I'm a huge Christmas fan, so I naturally enjoy anything remotely holiday-ish that a television serves up. No matter how corny or overly sentimental it may be, Christmas specials of a TV show always get to me. How the Ghosts Stole Christmas avoids being anything particularly annoying, instead being a wonderfully perceptive and eventually sweet holiday fable.The episode opens like a traditional haunted house movie, with Mulder and Scully roaming around in a darkened spooky mansion with flashlights. There are loud noises, creepy shadows, sinister apparitions that float into the corner of your eye. It's a lot of fun. Then, midway through the hour, it becomes a far more romantic and silly comedy tour-de-force. Lydia and Maurice are star-crossed lovers who enjoy playing games with the visitors to their home, and have grown tired with the lack of new victims of late. So far, so Beetle Juice. But the neat little perceptions that the ghosts make about Mulder and Scully are hilarious, while the agent's vastly different reactions to the hauntings make for some of the hour's strongest moments. In Mulder's case he banters with the two of them, while Scully is spooked and spends a lot of time wailing in terror.
Lydia and Maurice themselves are wonderful creations. They're old, tired and jaded; two ghosts who are more concerned with worry than of haunting. Their opinions on what make a good round of spookiness is vastly different, while Lydia still has that naughty sexuality that she presumably had when she was far younger and, you know, alive. "I don't show my hole to just anyone". Heh! Both are performed with palpable chemistry by veteran comedians Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner, who perfect just that right amount of excitement and mutual boredom.
The episode ends with another cute Mulder and Scully moment, where they both open up each other's Christmas presents as the camera fades back outside the window of Mulder's apartment. They're a lot like Lydia and Maurice. Both at each other's throats a lot of the time and both somewhat unsatisfied with their lives, yet both having deep, profound love for one another. Aww. Great episode. A+
Credits
Guest stars Lily Tomlin (Lydia); Edward Asner (Maurice)
Writer Chris Carter Director Chris Carter
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