1991 Christmas Special; Situations Vacant

W

wstol

Dedicated Member
This was the first Christmas Special not to be longer than half an hour, or about Christmas.

Basically it's just a regular episode, but shown at Christmas, and called a Christmas Special.

This would be a trend for many Christmas episodes from this point to towards the end - Stop That Castle, Potts in Pole Position, I Was a Hitman for Primrose Dairies are just a few I can think of that could pass for regular episodes. Same with Welcome to Earth possibly, yet somehow that episode did have something a little special to it anyway.

This special, which ties in with Series 13, marked the end of another era in the show's history. By the next series, there would be greater reliance on supporting characters, notably with the re-introduction of Aunty Wainwright.
 
Damn.

You're absolutely right. Forgot that, though the fact that Crusher is in some versions of it does suggest it was hastily turned into a special.
 
C W Northrop said:
Getting Sam Home,Uncle Of The Bride and Big Day At Dream Acres didnt have a Christmas theme either
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true but to be fair they were movies of the show and it was just a suitable time of year (Christmas where a lot of specials are shown) to show them in the 1980's, I mean with some shows now we get Easter specials, anniversary specials etc so as I say I think these just happened to be made (in the summer) and shown around the time of Christmas where it was suitable for them to be shown on television
 
While I get the point you are making, lets not get too carried away. For example, "A Dewhurst up a Fir Tree" is only about Christmas in the sense that it is about Foggy buying Christmas trees in the middle of the summer. It is not a holiday themed episode like the classic ones we remember. There were also years when there was no Christmas special at all. And then a few years after "Situations Vacant" you have "A Leg up for Christmas" and "Extra!Extra!", which both qualify by your definition.

To be honest, I'm not sure the show would have been better off with Christmas themed episodes every year. There are some great ones, and then there are also some not so great ones among those produced. So I'm sure Roy Clarke did them when he thought he had ideas worth the subject and skipped the Christmas theme when he didn't.
 
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