ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas 2011 Schedule

It is that time of year ago when you just stay inside with a blanket on and watch Christmas specials for a month straight. And ABC Family is happy to accommodate with its 25 Days of Christmas (Harry Potter and Pixar marathons notwithstanding). Some highlights include new original movie 12 Dates of Christmas (12/11 at 8:00) starring Amy Smart and Mark-Paul Gosselaar who relive the same Christmas Eve first date over and over again Groundhog Day style until she learns to open up and stop living in the past. This year also features the ABC Family premieres of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (12/4 at 8:30), Disney/Pixar’s Up (12/16 at 9:00) and one of the all time great holiday classics, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.


Thursday, December 1
(7:00) The Santa Clause


Friday, December 2
(6:00) Dr. Seuss on the Loose
(8:00) Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Live Action)


Saturday, December 3
(All Day Long) Harry Potter Marathon


Monday, December 4
(All Day Long) Harry Potter Marathon)
(8:30) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince


Monday, December 5
(7:00) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys
(8:30) The Polar Express


Tuesday, December 6
(6:00) 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
(8:30) Home Alone 2: Lost in New York


Wedensday, December 7
(6:00) A Very Pink Christmas
(9:00) National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - ABC Family Premiere


Thursday, December 8
(7:00) Frosty's Winter Wonderland
(7:30) Cranberry Christmas
(9:00) The Year Without a Santa Claus


Friday, December 9
(7:00) Santa Claus is Comin' to Town


Saturday, December 10
(All Day Long) holiday Movie Marathon
(8:00) The Santa Clause 3 - The Escape Clause


Sunday, December 11
(6:00) Holiday in Handcuffs
(8:00) 12 Dates of Christmas – A New ABC Family Original Movie


Monday, December 12
(9:00) National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation


Tuesday, December 13
(7:00) Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (Animated)
(7:30) Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat


Wednesday, December 14
(8:30) Dinsney∙Pixar’s Finding Nemo


Thursday, December 15
(9:00) Beauty and the Beast


Friday, December 17
(9:00) Dinsney∙Pixar’s Up - ABC Family Premiere


Saturday, December 18
(All Day Long) Holiday Classics Marathon
(8:00) Dinsney∙Pixar’s Toy Story


Sunday, December 18
(8:00) Dinsney∙Pixar’s Toy Story 2


Monday, December 19
(6:30) Aladdin
(8:30) Disney∙Pixar’s The Incredibles


Tuesday, December 20
(6:00) Mickey's Christmas Special
(9:00) The Polar Express


Wednesday, December 21
(7:00) Disney's Prep and Landing
(8:00) The Santa Clause


Thursday, December 22
(7:00) The Santa Clause 3 - The Escape Clause


Friday, December 23
(8:00) Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Live Action)


Saturday, December 24
(All Day Long) Holiday Classics Marathon
(7:00) Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
(8:00) The Year Without a Santa Claus


Sunday, December 25
(8:00) The Polar Express


For those that missed ABC Family’s other new original movie this year Desperately Seeking Santa (which for some reason they premiered before Thanksgiving), you can currently watch the full movie on Hulu. Or just check it out below:

Previewing TNT’s Mystery Movie Night

TNT’s Mystery Movie Night is for a certain type of person (full disclosure notice: I am not one of them) and that is for anyone who watches CBS more than any other channel. The kind of people who see Marcia Gay Harden or Alfred Molina and are instantly intrigued. The kind of people that already have a couple novels by Scott Turow already on their bookshelves. The kind of people who are, dare I say considering TNT recently canceled a similarly named show, men of a certain age.

Scott Turow’s Innocent is the basis of the first Mystery Movie Night airing tonight at 9:00. The movie follows a judge (Bill Pullman, While You Were Sleeping) whose wife (Marcia Gay Harden, The Mist), has just died under suspicious circumstances (aren’t all deaths in mystery books?) and the prosecutor (Richard Schiff, The West Wing) who was unable to pin the death of the judge’s mistress on him twenty years ago is trying to build another case to bring down him down. It does not help that the judge’s current mistress his former clerk and current girlfriend to his son. There are plenty of twist and turns you expect from a mystery movie and a ending you will not see coming (assuming you have not already read the book). But that is mostly because it may be the most boring outcome that could have been written.



The Mystery Movie Night returns tomorrow, also at 9:00, with Ricochet based on the book by Sandra Brown and feature actors that are a bit more endearing to men of my certain age: Rita Morgan! Bill Lumbergh!! Dwayne Motherfracking Wayne!!! Much like Innocent, Ricochet features a judge (Lumbergh) but this time around it is his wife that may have caught the infidelity bug and the detective (John Corbett, Parenthood) looking into her self defense murder of a home invader wants a piece of the action. It does not help that Lumbergh recently threw Corbett in jail for contempt after one of his cases got thrown out on a technicality. It should be noted that the Ricochet script was written by the same guy who wrote The Craigslist Killer as these early Mystery Movie Night films have a slightly classier vibe than your regular Lifetime Movies.

