Black Friday Is The Perfect Day To Announce A "Holiday Engagement"

Haven't I seen this before?

The Story:

Hillary (Bonnie Somerville) longs for the approval of her parents (Shelly Long and Sam McMurray).  Now she is engaged to Jason (Chris McKenna), a successful lawyer and they are planning to head to her family for the long Thanksgiving weekend.  But when Jason gets a promotion that would require him to move, Hillary is less than thrilled, so Jason opts for career over love.  Now desperate, Hillary puts an ad on a dating site for  someone to pretend to be her boyfriend for the weekend.  Enter David (Jordan Bridges) a struggling actor who just might fit the bill.

My Fake Fiance.
Holiday in Handcuffs.
Holiday Engagement.

Welcome to the wonderful world of mistaken identity romantic comedies!  This one was offered up by the Hallmark Channel back in 2011.

To ring in the holiday season, let's start with Thanksgiving, which is different than Christmas, and provides a nice bookend to holiday viewing.

I'm always a fan of starting early, which is why you've seen reviews for holiday themed movies/specials appear sporadically throughout the year.   And I'm not done yet!

: )

It's nice to see that Shelley Long is still acting, I haven't seen her in ages.

The rest of the cast are mostly newcomers, at least for me, but everyone does a fine job playing their roles.

It's a very comfortable film, you feel like you've seen it before even on the first viewing, and it just becomes more ingrained on you with repeated viewings.

It's like enjoying a cup of cocoa on a chilly day. 

It never really gets old.

Available to stream instantly on Netflix as of this writing, whenever you are ready to kick off your holiday viewing celebration!

Final Grade: B

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I won't be rushing out to buy it, but I could see giving it a whirl to kick off the holidays in future holiday seasons.

Streaming TV Weekend: "Cheers"

Norm!

The Story:

Welcome to Boston, home of Cheers, the bar where everybody knows your name.  The owner is Sam Malone (Ted Danson) ex-ballplayer, former alcoholic and noted womanizer.  The rest of his staff includes Carla (Rhea Perlman) and Coach (Nicholas Colasanto).  Norm (George Wendt) is the bar regular that everyone calls out to when he comes through the door.  There's also a know-it-all mailman (John Ratzenberger) lurking around as well.

In the first episode, Diane (Shelley Long) comes to the bar about to be married, but her man needs to obtain the ring from his ex wife.

You can imagine that it doesn't end well for her.

And there you have the set up that would last for almost 5 years.

Starting in 1982, this 30+ year old NBC comedy series is still hilarious.

Created and written by the trio of James Burrows, Glen and Les Charles, whoever thought a show about a bar would be one of the better sitcoms in television history?

Having not seen the original episode since it probably aired in '82, it was a crazy trip on the way-back machine when I was surfing for something to watch.

It still holds up, it's still funny and doesn't appear to have suffered with age.

All good things, especially when dealing with sitcoms.

I have said before that I preferred the seasons after Diane left the show, but Cheers made the most out of the on-again/off-again romantic tension between Sam and Diane.  Unlike Moonlighting, the show didn't lose its steam by pairing up the two in later years.

The sweet reminder was just how funny Coach was.  It was sad when he passed away, but Cheers did great by casting Woody Harrelson to step in as the dimwit of the bar.

The show is still great, and if it's been some time since you've watched, now is a great time to revisit some old friends.

And if you've never seen it before, you're in for a treat!

Available to stream instantly on Netflix as of this writing.

Final Grade: A

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I doubt I'll ever buy the 11 seasons, but it's nice to know that I can stream it at any point if I have time but don't want to go for a movie to have a pretty good sitcom on standby at a moment's notice.