It's Christmastown

STACEY GOTSULIAS has comps and will travel for PUPPY LOVE (2012) and: A Parental Advisory from TV's Andy Levy ... THEME ... No regrets ... Jeb picked a turkey ... Actor athleticism ... Terminally predictable ... 18 minutes of abandonment and anxiety ... Collar foley work ... The Expositional Challenge: Called for rain ... How we bork the Expositional Challenge ... Plot wrap-up ... Jamie Moyer and John Franco's hospice ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Gail vs. Jake The Dog ... Darin Erstad dog comp ... Watching dog trauma ... Dogs are more three-dimensional than Hallmark plots ... Gail, a normal person ... Old person's name ... Eat Your Heart Out: Day-drinking; butt chugging; 50 pizza lies; Phoenix pizza; hand-tossed pizza comps; one pound of brie; stolen joint of meat; Candace Cameron's NY secret ... BREAK ... Hallmark Expanded Universe: The Art Thou Botown Minor League Org Chart and Joe Theismann's Sports Agency vs. All Things Valentine radio trash talk vs. The Mariah Carey Long Island Ohio Expanded Universe ... Classic Lines: CandyCams' stiletto heels, Victor Webster's height, method shoe acting, a paper bag full of women's shoes, Wilpon/Wilpoff, piss-take $500 shoe design; not looking like a college professor ... Not the worst CandyCams performance, but ... Who falls for someone this brittle? ... Foosball, sure, but the house I don't buy ... BREAK ... Overdetermined: "Who settles for Megan?" vs. Gail punching holes in plot urgency vs. Where's my f*cking dog??? ... Crossover: Death Ship or Ghost Ship; Candace Cameron in The Running Man; Ryles, buddy comedy guy; not the guy who drinks your fat; Jerry Maguire, but with the Mets ... Intentional Talk ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Passes by letter, but not spirit; incredibly thoughtless tiger mom real-estate decisions ... BREAK ... The Hallmark Voight-Kampff Test: Ryles or maybe Megan or maybe everybody ... The Great American Novel ... Leon Uris ... Great Moments in Moppetry Rating: 1 ... Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson ... Movie Rating: 1 ... The Leftovers: Totally struck out ... Where does Ryles live? ... Lambrusco Co. ... You gonna retire from old age soon? ... Moe, don't throw out those bobbleheads! ... Traded to New Jersey ... Hallmark's concept of the Disabled List ... Longing montage without longing ... Inland Empire-level pacing violations ... BREAK ... IMDB dive on Harvey Frost: Midnight Heat (1995), Tim Matheson, burly owner ... The Brittany Murphy Story ... My Secret Identity and Out of This World ... Steve Bacic, A Professor of Sports ... Aunt kisses and post-credits horniness ... German obedience school ... The Roanfield Post, Poegos in the Series, jump back to A2, money ruins sports and Prairie Chicken on the Field Has the Padres Crying Foul ... Never dated a player before ... Authentic Heineken ... Plugs ... Super Train ... Merry Christmas • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Baseball Boogie," by Mabel Scott • "Knock It out of the Park," by Sam and Dave • "Talkin' Baseball," by Nancy Bea Hefley • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

SARA KATE WILKINSON meets THE CONVENIENT GROOM (2016) only to fall in love with: Our best friend Phylis ... THEME ... Dave is off tanning ... Fake spouses, a favorite thing ... Shakespeare tropes ... The Expositional Challenge ... Stone b*tch fake mother-in-law ... First-act cheater ... Confessing during technical difficulties ... Twentysomething with teen hairstyle love ... Mr. Lorelai Gilmore ... When we started liking it ... Vanessa Marcil Appreciation Station ... David Sutcliffe, delightfully in his sweet spot ... Rounding out the other characters ... Phylis, and a family of Canadian flashback TV show guests ... Larissa Albuquerque ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Zero ... Journalismism: Vlogger, not blogger; tripod videographer; this is not how book deals work; Pam, clueless; reply in comments; women watching vlogs in public spaces; Dr. Kate Lawrence, Ph.D. ... BREAK ... Eat Your Heart Out: A TON of food; 3 first-date red flags callback; staircase torment; FISH vs. HAM; inexplicable