With Christmas landing and the new year traveling faster than a speeding bullet, television can be a soothing influence on parents who have too much to do and kids who have too little.
The networks have not forgotten, and FXX offers its Plus+Size Holiday Marathon featuring 661 episodes of "The Simpsons" and running all the way through New Year's Eve. This will set the record for the longest TV marathon in history (if anybody's counting).
On Thursday, IFC will unroll "Christmas with the Kranks," another holiday comedy starring Tim Allen along with Jamie Lee Curtis as his skeptical wife. The film is based surprisingly on a John Grisham novel, "Forgetting Christmas," with a screenplay by Chris Columbus, who wrote "The Goonies" and "Young Sherlock Holmes" and directed the massively popular "Home Alone."
We can once again count on the good ol' Syfy to unpack its haunting "Twilight Zone" suitcase beginning New Year's Eve and running all the way to Jan. 2 at 4 a.m. Creator Rod Serling, who wrote 92 of the 156 episodes, proved to be the visionary TV writer who set the bar for many others to follow.
NBC will swing down home to Tennessee Friday with "Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love," the next chapter in the biopic about Dolly's colorful life.
In this sequel to "Christmas of Many Colors," Alyvia Alyn Lind stars as the young Dolly with Jennifer Nettles as her mom and Rick Schroder as her pa.
Some interesting casting finds Dolly's real-life sister, Stella, in the role of the owner of the town market, while Farrah Mackenzie plays Stella. Dolly herself appears as a prostitute, known as the "Painted Lady."
BritBox will begin streaming the super popular British sitcom "Gavin and Stacey" on Christmas Day _ Seasons 1 through 3 with a "Gavin and Stacey" Christmas special on tap. The show was created by James Corden and Ruth Jones, way before Corden was known here as a late, late talk-show host.
Seeing how successful the series was in jolly ol' England, Yankee producers tried to create an American version. Like so many before it, the renamed "Us & Them," disappeared like clotted cream on a crumpet.
On New Year's Day, the "Brady Bunch" gang returns to the home they renovated _ the house that was a stand-in for the Bradys when the show aired back in the late '60s/early '70s.
Five of them will take part on the HGTV special, including Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen _ bright and early at 7 a.m.
They'll take a refreshed look at the series, "A Very Brady Renovation," and catch up with added memories and backstage gossip.
Intrepid Canadian police detective William Murdoch will be back on the case when Acorn TV premieres the 13th season of "Murdoch Mysteries." Streaming begins on Christmas Day. Starring Yannick Bisson as the laconic copper, the series takes place in Toronto, where Murdoch is often faced with unrelated occurrences that twist into brain-busting puzzles.
The show is set at the turn of the century, when inroads in forensics, medical procedures and crime scene analyses are being discovered. The first two episodes will stream Christmas Day with Episode 3 unfolding next Monday. Starting Jan. 6, the series streams weekly on Mondays.
Think Henry VIII partook of a fabulous noel? Forsooth, you better believe it, and historian Lucy Worsley will be hosting the bacchanal "12 Days of Tudor Christmas" to prove it.
The PBS special (with Worsley squeezed into a 16th century costume) will explore the traditions and rituals enjoyed by the royals of the time and will reveal that many of our customs _ including carols and gift-giving _ originated with those fun-loving Tudors. (Check local listings for air times.)
One of the most popular and longest-running holiday specials in television history is the stop-motion "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which first aired in 1964. Freeform will wind up its "25 Days of Christmas" on Wednesday with a sleigh full of goodies. "Frosty the Snowman" lands at 3:30 p.m., and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" sticks his nose in at 3:40 p.m.
Dick Clark will not be forgotten as long as ABC celebrates New Year's Eve with its annual musical special. The show probably bears the longest title in television, "Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020." Sheryl Crowe and Usher will perform, along with Ciara, Paula Abdul, Kelsea Ballerini and Blanco Brown, in the live 5 {-hour celebration. Lucy Hale will hitch a ride as co-host with Seacrest this year and Post Malone will headline.
The host with the definite most, Steve Harvey, will be back orchestrating "Fox's New Year's Eve with Steve Harvey: Live from Times Square," with the broadcast airing Eastern Time from 8 to 10 p.m. and again from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. The other times zones will be tape-delayed.
Maria Menounos and Rob Gronkowski serve as co-hosts. Artists stringing along with Harvey include LL Cool J featuring DJ Z-Trip and the Village People celebrating their "YMCA" anthem, Sting, Robin Thicke, Florence+the Machine and Jason Aldean. Guest appearances include comedian Ken Jeong, "Saturday Night Live"'s Kenan Thompson and gridiron greats Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Michael Strahan.
'COLLECTOR'S CALL' BACK FOR MORE
"Facts of Life" favorite Lisa Whelchel is back hosting MeTV's unique "Collector's Call," arriving on Jan. 12. The show features the wildly different treasures of collectors from all over the country. And viewers are privy to private collections that aren't ordinarily seen by the public.
Among the items featured in Season 2 are the original concept drawings for "Star Trek"'s USS Enterprise, rare Batman costumes worn by Adam West, who starred in the kitschy TV version back in 1966, guitars signed by Grammy Award-winning artists The Eagles and Bruce Springsteen, a massive sneaker "vault" containing more than 300 pairs of iconic shoes, an Italian Stallion robe signed by "Rocky" star Sylvester Stallone, the very first edition Barbie doll, handwritten lyrics and notes from Elton John and his songwriter partner, Bernie Taupin, screen-used vehicles from the James Bond film franchise and on and on.
"I'm continually fascinated to see the variety of collections we've found, the way they are displayed, and the stories behind how they got each piece," Whelchel says. "Truly the most interesting parts of these jaw-dropping collections are the collectors themselves."
HUNTER AND DANSON CAST IN COMEDY
NBC has snagged Ted Danson (fresh off his popular "The Good Place") and Holly Hunter for a new comedy to be scripted by Tina Fey and the talented but unheralded Robert Carlock.
Danson plays a newly elected mayor of Los Angeles who (like many politicians) doesn't really harbor a mission, while Hunter portrays a council member with a mammoth mission. Sparks should fly, since the two characters butt heads from the very beginning.
Hunter, who earned an Academy Award for "The Piano," got her start early, she tells me. "When I was 15 and doing high school plays, I served two apprenticeships: one when I was 15 and one when I was 16 in upstate New York in a repertory company," she recalls.
"And I loved it and was surrounded by professional actors, so I admittedly knew that was what I wanted to do," she says.
"I was in Georgia, and the man who was an artistic director was on a panel of judges who was looking at high school plays, and my school was in that competition. And I was in one of the plays. And he asked for me afterward and said, 'I have an apprentice spot if you'd like to take it this summer.' So I asked my parents and they said 'Yes,' and I went.
Without hesitation they were all for it," she says. "I don't understand that because no one in my family is in the performing arts at all. My father was a farmer and a manufacturing rep and my mother was a housewife. And they just thought it was wonderful."
'THE INTERROGATORS' DIG DEEP
Real-life police shows are proving so popular that almost every week there's a new cop on the block. One of them is Fil Waters, a Houston officer known for his insightful interrogation techniques, who's appearing on ID's "The Interrogators."
Some of the detectives are so adept at interrogation they seem like psychiatrists rather than cops. And Waters is one of them. He has a way of unearthing the truth from miscreants who are convinced they're smarter than the law.
On Thursday Waters deals with a case in which a young woman, celebrating her 30th birthday, is shot and killed outside her apartment. After interviewing scores of witnesses and suspects, Waters uncovers a lead that ultimately links the killer to the victim's bank card. And the shocking confession is imprinted on video.
