The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2020
What is this, day three? And it’s the start of the school holidays so get ready for the amount of family films on the list to ramp up!
0635 - Channel 4
What a lovely start to the day with a bit of relaxing Moomins. I mean, I'd a have preferred A Town Called Panic but you can't have everything
1025 - BBC1
Alright, it doesn't have the charm of the early Muppet films but, boy oh boy, does this have some great songs that do a lot of the heavy lifting for the film
1640 - BBC1
The original so doesn't have quite the budget of the later shorts but the charm is here in bucket loads both in the story and the finger prints you can see on the characters
1715 - BBC2
Given the current political climate a double bill of mid to late 70s sitcoms feels somehow apt, especially one is about an idiot who thinks he knows best whilst wrecking everything around him and the other about someone unhappy and dissatisfied with their relationship and looking at potential greener pastures
2100 - Film Four
A pretty nifty take on the Roger Moore era James Bond style super spy genre that has a good pair of leads in Taron Egerton and Colin Firth and some cracking action scenes. The problem is when the casual misogyny becomes a little too casual at the end; whereas Roger Moore would suggest at the sex act about to happen as the end credits fade up, Kingsman is a little more direct
2100 - Horror Channel
Mid-tier Carpenter but even thats still good; the film he did following the disastrous release of The Thing, this film is by the numbers for the most part but sometimes thats all you need
2230 - Channel 5
Could go either way this show, but the Steve Martin bit sounds interesting so hopefully it'll keep closer to that kind of thing. The suggestion of Noel Edmonds suffering an injury is quite enticing as well
2245 - BBC1
This doesn't have the sheer in your face daftness of the stunts of the later films, but this first film sets out it's stall with some great set pieces and a twisty plot that is good in a cheap pulp novel kind of way
2305 - Channel 4
Why is this on so late? No clue really; yes it has issues with the design of the eponymous Turtles (not just the noses, they have the same over-designed fiddlyness of the Transformer films) but you don't have Michael Bay directing it so the action scenes are pretty coherent. My son really enjoyed it at the time, you just have to understand that this isn't a Turtles film for you, if you want that go watch the 90s film or the cartoon. They're still there you know
0045 - Horror Channel
There's a reason why this is on so late, because it's flipping Hellraiser and it's not to be trifled with