dinner; happy-face waffle; curry is awesome; 14 plums; housing unripe fruit; unidentifiable chicken roll; suspicious dietary restrictions; wedding charcuterie plate; close your mouth when you chew; takeout bailout ... BREAK ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: While You Were Sleeping echoes vs. A Pacific Northwest boating fatality ... LINK: Egregious home architecture ... You can't do blue material on a billiard table ... Overdetermined: None; getting choked up by a Hallmark movie; everything you've said about love is wrong; "mother-daughter talk"; bizarre giggling, Objectivist scoffing; bad bird sculpture; no explanation to be believed; married today ... BREAK ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: A technical success that works anyway ... The Hallmark Voight-Kampff Test: Pam, a valueless automaton ... Rating: 4.5 ... Almost perfect, apart from the books and the mom ... The Leftovers: Pleasantly reading during TV time ... Are You Afraid of the Badge ... Chilling at home ... Keep Fuckin' That Chicken Files: Faux puns, phone seizure ... "You were with Bryan because you had no reason not to be" ... Be nice, internet people are brutal ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Speaking from the Heart," by Macho Man Randy Savage • The Newlywed Game Theme (1969) • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

We go back to the CHRISTMAS LAND (2015) and: We will never forget our granddaughters ... You can't go out there and die ... THEME ... Monsoons and painter's scaffolding ... Picking Richard Karn, Maureen McCormick and Christmas tree farms ... Tree farms, Staten Island, egg nog ... Dave's yokel safari ... Jurassic Park ripple ... Luke MacFarland Appreciation Station ... The Mistletoe Promise callback ... The Expositional Challenge ... Plot wrap-up ... Cooper, Cobbler, Baker, Apothecary ... Two lawyers, first in class, failed in Contracts ... Implied, oral, incomplete ... Hallmark Goodfellas ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Glinda the Good Grandma vs. Jules herself ... Did you fight in the Scone Wars? ... Check out the barn on that one ... Eat Your Heart Out: Uncle pancakes, just a guy with pancakes, bathrobe-cult culture, actual cocktail, red-wine waterglass, live drillin', Thomas á Becket, cupcake abundance, collapsing roof ... Italian grief food amounts ... Artisanal barn cocktails ... Hallmark Expanded Universe: The County of Christmas Land and Free Cities of Potemkin Christmas Villages vs. The greater Chicago/Midwestern Christmas blob ... Our Hallmark book written periodically in Elvish ... Something that sounds like Welsh ... BREAK ... Letters to Santa: Unacceptable, envisioning The Worst Idea of All Time, thought Shaq would be bigger, The Hallmark Voight-Kampff Test ... Hallmark courtroom tactics ... Overdetermined: "I know what you're doing," angelic reaffirmation, Tucker's anti-metropolitan heel turn, exes can share New York, almost everything you need is here ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Heck no, but...; general good-plot and Bechdel correlation even on Hallmark; "fecundity" ... Rating: 3, benignly and maybe ideally ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: The Encyclopedia of Pines ... Christmas Beef Lot: Good selection, unorganized by species or height/price tier, silly prices, insane competition, soak it in ice water ... Frankin' a dook ... "Scrooge" reappearance ... Mitchell: Hallmark dick boyfriend taken to unethical levels ... $850,000 to sell coffee on a single block ... Four retirees, $450,000, and an uncle with 4" of bank-billed Benjamins ... Nikki DeLoach, Erin Grey, Twiki ... Real Season 2 Buck Rogers Hours ... Nikki DeLoach Appreciation Station ... VHS softcore in the mall CD store ... Sam Earvin, Acting on Impulse, and: Linda Fiorentino, Nancy Allen, C. Thomas Howell, Adam Ant, Isaac Hayes, etc. ... Four Cassandra Peterson movies, but only one Elvira ... Santico ... Jamarcus Russell, Charlie Weis, and the 2007 All-State Sugar Bowl ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Then He Kissed Me," by The Crystals • "Tri," by Y Niwl • "Trees," by Joyce Kilmer and Oscar Rosbach, performed by Ben Selvin and his Orchestra • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

