TV’s Christmas in July
(This is Bringing the Heat, an as-often-as-I-feel-like-it feature where I say something that will probably get me yelled at on Twitter.)
I promise that I don’t just sit around all day watching Friends. But it illustrates the point I’m trying to make here, so TIME FOR SOME MORE FRIENDS TALK. (But only sort of! The show is just my lead-in to today’s actual topic.)
In Season 8, Episode 14, Joey is obsessed with Rachel and talks to Chandler about it — “Should be ready to kill myself any day now.” In Episode 15, it’s killing him, but he can’t act on it at least until he talks to Ross, so at the end of the episode, he talks to Ross — “It’s Rachel.” In Episode 16, Ross reacts, first with anger — “Rachel?!” — then with begrudging acceptance — “I’m understanding, but let’s not go crazy here.” The show was only marginally serialized, but in later episodes the storylines definitely led from one episode to another more and more often.
Only … if you watch the show on TV networks now (TBS, Nick at Nite, whatever), you’ll see Episode 14 (“Should be ready to kill myself…”), and then you’ll see Episode 16 (“Rachel?!”). What you won’t see is Episode 15. Because Episode 15 aired Feb. 7, 2002, and served as the series’ Valentine’s Day episode that year (the other plotline involved Phoebe giving a birthing video to Rachel, only for Chandler to think it’s porn, watch it, and kill his excitement for the holiday). And because networks only air syndicates holiday episodes around those holidays, that episode airs like three times a year, all in February, while the rest of the series cycles around 20 times.
In the grand scheme, this doesn’t matter. But holiday episodes are a TV, and in particular a sitcom, staple. They gather around the Christmas tree in ridiculously holiday-themed outfits, and pulled wrapped box lids off of wrapped boxes, like anyone in the history of ever has ever offered up a present that way. But they do so while advancing the plot of their show. If you only see the non-holiday episodes of The Big Bang Theory, you miss “The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis,” which includes the scene of Penny giving Sheldon a napkin signed (and mouth-wiped) by Leonard Nimoy, the single greatest scene the show ever had. If you only see the non-holiday episodes of How I Met Your Mother, you miss “Slapsgiving,” you miss “Slutty Pumpkin,” you miss “How Lily Stole Christmas.”
I recognize that in an era of cord-cutting and streaming and any number of other ways to watch a shot, this is an issue faced only by the most troglodytic among us (and color me extremely shocked that Word didn’t give me a red squiggly under “troglodytic”. But hey, cable channels: Just air shows in order. Sure, maybe give air the holiday episodes a little more often during the season of that holiday, but that doesn’t mean to carve the episode out of rotation the rest of the year. Jumping from “Joey can’t possibly tell Ross” to “Joey told Ross” is just silly. Y’all can air a Christmas episode in July. I promise.