Bright spots on TV, but sadly fleeting

I’m looking forward to Christmas TV this year because so many favorites are returning in the next few months — albeit only in bite-size pieces.
First off, and most important, is the imminent return of Futurama after so many years. It seems like decades since it went off the air, and in just a few weeks we’ll get a new DVD movie. I assume it’ll be 90 minutes or so, which has to last us for a while until the next installment appears in 2008.
The next snack is the Battlestar Galactica: Razor movie, which is designed to tide us over until the next season of the show bows in — get this — April. That makes a full YEAR between seasons, which is far too long.
This trend of spreading out the seasons is really annoying, and I blame Lost for starting it. I have no idea when that show is returning to our screens, but it is too far in the future and it is, again, risking losing a lot of viewers who had to wait too long and forgot the storylines.
Doctor Who is heading in this direction — after next year’s season, it will go on a “break” for a year, with a few specials to tide us over. But for the moment, the short 13-episode seasons are thankfully supplemented with a Christmas special, and this year an additional “scene” as part of the BBC’s Children in Need fundraiser. In two weeks this special scene will bring back Peter Davison, the 5th Doctor from the mid-1980s and I can’t wait!
And one more blast from the past for Christmas: Remember To The Manor Born? Well, Audrey and RIchard are back, twenty six years later, still trying to save Grantleigh.

The classic British comedy To the Manor Born will return for a one-off 60-minute special this Christmas on BBC One.

The return of the show will see Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles reunited as the aristocratic Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and the dashing, self-made businessman Richard DeVere.

Viewers last saw Audrey and Richard in 1981, when the couple finally married following a turbulent relationship conducted over three much-loved and high-rating series.

A quarter of a century on, a major event threatens to disturb life at the estate in Grantleigh as the couple prepare to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary.

With the help of her schoolfriend Marjory (Angela Thorne), a fearless Audrey goes into battle to defend a community, safeguard 400 years of history and save her marriage.

The show enjoyed three immensely successful series on BBC One between 1979 and 1981.