There goes the neighborhood… and here comes our favorite new thing: The Christmas miniseries.
In Holidazed, the joyful eight-episode gift of an ensemble comedy that just dropped its first two episodes on November 14, Dennis Haysbert, Erin Cahill, Holland Roden, Ian Harding, John C. McGinley, Lindy Booth, Loretta Devine, Lucille Soong, Nazneen Contractor, Noemí González, Osric Chau, Rachelle Lafevre, Ser’Darius Blain, and Virginia Madsen sparkle as the residents of a busy cul-de-sac preparing for Santa’s big day. Some are merry, some are grinchy, but they’re all weathering this wild season together.
And when we say “weathering,” we mean that both figuratively and literally. You’ve got Chrismukkah crises, secret beaus, bossy grandmothers, even a high-school mean girl making her former classmate miserable by becoming part of her family… and a possibly problematic forecast that seems set to bring all of these folks together.
The project is an inspired idea that quite frankly, we can’t believe isn’t already an annual tradition. The Roku Channel had their own Yule-themed series last year with the mall-set romcom, The Holiday Shift (and you need to check that one out, too), but it didn’t pull talent like Holidazed has in front of and behind the camera — the writing staff here includes vets of Superstore, Kenan, American Auto, 13 Going on 30, and the woefully underrated Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce. So you know this thing is funny.
It also has an enormous amount of heart (duh, it’s Hallmark!) and you may even find your earlier opinions of some characters changing as the chaos intensifies. After all, even the Grinch gave in to the spirit of the season, right?
L-R: John C. McGinley, Virginia Madsen, Ser’Darius Blain, Noemi Gonzalez, Ian Harding, Erin Cahill, Dennis Haysbert, Osric Chau, Lucille Soong, Lindy Booth, and Rachelle Lefevre of Holidazed (Maarten de Boer)
According to the cast, the producers made sure to add certain touches to each neighbor’s house to reflect their cultural backgrounds and family dynamics. And for Blain, (a standout in Hallmark’s wonderful Christmas on Call) who gets to mess with Haysbert as Devine’s much younger new boyfriend, that attention to detail reflected his own experiences.
“The throughline as it pertains to holidays and stuff, for me, is that we always have sort of an eclectic mix of [guests] from everywhere,” he notes. “I’m the one that throws the Friendsgivings and the Christmas Eve parties where anybody who didn’t get a chance to go home, the orphans, can come over. And our show did that really well, bringing all the families together at the end of it for a great joyous celebration of human spirit.”
Honestly, this paired with the similarly serialized and entertaining Mistletoe Murders has officially cemented Hallmark+ on our Nice List for 2024. To quote so many kids come Christmas morning, it’s exactly what we wanted!
Holidazed, Thursdays, Hallmark+