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Thursday, December 14, 2023

TV Show Review: The Santa Clauses - Season 2

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Lots of laughs and plenty of story
Cons: Too much story, in fact, so climaxes are rushed
The Bottom Line:
Can Cal be Santa?
Meanwhile, old Santa returns
Funny Christmas show


“We Caught You Red and Green Handed.”

While I struggled a bit to enjoy the first season of The Santa Clauses, that had faded in my mind and I was looking forward to watched season two this year.  I’m happy to say that it was a stronger season for me.

As this season opens, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is still trying to find a replacement as Santa so he can retire.  He’s decided that his son, Cal (Austin Kane) is the perfect replacement and sets about starting his training.  While Cal goes along with it, he’s not completely sold because of such minor things as his fear of heights.  Meanwhile, Scott’s daughter Sandra (Elizabeth Allen-Dick) is finding her ability to hear animals is growing, so she gets interested in developing her magic.  And Carol, aka Mrs. Claus (Elizabeth Mitchell), has decided to help out the elf security team.

What no one at the North Pole realizes is that Magnus Antas (Eric Stonestreet) is back, having been freed from his prison – a nutcracker.  His head gnome, Olga (Marta Kessler) is back as well.  They are currently at a Christmas themed amusement park run by a man who goes by Kris Kringle (Gabriel Iglesias), but they are plotting to return to the North Pole so Magnus can retake his rightful place as Santa.  Will he find a way?  Will Santa and the elves be able to stop him if he does?

Obviously, there’s a lot going on this season.  The first season suffered from a plot that was too thin, but this season seems to have almost too much going on.  Still, it was nice to feel like each 30 to 40 minute episode deserved to be there.

I think it also helped that we already know the elf characters.  They brought them back, and they felt familiar instead of feeling foreign like they did in the first season.  In the first season, it just felt weird that there were these elves everyone seemed to know but us.  This time, we knew them, too, so we looked forward to spending more time with them as well.  This wasn’t a reflection on the young actors playing them, just how I felt about the characters.  These actors were just as good this season as they were last season.

The same holds true for the entire cast.  I feel like some of the actors felt a little more comfortable in their parts, or I just felt more comfortable with them.  Either way, there weren’t any poor performances.

I also laughed at so many lines this season.  Granted, the humor died down as the plot heated up in later episodes, but there were so many wonderful Santa related jokes and twists on familiar lines.

Remember earlier when I said there was almost too much going on this season?  That was driven home to me with the season finale.  There were so many things that needed to be resolved that most of them felt rushed.  Part of me does acknowledge that in this franchise, a big fight wouldn’t really work, but that is what they seemed to be building toward only for a few conversations to be enough to resolve things.  It did bother me since it felt anti-climatic, but overall, I still enjoyed the season.

There are a couple of fun nods to the movies as well.  They didn’t include any new guest stars from the film, sadly, but those moments still made me grin when they happened.

All told, there are six episodes, and the time of each episode just flies by.

Season 2 of The Santa Clauses features more Christmas laughs to keep you entertained.  If you are looking for something new to enjoy this holiday season, I suggest you give it a try.

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