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Ho Merry Ho: The Best in Christmas TV

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December 14, 2018
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You know the old saying: so much TV, so little time.

With only two weekends left until Christmas, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to watch all the Christmas episodes TV has to offer (plus, you know, do all the other things on your holiday to-do list).

Luckily for you, I’ve narrowed it down to the three most essential Christmas TV episodes. If you’ve only got time to press play on a few, make it these three:

#3. “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” Grey’s Anatomy, season 2, episode 12

Meredith, Christina,George, and Izzie playing patient for Alex. Christina and Burke battling it out over Santa Claus. George finally getting to tell the most annoying family in America to shut the hell up. Bailey’s unglamorized portrayal of pregnancy. 
The longing between Meredith and Derek, the hurt between Alex and Izzie, the unbreakable kinship between the interns. “Because it’s what Jesus would FREAKING do!”

Pick any one of the plotlines in this episode, and it would be enough to earn it a spot on this list. (Honestly, the soundtrack alone ranks it in the top three. Don’t believe me? Check out this cover of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.)

But it’s that ineffable Grey’s quality that really makes this episode stand out—the way that, even though on paper we might have nothing in common with these characters, they seem to speak some truth about our own lives. It’s an episode that reflects back what the holidays really feel like—stressful and exhausting, overburdened by emotional baggage—and still leaves us believing in the possibility of magic, even if it’s just the twinkling of colored lights on the Christmas tree.

#2. “Classy Christmas, Parts 1 & 2” The Office, season 7, episodes 11-12

Over the course of its nine seasons, The Office produced more than one great Christmas episode, but this two-parter is by far its greatest.

The epic snowball fight between Dwight and Jim—which starts with one innocent snowball (“it’s only a dusting”) and ends with a crazed Jim smashing snowmen in the parking lot—is one of the best series of pranks the show has ever done. Dwight leaping out of the very first snowman? The wigs? The first time I watched this episode, I laughed so hard I woke up my roommate.

As with any truly excellent episode of The Office, it’s not just the hijinks that make it so worth watching. It’s the show’s heart, the way this group of misfits genuinely cares for each other—Erin’s defense of Michael, Pam and Andy’s attempts to help Darryl salvage Christmas with his daughter, the annual gift exchange and further proof that Pam and Jim belong together. The way Michael pulls himself out of his emotional upheaval over Holly’s return to re-don his Santa costume so Darryl’s daughter can tell Santa what she wants for Christmas.

If you’ve got the holiday blues, this is the only episode you need to cheer you up.

#1. “The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee” Sports Night, season 1, episode 11

You might have missed the short-lived Aaron Sorkin workplace comedy about a nightly sports news broadcast when it first aired in the late 90s, but it’s worth tracking it down and catching up.

The main story of this episode is that of Roland Shepherd, a black college athlete who is suspended from his team after he refuses to play as long as the school flies the Confederate flag outside the football stadium. It’s more than just his starting position at risk: If he doesn’t play, he loses his scholarship, and if he loses his scholarship, he’ll be forced to drop out of college, the first person in his family ever able to attend. Roland Shepherd may be a fictional character, but his story—of racism and protest in the context of sports—is not, and the episode is sadly as relevant as ever.

Deftly written and superbly acted, the episode’s shining moment is the editorial comment delivered on air by the broadcast’s managing editor (the phenomenal Robert Guillaume) in which he calls for the network’s owner—a distinguished alumni of the school in question, a man with the privilege and influence to make a difference—to stand with Roland. To do what is right and demand the flag be taken down and Roland reinstated.

Over twenty years later, it’s a powerful reminder of how much the world hasn’t changed and how much we have left to do. If there’s one episode of television that truly captures the Christmas spirit, it’s this one.

So, what do you think? Total blasphemy to quote Riverdale in the title but not include it on the list? Which Christmas episodes are your must-watch every year?

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Graduation Station

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April 20, 2018
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Finals and freedom. Polyester robes and ill-fitting caps. Tassels, yearbooks, and Vitamin C’s seminal 1999 classic.

Yep, you guessed it, it’s graduation time.

Commencement may be a few weeks away, but now’s the time to start shopping for that perfect graduation gift. You can check out our entire line of “graduated cylinder” products here, and to help you get in the matriculation spirit, I’ve put together a list of my Top Three TV Graduation Moments. Without further ado:

#3. “What a Difference a Day Makes” Grey’s Anatomy, season 5, episode 22

Technically, it’s a wedding episode, but the case of the week is a car full of kids brought into the ER after their SUV gets hit by a semi—on the day of their college graduation. It’s Grey’s at its finest: Devastating yet somehow life affirming, with enough signature snark to make the whole episode worth the dizzying trip through the emotional wringer.

The shining moment—even more so than Alex and Izzie’s surprise wedding—and the reason it makes the list, is the speech Becca, the only one to survive, recites to Alex before she goes under for surgery. Unlike many written-for-TV valedictory addresses, this feels like one you might actually hear at a graduation ceremony. It’s equal parts hopeful and sincere; a reminder of just how young we still are when we graduate from college made all the more tragic as Becca’s voice plays over the faces of her friends who didn’t make it. I dare you not to cry.

#2. “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio” Gilmore Girls, season 3, episode 22

There are two Gilmore graduations that could have made this list, but as much as we are all proud of Rory for graduating from Yale, this one is a no-brainer: Rory’s Chilton graduation is the clear winner.

Where do I even start? Luke and Jackson’s reverent discussion of Chilton’s centuries-old architecture? (“Wow, look at the gargoyles.”) Sookie bumping her way in and out of her row at least four times? Brad’s musical farewell? (“Bong, bong!”) Lorelai and Rory sticking their tongues out in celebration? I regret my standard, smiling graduation photo every time.

My favorite, though, has got to be Luke—that old softie—crying during the ceremony. (“I’m blubbering; you’re freaks!”) And who can blame him? Rory’s sweet, heartfelt tribute to Emily, Richard, and Lorelai still makes me shed a tear.

#1. “Pilot” Felicity, season 1, episode 1

Has there ever been a graduation moment more enduringly swoonworthy than Ben writing in Felicity’s yearbook? A graduation moment more life-altering or with such great hair?

I think not.

Is Felicity’s decision to abandon her parents’ Stanford plans and follow Ben 3,000 miles to New York City impulsive? Sure. Reckless? Maybe. But it’s a decision that sparks the next four seasons of quintessential late-90s television, and I mean, after reading a note like that, who wouldn’t? Ben is a total heartthrob. (Have I mentioned the hair?)

But this moment tops the list because it isn’t really about the boy or even the next four years. It’s about Felicity taking a risk for the first time, making a decision and choosing the life she wants—the life she can create—even if it’s a life her parents don’t understand. It perfectly captures that feeling of stepping out into the world on your own: terrifying and thrilling—because anything can happen. After all, aren’t the best endings the ones that feel like beginnings?

So, how’d I do? Too much sappy, not enough funny? What’d I miss? Was my vote for Felicity swayed by my love for Peter Gabriel?