¡Vaya familia Claus!

The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2 are two of my favourite holiday films. I really don't like the third film very much, so I wasn't expecting much when I heard Disney+ would be releasing a mini-series continuation. Well, I'm glad I went in with low expectations, because it pretty much met them, with the exception of an episode that I actually thought was pretty great. This series wasn't good since the second film, and although there are redeeming things about this series, it ultimately shouldn't have been made. Here's why I believe this series was completely unnecessary.

Picking up many years after the events of the films, Scott (Tim Allen) has decided to take up his chance of retiring. Recruiting a new person as Santa and flocking off to live the city life with his family, things at the North Pole start to go very wrong and they must return. Other than some side plots with some newcomers, that's really all this series is. It was average at best, but one episode made me give the whole series a pass overall. It involves Santa learning about how the first film happened in the first place. That's all I will say in order to not ruin it.

The biggest issue this series has is the fact that it never feels like it's going anywhere. Once they left the North Pole to live their lives, I knew they would eventually have to return, but when they return and the series concludes, it all felt lazy and rushed. There wasn't much holiday magic throughout this series and not that much holiday music either. In fact, this series closes out with a pop song playing and it's not even a Christmas song. This entire series just felt off and it also felt like it had a distractingly low budget to boot.

In the end, I can't even really recommend it to those who enjoyed the films, because I don't feel that it lives up to them. With that said though, on its own, episode five is more than worth checking out. You probably don't even have to watch the previous episodes. It's a standalone episode that explores some neat ideas. If the entire series was more like that I would've liked it a lot more. I could complain for hours about the things that didn't work for me in this series, like Scott's real son feeling like a waste, Bernard there as just pure fan service or the fact that the series doesn't really seem to care about the fact that Tim Allen as Santa is what made the original films work so well in the first place. I enjoyed quite a few moments throughout this series, but it overall just feels pointless to me. All episodes are now streaming on Disney+.

Reading the little bit of reviews this had kind of got me disappointed, but I learned not to let that deter me from watching anything that remotely interests me. I went in curious as to see why people rated it so low but not surprisingly, I really enjoyed it! The previous Santa Clause movies were super fun to me so knowing there was gonna be a mini series with my forever Santa Clause, THE Tim Allen coming back kinda got me excited. I watched the first episode and it was good and then the second one was better! I mean, if you genuinely liked the movies, you'll probably like this too. I'm excited to see the rest and definitely will be watching the rest of it.

I'm honestly not sure what all these reviews are getting at. I'm a 30 year old woman that LOVED the first Santa clause movie (it's my favorite Christmas movie) and while yes it had some cringy moments I enjoyed the episodes. My husband even thought it was good he rated it 7 or 8/10. It's MEANT to be kinda cringy it's a Christmas show for gods sake. Some jokes were funny and we found humor in them as adults. I can see how kids would enjoy it as well. I feel like people here are expecting the entirety of a movie as opposed to realizing it's a series and we don't know where they are taking it yet. Go in with an open mind and understanding that there's still more episodes to come.

'The Santa Clauses' does a great job capturing the whimsicalness and innocence that the first two movies had, as well as being just as funny. Though I won't go so far as to say it was better then the first movie, I'd say it's about on par with the second one, which is still good.

The acting is great, especially on the part of Tim Allen (Santa) and Elizabeth Mitchell (Mrs. Claus), and it was nice to see Eric Loydd reprising his role as Charle, who is now grown-up. Despite the apparent lack of Curtis and Bernard, the show introduces us to several very likable new elf characters like Edie, Noel, and Betty (the latter of whom are a couple, which I think is cute), as well as to Santa's other two children, Sandra and Buddy.

Plotwise, it seems pretty solid, and honestly, after seeing the first two episodes, it's got me dying to find out what's going to happen in the next ones. Also, judging by what I've been seeing so far, it seems they may even end up fixing a major plot hole from the first movie, which I think would be awesome.

As for a certain group of haters out there, I will say this; the man is entitled to his own political views, and though you might not agree with those views, that doesn't mean you can't still admire him for being the talented actor that he is.

Now I never expected this to be some kind of masterpiece, of course not. But I used to love the movies, corny-ness n all, because they were funny and essentially heart felt. I've watched the first two episodes that are available so far and honestly it's shockingly bad. Where the movies traded off the corny-ness with sometimes blatant slapstick and sometimes tongue in cheek humour, this was just almost painful to watch. All the humour is forced, they've shoehorned cringe worthy music into it, and just made it generally heartless. And to say some of the acting is wooden does a disservice to trees. I will continue to watch and hope it redeems itself, but so far it's really disappointing.