It happens every Christmas of course. They trot out every festive episode of every show they can, from “Friends” (one assumes, never watched it: don't hate myself that much) to “Only fools and horses”. Some are good, some are bad. Here I'll be trying to focus on the good. Mostly. Some of these shows will be ones I already feature, some will be shows I will be looking at in the future, and some will be shows that will never otherwise grace these pages. But the Christmas shows are worth writing about. In the cases of the latter two, I'll give a brief introduction for those who have not seen these shows. As in this first one...
Focussing on the character of John Becker, a doctor who is so miserable, angry, intolerant and selfish that he makes Mister Burns seem like a real sweetie, “Becker” starred “Cheers” mainman Ted Danson who, ably assisted by his long-suffering assistant Margaret, his dizzy receptionist Linda and his blind friend Jake, tries to make it through the next day without murdering someone. Sometimes he succeeds. As a doctor, his bedside manner is not the greatest, but he takes what he does seriously. It's when he's outside his surgery, trying to deal with the real world, that things really take a turn for the worse.
Becker hates Christmas. It's just an excuse for people to spend money, and to encourage you to spend money. People you haven't seen all year turn up on your doorstep, act as if they're happy to see you and you're supposed to be happy to see them. They eat all your food, drink all your booze and then fu
ck off a day later to return to wherever the hell it is they come from, and good riddance to them. And family ain't the worst of it! Out on the streets there's a sense of wonder in the air, shop Santas stand on every corner, ringing their goddamn bells and bellowing about toys, people you don't even know and care less for accost you and wish you a Happy Christmas. It's cold, it's usually snowing, the sidewalks are slippery and every shop seems to be enticing you into spending your hard-earned cash on people you don't care about.
Yes, a real-life Scrooge indeed. For Becker, the thought of goodwill to all men involves locking himself in his room with enough booze to knock out a small-sized army, and waiting out the hated holiday season, not emerging again until January, after the equally annoying New Year's Eve. So you can imagine he's not exactly best pleased when, on a reluctant foray into a department store his back suddenly goes, and he is forced to remain in the festively bedecked, holly-covered shop for hours. He must feel like all his Christmases have come at once, which, while it would be normally considered a good thing, is for Becker the equivalent of Hell.
Becker: “Dr. Angry head”
Becker has reached an agreement with Christmas: no expectations, no disappointments. Seems to be working for him. Everyone else around him though seem to be getting affected by his hatred of Christmas. Jake is annoyed he can't go spend the festive season at his grandma's, as he does every year, since she is going to Atlantic City with her friend. (”Between them they have a walker, a wheelchair and an oxygen tank, and they think
I'll be the one in the way!") Reggie's Christmas tree falls over, crushing her hand-painted Christmas bauble, with an angel blowing a trumpet which Becker opines is more like Liberace drinking a martini, a precious keepsake from her childhood, and Bob has not got one Christmas card from any of his tenants. To make things worse, Reggie's arch-rival, Sally from the bakery, has collected the most toys for the Christmas Toy Drive seven years in a row, and Reggie now intends to beat her at her own game.
While passing through a store, Becker notices that a Christmas tree in the display happens to contain a decoration just like the one that broke on Reggie. In an uncharacteristic gesture of kindness, he decides to buy it but the store manager will not sell it to him. Frustrated and angry, and determined to get the ball, Becker stands on the display and tries to take the thing off the tree, whereupon his back goes out and he collapses on to the display. Unable to move him, the staff have to leave him there, and every child that comes by presses the button to activate the display, until he thinks he will be hearing the cute little song in his nightmares for months.
Meanwhile, Reggie's plans to beat Sally have come to nothing. Despite going to such lengths as having Bob take toys from the lost-and-found at his building and putting a sign on Jake's back which says
I'm blind, please give me toys she is still well behind in the count. Then she hears with delight the news that Sally's bakery has burned down, taking with it all the toys she had assembled for the Toy Drive. “Miracles can happen”, she says. “God bless us, every one!”
QUOTES
Jake (on hearing Becker enter, shouting at a woman about her dog): “Merry Christmas? Or should I just go screw myself?”
Margaret (listing the patients): “In two, there's a Santa with a black eye.”
Becker: “I don't care who he's with: what's wrong with him?”
Margaret: “Not a black guy! A black eye!”
Becker: “Look Santa, the traditional greeting is “Ho ho ho!” If a pretty girl walks by and you just say “ho” she has every right to deck you!”
Becker (after tripping in the store and activating a cute, animated display complete with chipmunk voices): “I'm in Hell!”
Manager: “You're going to have to get up.”
Becker: “I can't get up. I can't move my legs, I can barely move my arms. You're going to have to move me. But do it gently.”
Manager: “I'm sorry, but the lawyers tell us we can't help anyone. Train.”
Becker: “What the hell are you talking about, train?”
(A small train that is making a circuit around the display hits into his head)
Manager: “As I said, train.”
Kid: “Momma I don't like that toy! It's mean Mr. Angry Head!”
Becker: “That's
Doctor Angry Head!”
Becker (to kid about to push the activation button for the display): “No no kid! Don't push that button! If you do, I swear to God Santa won't bring you a single present! All right, all right! I'll give you a dollar, no no!
Five dollars not to push the button! All right: twenty dollars. I can't move though, you'll have to reach into my pocket to get my wallet.”
Kid: “Oh no! We saw a film in school about men like you!”