. The BBC commissions some right dross at Christmas (see all post 1989 OFAH including the millionaires one)
 

Cata

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Nov 6, 2022
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Yes, turned both him and Denise into ridiculous imbeciles that were caricatures of their original character. The BBC commissions some right dross at Christmas (see all post 1989 OFAH including the millionaires one)
but weren't they the writers? so self inflicted imbecility
 

skybluetony176

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Aug 2, 2013
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All the classics already mentioned (excluding Mrs Browns Boys, which is comedy for people who have given up on thinking). Of the more recent British comedies to hit the TV I really like Ghosts and the Xmas specials haven’t disappointed.
 

Ian1779

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Dec 6, 2012
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Not specifically a Xmas special, but the Black Mirror episode ‘White Christmas’ is a very good watch.
 
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Kneeza

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Over There
All of the Only Fools and Horses episodes, The Jolly Boys Outing probably is my favourite

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We stayed on a site in France this year called Jolibois. Yes, I realise it's pronounced differently, but while we were there I couldn't help thinking about that episode!
 

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