• Options
• Login
• Register
• Desktop Style
• Accelerated Mobile Pages Theme

Michael's Thoughts: The Santa Clauses

• Index

  • Science Fiction and Fantasy Community Forums
  • Science Fiction and Fantasy Entertainment
  • Science Fiction and Fantasy TV Shows
  • Michael's Thoughts: The Santa Clauses
• Michael's Thoughts: The Santa Clauses

• Michael's Thoughts: The Santa Clauses

  Michael > December 23rd, 2023, 12:58 PM

  
  Matilda Lawler, Elizabeth Allen-Dick, Austin Kane, Tim Allen, and Elizabeth Mitchell star in The Santa Clauses.
  
  Disney+ brought back Tim Allen for 2 seasons of The Santa Clauses in 2022. I don't know if there will be a 3rd season. Haven't looked.
  
  I decided to binge on the show this month to take a break from my Cdramas.
  
  Admittedly, it was a little tough for me to get into the first season. The show is obviously geared more toward families and kids than adults who want action-based dramas.
  
  The storyline for each season is fairly simplistic, even though they are movie-length plots. The drama is pretty low-key. The most passionate romantic relationship is between 2 of the Christmas elves.
  
  Premise of the Show
  
  It's been 28/29 years since Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) became Santa Claus. In the first season he's getting a little burned out and his magic becomes unpredictable. After a mishap where he falls off the roof (ending the first episode on a cliff-hanger), Scott decides he needs to get out of the business. So the [new] head elf Betty (Matilda Lawler) grudgingly points out there is a "Secession Clause" in his contract card. He has the option of retiring if he can find a replacement.
  
  The rest of the season is about Scott's search for a replacement, his retirement, and the consequences of his decisions.
  
  Kal Penn plays Simon Koski, the new Santa Claus. Rupali Redd plays his loving daughter Grace.
  
  Obviously Scott eventually comes back to the job since there is a Season 2. In the second season a previous Santa named Magnas Antas (played by Eric Stonestreet) is released from his imprisonment in a nutcracker after 700 years. He's been sold and traded on the black market for years and finally ended up in the hands of a Christmas/Santa Claus fanatic who calls himself Kris Kringle (played by Gabriel Iglesias). Kris runs a small failing theme park based on Santa Claus and Christmas.
  
  Scott is still concerned about who should eventually succeed him as Santa, so he convinces his younger son Buddy "Cal" (played by Austin Kane) to become a Santa-in-training. Meanwhile, Scott and Carol's daughter Sandra is beginning to develop magical powers as she hits puberty.
  
  Carol is played by Elizabeth Mitchell, who originated the role in the 2nd Santa Claus movie and Sandra is played by Tim Allen's real-life daughter Elizabeth Allen-Dick.
  
  While the kids do kid stuff (that is, learning to cope with their developing magical powers and their normal teenage angst), Elizabeth forges a new identity for Mrs. Claus. Somewhere along the line, the Calvins begin to hear rumors about Magnas Antas but the elves won't explain what's going on to them.
  
  The season follows the inevitable clash between the competing Santa Clauses and actually deals with some darker sub-plots (in a Disney-like way).
  
  My General Thoughts
  
  I don't have time for a detailed discussion of the show right now.
  
  Of course, the appeal of the franchise for everyone is that Scott Calvin makes Santa Claus a real person with feelings and anxieties and wants and needs (other than delivering presents to children once a year). The elves are always cute because they're played by kids. Some of the kid actors are pretty good, including Matilda Lawler (Betty) and Liam Kyle (who plays Gary, the last Elf rescue team member). In fact, I'd say that Liam steals several scenes.
  
  Laura San Giacomo appears in both seasons as Italian Christmas Witch La Befana. She doesn't have much of a role in the first season but she's got a major part in the second season and she does a great job.
  
  One of the interesting things I read about the ideas behind this show is that Tim Allen always had questions about why Santa would fall off a roof, and other things. So he worked with the producers to come up with answers to the questions.
  
  So if you've been curious about the background stories of the franchise, you'll learn a lot of details from watching these 2 seasons (especially the 2nd one).
  
  And they cleverly dealt with an annoying question I've always had: what happened to Bernard, the head elf from the first two movies? David Krumholtz reprises the role and thankfully they didn't digitally de-age him to make him look child-like. They have a plausible (dare I say Clausible?) explanation for what happened to Bernard (and his successor Curtis).
  
  If you want to watch something with the kids, this show is a good one for the Christmas season. If you're just bored and want to watch something, you may want to pass as I don't think you'd want to skip over the first season. That is, the second season was much more enjoyable for me (as is often the case with TV shows). The actors were more comfortable with their roles and I think the writing was better, tighter in the second season. But if you skip the first season you'll miss out on some helpful explanations.
  
  Devin Bright plays Scott's elf-sidekick Noel (and he is also Betty's husband). His role was a bit over the top but he did well.
  
  Some of the cameos that appear throughout the 2 seasons include Peyton Manning as himself, Paige Tamada as Judy the elf (in a flashback), Kevin Pollack as Cupid, Tracy Morgan as the Easter Bunny, and Michael Dorn as the Sandman.
  
  Each season has 6 episodes (about 30 minutes in length).
• Next Oldest Next Newest