Vasco da Gama, episode #13 (or, “Deep and crisp and Vasco”)

     Not every series has to do a Christmas episode. But, it’s a good way of getting an episode out of the way without having to spend too much time thinking up a plot for it. Basically, every Christmas episode of every series ever has something to do with The True Meaning of Christmas. The wonderful thing about The True Meaning of Christmas is that there are as many true meanings as there are people who want to tell you What It Is. For the participants in the first one, The True Meaning of Christmas was Affordable Family Accommodation with an En Suite Hayloft. I suppose I really could have cheated and let the Vasco gang pass a mike around and tell everybody what they thought The True Meaning of Christmas was, while I went down to the pub, but I guess I figured that writing something wouldn’t be as much of a hassle as editing all that chitchat down.

      So, the Christmas episode of Vasco is about The True Meaning of Christmas. This much you’ve figured out so far. And (no surprise to anyone), it means that Lovably Cynical Fictional Rob gets stuck with being the guy who has to Find the True Meaning of Christmas. Fortunately, that’s pretty easy, because, for L.C.F.R., The True Meaning of Christmas is pretty much like the true meaning of any other day—it’s all about finding a way to get away from other people and have some peace and quiet.

     The upshot of this is that Lovably Cynical Fictional Rob isn’t even in the final scene of the show. He’s found his peace and quiet. The rest of you are on your own. As for me, The True Meaning of Christmas seems to have something to do with making fun of everything to do with Christmas. I don’t know why it is, but when the coloured lights and tinsel start coming out, I get to feeling like a kid with an AK-47 in a shooting gallery. It’s has to be genetic. I’m pretty sure my baby daughter’s winding up for a right hook in her first picture with a mall Santa.

    That’s probably as much wrapping as this stocking stuffer needs. It’s Christmas, after all, and the best Christmas presents are always a surprise. I’ll let you get back to your families and your loved ones. Um, I mean, your loved ones and your families. Um…no…there is no good way of rearranging those words, is there? Says a lot about Christmas, really, when you think about it. Ah, humbug. Click on the link, already, and listen. Pour yourself a cup of eggnog. Then pour it down the drain, if you know what’s good for you.

Vasco da Gama, episode #13

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. One joke that I regret not working in to the Christmas shopping scene in this one was a crack about “A Mall and the Night Visitors”. Not that anybody would have got it—but, hey, it’s Christmas, so I deserve to give myself the cheap gift of a strained culture-vulture pun. Plus, it would have been better than the oblique reference I did make to the Gian Carlo Menotti opera in question.