Shaun le mouton: L'échappée de Noël

This one is good. Last year, "The Farmer's Llamas" was just full on chaos and destruction that eclipsed the humour. The llamas were downright nasty. It dragged on. They got it right this time. The story is way better. Poignant even in its depiction of love of technology over real love. And yes, that snowman moment...bravo! So good. Definitely worth watching no matter how old you are.

It's Christmas Eve and all was still - except, well it wasn't. The flock wanted bigger stockings and so the enthusiastic young "Timmy" has snuck out to procure some. Needless to say, these best laid plans don't quite work and so "Shaun" has to find a way of repatriating their lost sheep. Fortunately, the rather hapless farmer is going into town to try his hand at selling lemonade and so the germ of plan is devised that sees them rally round to rescue their pal before "Timmy" is, quite literally, presented gift-wrapped. Naturally, all of this has to be meticulously planned as their guardian sheep-dog "Bitzer" won't be playing along if he catches on. This is good fun, this, with plenty of silly antics in the snow, some exploding soft drinks and even them managing to interfere - in the friendliest possible way - with the work of Santa himself. The lack of dialogue allows the jolly score from Tom Howe to keep the pace rollicking along and the amiable and detailed stop-motion animation, especially of their facial expressions, all contribute enjoyably to a winter's tale that exudes all of the joys of Christmas, as well as it's hassles, and yes - of course there are gadgets.

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Christmas 2021, arguably the worst year for Christmas telly that I can think of, nothing has gripped or excited me, or made me laugh. It comes to something when the best TV of Christmas 2021 is Shaun The Sheep, but there it is, this really was a Christmas delight, myself and family all loved it, we chuckled the whole way through, it was funny and entertaining, and unlike most shows this year, actually had a bit of meaning.

Beautifully made, as always it looked incredible, but best of all, it was so funny, at the age of 41, watching with grown up kids, I was still able to love and enjoy this sheep show.

A triumph 9/10.

The inhabitants of the farm are preparing for Christmas. Everybody is having their own adventures and misadventures. Timmy gets mistakenly sent into the town's Christmas celebration and Shaun the Sheep leads the rescue mission. It all ends in the flight before Christmas.

I love Aardman Animations. They are doing a Christmas special for Netflix. It is perfectly Aardman and a great for any of their fans. It is high adventure and low adventure. I think it should work for everybody no matter their age. As always, there are those who get frustrated with the lack of dialogue. I can't help them there.

My first ever encounter with the sprawling Shaun the Sheep brand is this festive special and I was sincerely taken with it. Aardman's charm and wit has barely diminished over the years and this festive wooly romp was a hoot. The brilliantly brief Snowman reprise was the TV highlight of the season, if not the entire year.