The Mystery Movie Night continues through December. Next Tuesday, Carla Gugino and Mark-Paul Gosselaar team up for Hide originally written in book form by Lisa Gardner. Wednesday is the premiere of Richard North Patterson’s Silent Witness starring Dermot Mulroney, Anne Heche, and Judd Hirsh. Then on Tuesday December 13 April Smith’s Good Morning, Killer gets the movie treatment starring Catherine Bell, Cole Hauser, William Devane, and Titus Welliver. And just in time for Christmas, the mother / daughter writing team of Mary and Carol Higgins Clark and their book Deck the Halls gets turned into a movie Tuesday December 20 starring Kathy Najimy, Scottie Thompson, and Larry Miller. And if you enjoy the Mystery Movie Night, you are in luck because yesterday TNT already ordered up a new movie based on Patricia Cornwell’s Hornet’s Nest and have already cast Sherry Stringfield, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Boatman and is set to air sometime in 2012.

Previewing the Return of The Closer and Rizzoli and Isles

Next week The Closer reaches its 100’s episode, but before then number ninety-nine airs tonight at the show returns for the second half of its seventh season (before the series concludes next summer) and once again Brenda and Fritz will be going head to head on whose case it is when a principal ends up dead in the same fashion a TSA agent was killed a week earlier. Things get complicated when something interesting gets found while searching the home of the school’s football coach.

The Closer pulls out all the stops for its milestone episode next week. And by all the stops I mean Fred Willard. In a Santa suit. Drunk. And the victim is another Santa that is employed by his workshop who dies in a stunt gone wrong which just so happens to be caught on film by Buzz and his visiting sister Christine Wood (Perfect Couples) who helps solve the case while gaining the attention of all the guys on the force. The holiday theme will carry into episode 101 when Frances Sternhagen and Barry Corbin return as Brenda’s parents who come to town to celebrate the holiday.

The federal civil rights suit against Brenda will come up a few times over the five episodes that will air this winter with Mark Pellegrino and Curtis (Booger!) Armstrong reprising their roles as lawyers in the case. Also showing up in the next couple weeks include Mark Moses (Mad Men) and Elizabeth Perkins (Weeds) as the LAPD’s Police Commissioner and his wife while Jason George (Off the Map) will show up as a businessman. And did I mention a drunken Fred Willard as Santa? Oh yeah, and fighting elves.

The Closer airs Mondays at 9:00 on TNT. You can stream recent episodes on tnt.tv. You can also download The Closer on iTunes.




Following The Closer for the next five weeks as usual is Rizzoli and Isles as it closes out its sophomore season and they also have a special guest to roll out its return: Bill O’Reilly. The talking head is in town to cover the trial of a gangsta much to the chagrin of Rizzoli (and joy of her mother who loves his Irish eyes). Naturally O’Reilly does not have many nice things to say about the Force when the key witness in the case shows up dead (but come short of calling anyone a “pinhead”).

Rizzoli and Isles airs Mondays at 10:00 on TNT. You can stream recent episodes on tnt.tv. You can also download Rizzoli & Isles on iTunes.

Previewing the Second Half of Season Four of Leverage

When we last left off the Leverage team, the dude from Deadwood made an offer to Nate that he could refuse: he would offer up corrupt people for the Leverage team to take down, but in doing so will profit from the outcome. An offer that Nate not so politely decline, not that it has stopped Tom Nuttall from continuing to try to get Nate to accept.

That leads us to tonight when Leverage returns to finish up its fourth season with eight straight weeks worth of episodes. Yes that includes new episodes on Christmas and New Years Day and no there is no Christmas themed episode (no word on if they will re-air last year’s The Ho Ho Ho Job within the next month). Instead tonight the gang will be heading back to college to look into shady sociological experiments that use homeless veterans as their lab rats.

Fans of The Office will want to tune in next week (12/4) as the Leverage team infiltrates an office where someone is suspected of embezzlement all the while a documentary crew is filming the office and eighty percent of the episode uses just the documentary footage confessional style interviews that look like they were filmed in the Dufler Mifflin breakroom. Playing the role Michael Scott is Josh Randall (Ed’s Dr. Burton). Unfortunately none of the Leverage team takes the characterization of anyone else on the show, but it does look like Nate raided the closet of Dwight Schrute.

The next week starts up a special two week event where the boys and girls work on separate cons on the same night of their day off with Jeri Ryan reprising her role as Tara who replaced Sophia in the team during the second season. Naturally the ladies week is first. When the team finally convenes, they will be battling Emma Caulfield (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who runs a ring of trophy wives targeting old men. When the new year comes, expect some more familiar faces as the season closes out including Tom Skerritt as Nate’s father, Richard Chamberlain as Parker’s “father”, Kari Matchett as Nate’s ex-wife, and yes, even Wil Wheaton returns as Chaos.

Leverage airs Sundays at 9:00 on TNT. You can stream recent episodes over at tnt.tv. You can also download Leverage on iTunes.