‘Grantchester’ Season 3 Starts with Christmas
'Grantchester' Season 3 kicks off with the series’s first (and what wound up being its only) Christmas special.
Popular mystery series Grantchester returns to Masterpiece at last, starting the long-awaited third season off with the series’s first (and what wound up being its only) Christmas special, which originally premiered in the U.K. in between Seasons 2 and 3, in December of 2016.
Geordie: We should always do this drunk.
Sidney: Don't we?
Before we dive into the premiere of Grantchester, I want to pause to reflect on the concept of “the Christmas special.” As most anglophiles know, despite the pro-Brexit rhetoric of immigrants coming into the country and changing their customs, the U.K.’s monoculture, both cultural and religious, is far more deeply set than it is here in the U.S. The Christmas holiday (and Easter) causes the country to shut down in a way that just doesn’t quite happen here. When it comes to entertainment, the U.S. produces its share of Christmas-themed movies, even more so since the advent of streaming. Even so, one is much more likely to find the Rankin/Bass Rudolph claymation or 1983 A Christmas Story on endless loop than see current network shows doing yearly Christmas-themed episodes designed to air over the 48-hour period of December 24-26.
In the U.K., it’s the opposite. As far as the BBC and ITV are concerned, *everyone* celebrates Christmas. More importantly, everyone celebrates by settling down around the fire and the telly to watch their current favorite programs, in which the characters are having Christmas along with them. Some shows that aren’t currently on the schedule will still have Christmas specials – ahem, Doctor Who – because the tradition is that important. From Strictly Come Dancing (which does things like dance numbers on a Christmas-themed Hogwarts Great Hall set) to Downton Abbey, yearly Christmas specials are part of the required landscape once a show reaches a certain level of popularity.
