“A Home for the Holidays”
Tuesday 8pm, CBS
Yeah, it’s a concert special, with performances by Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Gavin Rossdale, Jamie Foxx and Melissa Etheridge (not a bad lineup, really). But it’s also a special to bring awareness to the importance of adoptions, specifically through the foster-care system. As such, actors including Kristin Chenoweth, Patricia Heaton, Rene Russo and Martin Short (…really? Martin Short?) will introduce stories about adoptive families across the country and profiles of children still waiting to find a family. If this one doesn’t tug at your heartstrings, you are officially dead inside.
“Law & Order”
Thursday 2am-8pm, TNT
Who needs family and feel-good holiday fare when you have Detective Brisco dropping bons mot all Christmas long? In the very definition of “counterprogramming,” the folks at TNT have given Scrooges the world over something to be thankful for on Christmas Day via an 18-hour marathon of one of the most addictive police procedurals ever. (If you’re more traditional, you can always head over to TBS for its day-long Christmas Story marathon. Loser.) There doesn’t seem to be a holiday theme to the cases selected, or any theme at all, but you can look for episodes involving a comatose woman whose husband may be responsible for the bullet in her head; a teen who accidentally shoots a bystander while trying to protect his neighborhood from a drug dealer; and an artist who kills a patron after becoming enraged over one of her more obscene pieces. And at least one guest spot by Rudolph Giuliani. Merry Christmas!
“The City”
Monday 10pm, MTV
I’ve made no secret of my disdain for MTV’s “The Hills,” or for its utterly useless, vapid star, Lauren Conrad. The one saving grace of the “reality” show was Whitney Port, Lauren’s sweet, seemingly intelligent colleague at Teen Vogue who seemed to actually have some talent in the fashion world and a drive to succeed. For four seasons she was essentially relegated to prompting Lauren to blather on about whatever idiot she was quasi-dating/fighting with/not talking to at that moment, and as payoff for her services (and also because Conrad has reportedly been getting too big for her britches), MTV is giving Whitney her own spin-off. “The City” follows Whitney from L.A. to New York City, where she moves to start working for the legendary Diane Von Furstenberg (love her). She’s also getting her own little posse of insufferable, self-absorbed 20-somethings that will hopefully provide more drama than LC’s boring-ass crew.
