We’ve Been Served (Hot Cocoa)
Our Holiday Giant Has an October Surprise of its Own
Deck Them is a weekly newsletter exploring the Hallmark Channel’s 15th annual Countdown to Christmas. Share the joy ⭐
While the rest of the world has been concerned with ghosts and goblins, watching the Dodgers win the World Series, or both, we’ve been searching for missing nutcrackers, saving precious gemstones, and graduating from theater school. Sleigh bells ring! Are you listening?
WHAT’S THAT UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE?
Our Holiday Giant was hit with an October surprise last week when Penny Perry, a former Hallmark casting director, filed an age-discrimination lawsuit alleging she was fired due to her age.
The lawsuit claims Lisa Hamilton Daily, Hallmark’s executive VP of programming, did not want to cast “old people.” In the complaint, Hamilton Daly is quoted as singling out Queens of Christmas Holly Robinson Peete, 60, and Lacey Chabert, 42, as “old talent” that needed to be “replaced.”
The network has denied the “outrageous allegations” in a statement, reassuring viewers that Chabert and Robinson Peete “have a home at Hallmark.”
While Chabert is currently hosting the unscripted series Celebrations with Lacey Chabert on Hallmark+, it should be noted that she has only one other credit in this year’s Countdown to Christmas lineup. Chabert will, however, star in Netflix’s Hot Frosty.1
Perhaps Hallmark isn’t home for the holidays anymore.
A HOLIDAY WITHIN A HOLIDAY WITHIN A HOLIDAY
You’re returning to your hometown for the first time after getting Business Job in Business City, that is, you’re fighting to save your family’s struggling bakery, well, you’re an assistant who's mistaken for your boss by a rich hunk—all while learning the true meaning of Christmas. Stop us if you’ve seen this one.
As Countdown to Christmas enters its late teens, Hallmark has resolved to reinvent the formula.
Often, this results in a reliance on nearly meta-narratives and jolly smirks like in Operation Nutcracker. On the surface, this is classic Hallmark: a valuable nutcracker goes missing, and two people fall in love. But the first twenty minutes are snowed in by dialogue like, “Wow, just like in a romcom!” and “We have to stop meeting cute like this.” Come for Ashley Newbrough’s take on a digitally de-aged Denise Richards, stay for Christopher Russell’s fake beard. Sparks may fly.
But more often, it results in a sort of nesting doll approach to storytelling, where the network will take a signature premise only for it to open up and have another piece of popular culture inside.
During Fall Harvest (hereinafter “Fallmark”), Hallmark’s autumnal programming block during September and most of October, we saw Haunted Wedding—a movie about the wedding of two ghost hunters at a haunted inn—revealed as the vessel for Hallmark’s version of Outlander. THIS 👏 HOTEL 👏 HAS 👏 SCOTTISH 👏 GHOSTS!
The premise of The 5-Year Christmas Party (catchy title, right?) starring Katie Findlay (they were in The Carrie Diaries!) and Jordan Fisher (he was in Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen!) is simple enough: Alice and her old theater school rival, Max, reunite each holiday season to work a Chicago catering company’s Christmas parties. Ta-da! It’s When Harry Met Sally (with Gen-Z theater nerds!) There’s a little Party Down à la Douglas Coupland in there too—but it’s When Harry Met Sally. Complete with dragging Christmas trees together, dragging Christmas trees alone.
The Christmas Charade mixes these reformulations into a high-concept caper only a greeting card company could pull off. Here, a cautious librarian raised by home security experts finds herself in a real-life adventure when a blind date mix-up leads her into an undercover operation to track down an art thief targeting the Saint Nicholas Ruby at a Christmas Eve charity ball. Rachel Skarston has been Hallmark’s go-to for these elevated horrors that have little to do with the holidays by the end of their eighty-four-minute runtimes.
And so it’s a mixed bag. Charlie Brown got a rock, and we’re still waiting on the next future classic (syndicated).
Next on Hallmark Mystery, we have My Sweet Austrian Holiday. Things were pretty rough last Thursday, so we’re only cautiously optimistic for tonight’s premiere.
Premiering on Countdown this weekend, there’s A Carol for Two on Friday, Our Holiday Story on Saturday, and Holiday Mismatch2 on Sunday. All times 8/7c.
Go Dodgers! Trick or Treat! Merry Christmas, everyone!
Don’t worry. We’ll be watching that too.
An earlier version of this newsletter incorrectly listed Trivia at St. Nick’s as the Hallmark Original airing on Sunday, November 3, 2024. Apologies to Caroline Rhea and Beth Broderick.