jgarner136

I was lucky enough to catch "Christmas" the one time it ran on TV, and I wish it would be released on DVD. Of course, it is an adaptation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol " with Robert Guillaume as John Grin, the Scrooge character. His son Kevin has a role as the Bob Cratchit character, with Geoffrey Holder and Ted Lange as two of the Ghosts. There are so many second-rate versions of "Christmas Carol" that seem to be around, and one of the few really good versions gets lost in a film vault somewhere. That's too bad, because this is truly a little gem of a TV movie. It was made on the heels of Guillaume's run as Benson and capitalized on that series' popularity. There is a bit of Benson's dry wit, but John Grin is not Benson. The writing is low-key and the characters well-done and interesting. Too bad we most likely won't see this one again. It's well worth the time.

I happened to catch this show, oddly enough, in the emergency room of our local hospital where I was waiting for the outcome of a family emergency. As we waited we watched Istanbul unfold before us. Host Eric Geller is quite good at his job. His enthusiasm for history and discovering what lies under the modern city is very contagious. And, his disappointment at not being able to go further into the ruins of the Hippodrome made me feel disappointed, too.

The only off note is that the meetings with various city officials and archeologists seemed a bit contrived, as I suppose they were. No one is going to let a camera crew go somewhere and get hurt and show it on TV, at least in a program of this sort.

On the whole, Mr. Geller made me want to go off to Istanbul and find the sites he went to and talk to the people who live in the houses and work in the shops, especially the rug market over the cistern.