As someone who hasn’t watched the Lifetime channel since they stopped doing live surgery, I kind of got the idea that their original movies were somewhat homogenous. Apparently, I was right, and their Christmas movies even more so. At least the plot is the same for all of them.
Lifetime Christmas movies take place in a magical universe full of perfect single men where everyone turns their Christmas decorations up to eleven, and every small town has an eatery called Millie’s or Dinky’s or Flopsy’s or Boopy’s that’s “famous” for a food that’s perfectly easy to make well, like pancakes or coffee. The women in Lifetime Christmas movies haven’t found love, and there is always one person in their life standing by to give them aggressive advice in the vein of “there’s a single man over there, he’s your only chance at happiness, or I fear you will die alone at the age of thirty-two.” The men are handsome, sensitive, and family-oriented, their unavailability due only to an easily surmountable circumstance—an ill-suited girlfriend, a grief process that’s almost over, or the fact that they’re a ghost.
The perfect single man and the very lonely woman quickly fall in love (magical Christmas relationships generally take between two days and two weeks to form) against the backdrop of adorable small town Christmas festivities and a small human interest project, like saving a reindeer farm.
This year, Lifetime has seven new original Christmas movies: A Gift Wrapped Christmas, The Christmas Gift, The Flight Before Christmas, Last Chance For Christmas, Becoming Santa, Wish Upon a Christmas, and The Spirit of Christmas. And they all follow the same outline, yet the settings vary from a corporate office to Santa’s workshop to a haunted house, and some are better than others. Janet Potter at The Awl reviews each one to let you know which are worth watching and why. You know how they all end, but that doesn’t matter if you enjoy the ride. A couple have already aired, but they’ll be coming around again before December is over. -via Metafilter