The magical sleigh

Last night's full hour Family Guy episode, "Road to the North Pole," was brilliant, especially in comparison to the other episodes so far this season. Nitpicking Family Guy had gotten to be very unpleasant, because it was practically beating up on a lousy show.

But this latest episode was a pleasure to watch. I don't feel like a bully when I point out that Stewie didn't have time to make those modifications to Santa's sleigh that get Brian and Stewie out of a rough spot just in the nick of time. One minute Brian is declaring that he will take care of Santa's deliveries, the next Brian and Stewie are off on the sleigh, up in the air. And if Stewie really did make modifications to Santa's sleigh, where was Brian at? So here we have a deus ex machina, with Stewie being the deus and the sleigh being the machina.

The episode takes a very serious turn for its last few minutes, almost bordering on preachy. This was the point at which I remembered my reason for sitting down to watch this episode at all (after the very obnoxious episode "Brian Writes a Bestseller" I thought I was done watching Family Guy): I wanted to see how it meshes with the pre-cancellation episode "A Very Freakin' Special Family Guy Christmas": for the most part, pretty well. The only thing is that the earlier episode leads us to believe that Lois would have taken care of getting the presents, and not relied on Santa Claus completely. Recall that in that episode, Stewie is disappointed by the first gift he opens, but then Chris prompts him to open the other present, which has that strong green glow that stands for nuclear materials; presumably the first gift Lois bought and the second is from Santa.

It feels good for Family Guy to once again be worthy of nitpicking.

Soap opera pace: interspersing glacial and warp speed

There's a small handful of soap operas I occasionally tune in to, and this past week they have all had various Christmas decorations in the background and allusions to Christmas. And I'm pretty sure they also exhibited that Christmas theme around this same time last year. But in between, the pace has been so glacial that I have a hard time believing that taken at face value the plots of these soap operas have really progressed a full year. Some soap operas, like Days of Our Lives, give me the impression that the plot of each 45-minute episode (not counting commercials) advances the story a lot less than 45 minutes. "What is it you were going to tell me?" asks one character in one scene. Zoom in on the worried person being asked that question. Cut to another scene, which probably also ends with an unanswered question. Then we cut back to the first scene. "Oh, I was just going to remind you about this thing, but it's not important anymore." Can you honestly believe those two characters spent two minutes just staring at each other?

What does he need the reindeer for?

The film: Elf (2003)
What happened: Santa's sleigh breaks down in Central Park. Apparently, its engine runs on Christmas spirit, which is somehow generated by singing Christmas carols. Buddy (Will Ferrell) does some kind of mechanical work on the engine, but that's still not enough to keep it running. What makes the difference is that Walter, Buddy's curmudgeonly father (James Caan) has suddenly gained Christmas spirit, and Santa is able to deliver all the Christmas gifts.
Why it makes no sense: If the sleigh is powered by an engine that uses Christmas spirit as a catalyst, why does Santa need reindeer to pull the sleigh? Worse, Santa still whips the reindeer! This is animal cruelty just a notch below killing an animal with no intention of eating the animal. No wonder this film doesn't have an American Humane Association certificate.