SARAH D. BUNTING's back, and we're gonna get in corrals for 2016's LOVE IN PARADISE and: Pomeranian ... THEME ... Unprepared to get worked up about Luke Perry ... The bone-marrow level of Luke Perry pop-culture weight ... Erred on the side of Priestley ... A very generous actor and good dude ... "We shoulda taken him more seriously" ... You can legally punch Brian Austin Greene ... The Luke Perry Kidding-The-Material Rating ... The face does the work ... Two 90210 eras ... I got the job squinting ... BREAK ... The Expositional Challenge: Professionalism defined ... Plot mop-up: How is he doing ranch events; exposed by a high-school journalist; Max Headroom, Large Animal Doctor; Michael Moriarty; you gotta keep beefing with Janet Reno; coastal ex ... "This was not bad" ... A rustler named "Guthrie"? ... A qualitative difference in one-off movies ... The Wedding March: Failing to wink at bio material ... Surprisingly tart (Pompeii), surprisingly sexual (barn) ... Exchanging butt glances ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Curly the Pig, Familiar ... Murder by Death callback ... The pig *is* the Pomeranian ... Farmer Lev's Pastoral Hoedown: The binary opposition throughout history; red states, Harlequin, Dreiser and Lewis; Yankee fan in Montana with fake crickets; steak, chili and blueberry pie; "city slicker"; desaturated apartment; unlicensed to drive; comparing scars; Pomeranian pillow ... BREAK ... Eat Your Heart Out: Sushi and Food Network; pre-cool my steak, thanks; chili cook-off; farties fuel, Nora! ... Hallmark Expanded Universe: Wedding March, 1885 vs. Inventory exchange among failing dude ranches ... Overdetermined: Max Headroom's "It's the H-H-Heart" vs. That's not how trails work ... Health food store creepin' ... Crossover: SVU investigating on-set of Aim to Please and the squint-off vs. Home Is Where the H-H-Heart is vs. Max Headroom answering bunnies vs. The Magnificent One vs. Avery Ford, Humane Westworlder ... Again with This note: Working Shadowcaster ... The Grand Unifying Theory of Munch ... BREAK ... Rating: 4.5 ... Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Guthries ... Take Heather's story out of her father's mouth ... Make Heather's ex Guthrie ... The Leftovers: Seeing a man about a TV ... Bundy toilet ... Saying the name of the movie in the movie ... "You wouldn't know him, he's Canadian" ... Young Tom Steyer: I'm Guthrie, and I learned my lesson ... I reversed a crime with the exact skills you taught me! ... Young Luke Perry impressionist ... Buttercup ... Logrolling in our time ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Theme from Beverly Hills 90210," by John Davis • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

SARA KATE WILKINSON gets sent to CHRISTMAS CAMP (2018) to learn: All these people are dead ... THEME ... Ready for Christmas in July ... Can't find this movie ... Normie Hallmark Facebook ... Inert but fascinating ... A delightful vision of organized cabin fever ... Adults at camp ... Not taking work seriously ... The book isn't better ... BREAK ... Plot in 30 Minutes ... Bobby Campo IRL ... Greg Evigan's daughter ... Krampus as himself ... The most goth Hallmark character to date ... The hard Hallmark script schedule ... Hyperkinetic opening scene, then constant claustrophobia ... Christmas cult brochure ... Booming Ben as Ken Howard ... David Lynch-ass blocking and set decoration ... BREAK ... Plot in 30 Minutes (Cont.) ... Meet Jeff, camp drifter ... The Christmas Camp Checklist/Certificate ... BJGSSHIC ... Ian and Susie, dumb as hell ... Mike Budenholzer and Billy Donovan ... Hainted Gail and Troop Ryan ... Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party ... Brechtian snow ... Charlie Brown-ass tree ... Snowball-target affirmations ... Met at the wharf ... Franchise camp ... First rational Hallmark quit ... Dating app, troop return ... Gail and Ryan are ghosts ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Krampus; Dog possessed by haints?; "Give away products"; John, Blake and Madison, magically non-white, unhelped ... Eat Your Heart Out: All-carb breakfast; turn an oven on; buffalo-wing compromise; no-surprise baby announcement ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: Gail downloads Mingle All the Way vs. Watching Chase Taynor choke for Botown ... BREAK ... Overdetermined: No...??? ... Aimless, inconsistent but contextually logical ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Finally, a heroine who gets promoted and returns to the big city; Haley shows no interest in dating; blowing off a coat; she doesn't pursue him; spontaneous desire to be Mom & Dad; bringing ornaments to camp ... Great Moments in Moppetry Rating: 1 ... Rating: 2.5 ... Embracing Lynch and Gail as a haint ... Maybe they're all dead ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Your Groupcycle class ... "A go-getter" ... Stevie Nicks Camp ... The Rebranding of the Puffin Hotel ... Pipe burst? Take your time ... Side entrance, fake entrance, deformed house, and a demon greeting elf ... Do you wanna go inside? ... Never forget WHAT, Jeb? ... Naval captain wine glasses ... Validating yourself too much through work ... Yeeaaahhhh, buuuuuddy ... Telling my boss my boss is killing me ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Laura Palmer's Theme," by Angelo Badalamenti • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

We're horsing around for eternity with VALENTINE EVER AFTER (2016) and doing unpaid labor on: A dude ranch ... THEME ... Knee calipers ... Going in optimistic ... Eric Johnson Appreciation Station ... Cast rundown ... The Expositional Challenge ... Plot mop-up: Rock-mount failure; dude ranch; hospital raffle ... Alana Smithee, or Alana Smithee? ... Heavy tropery and peak overdeterminism ... BREAK ... Journalismism: One perfect catastrophe of news layout; Hyphen Stanheight; Hello, mako; Rahm Emanuel ... Fleeing Chad ... Spot the Angel: Probably angel-free vs. a very Twin Peaks judge ... Funding MRAPs through the recession ... Lindsay Anderson's "Mission to Christmas" ... Nigel Bennett's IMDB ... Casual slave labor ... Razzing a Hallmark cop ... Fogel, Engerman and Hallmark cliometrics ... BREAK ... Eat Your Heart Out: Beef stew, Cowboy Bar and Cadillac Restaurant; carb-dating Hallmark movies ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: Please remind us to bring back old bits; Chicago, The Radcliffe Center and your donor base; build the Hallmark wiki; Kitten's billion-dollar fund; James Brolin's ranch ... Paul Auster's New York Trilogy ... Jerry Lewis's Clown Holocaust ... BREAK ... Overdetermined: Dad's immediate, relentless info-dump; the character-development efficiencies of early exposition vs. PEAK info-dump, plot recap and foreshadowing vs. Incredibly overdetermined Colbie Caillat ... Rapping end-credit plot summaries ... Puff Daddy, KRS-One and Bobby Brown ... iZombie whips ... BREAK ... Crossover: Gavin Learning about himself in David Mamet's The Edge vs. "Ben Thomas has come unstuck in The Horse Whisperer" ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Easily succeeds but maybe totally doesn't ... Partner Chat: Kate face-pulling; carb-free biscuits ... Rating: 4 ... Structurally bad but nimbly leaning into it ... "Metropolitan" ladies ... Outstanding leads ... Mom Lily as shrewd, tough, wise and worthy of embodying a compliment ... Gavin Stanheight's legitimate anger/heartache ... Awful, last-minute quit ... Organic trauma-swap ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: The Girlfriend Experience ... Population density of Wyoming ... Hallmark's The Terror ... Cemetery Man callback ... Edgar Allan Poe-ass statue ... City Girl can sometimes ride ... Don McBrearty: "Gay or Straight, Is There A Choice?" ... Look how cute this horse is ... Turning off my ringer ... First-ever Hallmark c*ckblock ... Police escort for landowners ... Child interruption ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Generique Assault," by KRS-One • "On Our Own," by Bobby Brown • • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

We will drop THE LAST BRIDESMAID (2019) until: A question mark leads to an exclamation point ... THEME ... The bipartisanship ceremony ... Better than the new churn ... The busier oeuvre of Nina Weinman ... Hallmark realism as foreign policy ... Kissinger, Scowcroft, Armitage, Oh my! ... George Mitchell's pipe ... Cast rundown ... Matt Harvey actor ... The Expositional Challenge ... The Magic Mountain ... The Sutton Foster of the Hallmark universe ... Tell your auteurs no sometime ... Jeb's preschool hunt ... Stop whining about your prosperity ... Laying people off without a Gary ... Moh's Hardness Scale ... Plot wrap-up ... Movies on aircraft carriers ... Five months together ... Amazing natural blocking ... Nimitz 1-4 ... Roland Emmerich quit ... Having an adult conversation ... Welcome back to blimp chat ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Dual angels, but Kyle can code ... Eat Your Heart Out: Little food; catching Becca eating; normal salad; expensive but authentically annoying wedding; Shame the Cat! ... Pros in the Olympics ... Venus de Milo discount ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: The Wedding March's Tombstone wedding town; Ike Clanton's defense of marriage; Paul Campbell, the sexless Quantum Lead ... BREAK ... Overdetermined: The joy-or-insurance binary vs. The Herr Settembrini and Herr Naphta dialogues ... Bong hit with your first Libertarian ... BREAK ... Crossover: The Errol Morris Interrotron Wedding Interview ... Robert Strange McNamara vs. Eric R.'s Last Samurai or the Last Starfighter ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Yes! ... Letters to Santa: Impostor Syndrome vs. Beth's kind letter and kidney theft and husband's NCAA pool ... Partner Chat: "We're supposed to be on her side?"; quits, archetypes and inclement weather ... Driving with Jeb's great-uncle George and the emergency break on ... Herb Caen ain't worth it ... Rating: 3 ... Visually good, not busy, not a lobby ... Retro Banana Republic ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Enjoy your one day, dress ... Too hippy? Try the crinoline ... Above-average bridesmaids dresses and jewelry ... Dolores Herbig ... Bryan Fuller: No emergency break ... Remember how your mom is dead? Time to be happy ... Bereavement-card emotional product placement ... Swallow your own poison ... Mark Jean and six episodes of Police Academy: The Series ... Le Loup-Garou du Campus ... Dead air ... Selling insurance to a grinding noise ... Rachel Boston Appreciation Station: Better barbed than beatific ... Show feet, Hallmark ... Shrimping ... BREAK ... Warner Brothers DSC street-sweepers ... The Greatest Generation ... Paul Campbell's gently silly IMDB autobiography ... A dead era of online personal sincerity ... Look dad, might feel cute later ... Narendra Modi ... Pre-kiss vow exchange ... Marrying into a cult ... I'm so your wife right now ... From Hero Dogs to Union Carbide ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "100,000 People," by Philip Glass • "Quantum Leap Theme," by Mike Post • "Magic Mountain," by Blonde Redhead • "Jungle Work," by Warren Zevon • "El Bimbo," by Bimbo Jet, from the Police Academy Soundtrack, composed by Robert Folk • "67 Cities," by Philip Glass • "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

We watch A WINTER PRINCESS (2019) and confess: I went to a Mets game, and this movie made me come down with something ... THEME ... Happy Father's Dave! ... Preemptively apologizing ... Summer power outage ... The Expositional Challenge ... Dee's Nuts ... Zealous pro-family convert ... A double-guitar tuned to John Gielgud ... Happy Hour ... Ontario's #1 Michael York ... BREAK ... Echoes of "The Sweetest Christmas" ... A latticework pie-crust plot ... The Princess-to-Mom Party-Planner Axis ... Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson's birthday party ... Brendon Zub Appreciation Station ... Spot the Angel: A relay race of angels ... Romantic après-ski Dave and Busters ... Eat Your Heart Out: Nashville hot chicken; mostly food-free; jump-scare cookie; Snowden Peak Yogurt ... No, Donnie, these are event planners ... BREAK ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: Katrina Bowden accidentally breaking a royal story vs. Denver Medley or Balkan PUA Prince ... Happy Birthday Sara Kate! ... We all know janissaries ... Overdetermined: "What is overdetermined?" vs. "The Emile Arc" ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Introducing the concept of work exhaustion and alienation ... This miserable lady gets it ... BREAK ... Partner Chat: Early negativity on Natalie Hall; "circle back"; peekin' rolls; begrudging for; toe-parries ... LINK TO GOFUNDME FOR SIMON MALOY ... DAJAM: The only podcast AND inhalant available ... Rating: 2 ... Is she aware she's being filmed? ... The Leftovers: Not romantic fog, dangerous fog ... Jesse tries to suicide-by-car ... Building darted out in front of me ... Guess I forgot to put the fog lights in ... Is Chris McNally a good actor? ... Rick Ankiel ... BREAK ... IMDB dive ... Mystery Seizures and Sex Sent Me to the ER ... Autopsy ... Three kiss fakeouts ... Put it in your mouth or let him have it ... "Please wear the goggles" ... Decontextualized snowball fight ... Mackenzie Gray's incredible IMDB ... Christopher Lloyd ... Metallica videos ... Talkin' 'bout chemtrails ... No band help ... Is this a long story? ... Iron sharpens iron ... Merry Christmas • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Mucha Muchacha," by Esquivel • "Punch Drunk," by Lock Up • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

Sara Rue makes the leap and joins the pantheon in ALL FOR LOVE (2017) and we must get buff for: The further vindication of Sara Kate Wilkinson ... THEME ... Semper Christmas ... Lorenzo Lamas is Snake Eater 2 ... Journalism isn't a prank call ... Getting fired ... Real troop tropes ... Will Sara Rue make The Leap into the Pantheon? ... Funny people in Hallmark humanely kidding the text ... The acting strictures of Hallmark rules ... BREAK ... The Expositional Challenge: The Most Beautiful Bean Footage ... Plot cleanup ... Sara Rue's second Hallmark quit ... Too slow on the five ... Pickup artist Chris Russo ... Mystery Francesa ... Spot the Angel: Teryl Rothery, editor publisher, matchmaker, secular angel ... Rothery as a condition ... Method writing ... The harrowing act of fact-checking ... Journalismism: No fact-checkers even for non-fiction; missing having editors; the shame of error; editorial motivation via appeal-to-emotion; Denim Dreams, The Fathom of a Heart; "writers have a whole team"; Lowell Bingely of the Manhattan Monitor; Glenn Greenwald, L. Brent Bozell III and the guy from First Things; a fully realized mad world ... BREAK ... Let Every Muscle in Your Body Get Strong: Was this authentic SEAL training?; lorem ipsum troop reverence next to a summer camp obstacle course; public park exercises; sorry-ass sit-ups; magenta top, bunny earmuffs; improper sore-muscle care; the Canadian vision of the US military; Tiny could blog; Yoda breathing; smell the Philadelphia daisy; yoga ignorance; the second woman in a bathing suit and man without a shirt; permanent 1990/childish cultural signifiers; flawless sore form, imbalanced SEAL ... Eat Your Heart Out: Housing an entire pizza; the debut of quasi-ramen; the Meat Lovers glisten; concentrating on high-lipid effluent; Steve Bacic's tremendous "have another slice" dad power ... BREAK ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: The Mistletoe Inn Workshop vs. The Tri-State Area Party Shopping Spree and networking ... Putting Sara Rue in floral prints ... Overdetermined: I'd rather be celibate than try again; we don't mention Todd; the Eternal Todd; couples field trip to The Todd; line-crossing meta-conversation; always knowing more than the leads ... Crossover: Colin in a post-9/11 fascist killfest; in the unit with Chris Kyle; not-remembering Navy Seals; positive Kevin Smith reference; heroic prisoner-stabbers ... BREAK ... Letters to Santa: Learning to ride a bike for love v. Carley's chocolate-sound correction, watch-along recommendation and a question about brain mush ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: A reluctant no, and a main character unconcerned about the outside world ... Nephew volcano expert and Murder He Wrote ... Maine accents ... Partner Chat: She's one of the "scared of everything" ones ... Rating: 2.5 ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Sara Kate's 9/11 theory, now and forever ... Kenyan Pirates vs. The Global Helpers ... Navy SEALS are not your props ... No GWOT, Hallmark's "The End of History" ... Not enough angry cops ... Chocolate reward ... Fearing international travel in the Tri-State Area ... Teen body paranoia in the pool ... Romance novelists know breasts ... Halls of Macadamia ... Thank you, Tiny ... David Bloom, Okja co-star ... Ten feet of silent valet parking ... Semper Christmas! ... • MUSIC: "The A-Team Theme," by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter • "Moon River," by Andy Williams • "Yes Sir, No Sir," by The Kinks • "Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)," by The Monitors • "Fanfare for the Common Man," by Emerson, Lake and Palmer • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

It's three yards and a cloud of pixie dust with LOVE ON THE SIDELINES (2016) and: Dr. Moreau wasn't wrong about the climate ... THEME ... The lines are open ... Hunter St. James ... Football or graftass ... One of the good ones! ... Joe Theismann picks interesting Hallmark movies ... Snowcoming nostalgia ... The Cremation of the Care ... Any Given Regretful Sunday ... Al Pacino reverie ... Hallmark Sports Channel ... JD and the Straight Shot ... The Expositional Challenge ... Plot cleanup: Ava and the backup; poor and hungry; incompetent Mustang owner; scant Theismann ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Patty, Supernatural Roommate ... The manifesto that proves the rule ... On to Cleveland ... Jeb's 19th century lawncare machines ... Eat Your Heart Out: Totino's Pizza Rolls promo; into you, Moby; Emily Kinney, spritely and elfin; a B-Dubs STACK of bread; Krishna dinner; 5 slices, 4 sliders and piles of Fritos; ecstasy of starch; clearly BBQ wings; We. Stan. Buffalo; the wattle must grow; scything a Showtime guy; pot of homemade chili; elegy for the Lost Kangaroo; bar hot dogs for dinner; "that's all casing"; the NFL diet of guacamole and cookies ... BREAK ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: Crossover sports universe of the San Francisco Miners and Bookstore Boss Goes Bonkers; San Francisco, less beautiful than St. Petersburg; Full House; Kelly Rutherford and McKenzie Vega stuck in traffic returning to McBanjo; Kezar Stadium ... Overdetermined: The Danny/Ron/Ava Dumb Misunderstanding vs. Football-Metaphor Roasts and Joe Theismann's Eponymous Line ... Jared Lorenzen shout-out ... BREAK ... Crossover: A celebration of Any Given Sunday; Pacino in the Hallmark universe; The staggering aftermath of Last Boy Scouting it ... Billy Blanks, thanks for joining the Patreon; get my ass swole ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: No, ass-backwards gender politics, but it still works? ... Jeb's Mom, Oakland Raiders season ticket holder ... An infinite number of peaceably coexisting dirtbag communities: The America we want to live in ... Partner Chat: Danny is a pud; otherwise enjoyable; Conviction-era Emily Kinney fan ... Rating: 3.5; perfect execution of Hallmark middle-tier ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Danny Holland career comps: better than Tom Brady's first 7 seasons ... Arena-league player scale ... You named your dog after Newt Gingrich ... Fantastic Dane ... Theismann's method approach to lower-body injury ... Theismann to DeLuise: Touchdown! ... "Hey, you DO know something about football" ... Background football 24/7 ... (Brief) Hayley Sales Appreciation Station ... 16 episodes of Crown Bench ... Kevin Tighe Emergency! ... Ron Silver tendrils ... Idiot Elliot's patriarchal privilege ... Ocean's 12 with a 30lb. bag of dog food ... Terry Ingram and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle ... Mike Kafka Appreciation Station ... Losing a roommate, gaining dental care ... MVP: Emily Kinney ... Dave's lustrous coat ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Not As Much As Football," by Mojo Nixon • "All Kinds of Time," by Fountains of Wayne • "Thé à la Menthe (Instrumental)," by La Caution • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane and "Orchestral Sports Theme (Lighter)," by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane