The Best TV Holiday Specials Netflix Has to Offer

As the song says, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well, slightly like it, anyway; with the amount of bad news appearing almost daily and the more mundane distractions of the month, you could be forgiven for feeling almost entirely devoid of holiday cheer. When even the omnipresent seasonal soundtrack of “Little Saint Nick” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” doesn’t do it for you, how else can you get in a suitably festive mood? Eggnog? Surrounding yourself with tinsel and brightly-lit trees?

There is an alternative: Plug yourself into Netflix and enjoy its seasonal playlist of holiday programming. For years, television has taken advantage of the most wonderful time of the year to offer up special episodes of our favorite shows, and now in the age of streaming we can watch them all in bulk, binge-style. Here are a few choices to help you get in the spirit of the season.

The Comedies

New Girl “The 23rd” (Season 1, Episode 9)
Embracing the melancholy of this time of year, “The 23rd” is actually a bit of a downer. Schmidt gets upset that his friends are leaving for the holidays, and Jess breaks up with her boyfriend. What makes the episode so great, in the end, is the weird desperation everyone displays in trying to get through the holidays in something resembling good cheer.
See also: “Santa” (Season 2, Episode 11)

30 Rock: “Christmas Special” (Season 3, Episode 6)
Thanks to the fraught relationship between Jack Donaghy and his mother (the wonderful Elaine Stritch), this episode pinpoints one of the dangers of this time of year: spending time with family. Sure, not all of us accidentally run over our mothers and then exist in a tortured emotional limbo waiting for them to remember we were responsible, but let’s be honest: It’s often felt like we have in our hearts.
See Also: “Ludachristmas” (Season 2, Episode 9) “Secret Santa” (Season 4, Episode 8), “Christmas Attack Zone” (Season 5, Episode 10), “My Whole Life Is Thunder” (Season 7, Episode 8)

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The Office “Christmas Party” (Season 2, Episode 10)
Two sacred cows of the holiday season come under justified fire in this episode of the NBC sitcom, with both workplace holiday parties and Secret Santas being the focus of this episode. Come for the sight of co-workers jealously trying to receive an iPod as a gift (it was 2005, after all), stay for the Jim/Pam sentimentality, because it’s the holidays and we’re allowed to be sappy.
See also: “A Benihana Christmas” (Season 3, Episode 10/11), “Moroccan Christmas” (Season 5, Episode 11), “Secret Santa” (Season 6, Episode 13), “Classy Christmas” (Season 7, Episode 12), “Christmas Wishes” (Season 8, Episode 10), “Dwight Christmas” (Season 9, Episode 9)

Arrested Development “Afternoon Delight” (Season 2, Episode 6)
Of course, for the best workplace party horror story, you have to turn to Arrested Development and the party that ended up with mass firings (it’s GOB’s fault, of course). If that doesn’t do it for you, this episode will also gift you a brand new holiday tradition — if you’re lucky enough to live within easy reach of a banana stand primed for vandalism and destruction. If we get another season of the show through Netflix, we can but hope it somehow includes a holiday episode or two.
See also: “In God We Trust” (Season 1, Episode 7)

The Sentimental Shows

The West Wing “In Excelsis Deo” (Season 1, Episode 10)
All of The West Wing‘s holiday episodes have something worth recommending, but the first — in which Toby finds himself responsible for a stranger, CJ struggles to come to terms with a hate crime, and the president goes shopping — may be the best. It manages to juggle a lot of tones and emotions in a relatively short time. Plus, of course, it’s nice to see Mrs. Landingham get something to do.
See also: “Noël” (Season 2, Episode 10), “Bartlett for America” (Season 3, Episode 9), “Holy Night” (Season 4, Episode 11), “Abu el Banat” (Season 5, Episode 9), “Impact Winter” (Season 6, Episode 9)

Doctor Who “A Christmas Carol” (Season 6 Christmas Special)
Leave it to a British show to take on the classics, turning Matt Smith’s first holiday outing as the long-lived Time Lord into a not-very-veiled rewrite of a Charles Dickens story. Of course, the original A Christmas Carol didn’t have flying sharks or cryogenically sealed love interests, but that’s why Doctor Who makes almost everything better.
See also: “The Christmas Invasion” (Season 2 Christmas Special) “The Runaway Bride” (Season 3 Christmas Special), “Voyage of the Damned” (Season 4 Christmas Special), “The Next Doctor” (Season 4, Episode 14), “The End of Time” (Season 4, Episode 17/18), “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe” (Season 7 Christmas Special), “The Snowmen” (Season 7, Episode 6)

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Lost “The Constant” (Season 4, Episode 5)
Technically, this isn’t a holiday episode, but between the Christmas tree on display when Penny gets that all-important phone call and the theme of long-lost loved ones returning, we can probably grandfather it in. Amidst the never-ending confusion and melodrama of the series, this episode stands alone in its kindness, focus and, yes, its happy ending. It’s a holiday miracle!
See also: None

Alfred Hitchcock Presents “Santa Claus and the 10th Avenue Kid” (Season 1, Episode 12)
Of course it would be the Master (well, more appropriately, Marian Cockrell, Margaret Cousins, and Don Weis, who wrote and directed this episode of the Hitchcock-endorsed anthology series) who would come up with a feel-good tale about a thief who fails to see the error of his ways but wins over the audience nonetheless. To say more would be to ruin the story, as with most Hitchcock-related tales.
See also: “Back for Christmas” (Season 1, Episode 23), “The Festive Season” (Season 3, Episode 31)

Justice League “Comfort and Joy” (Season 2, Episode 23)
As comic book fans know, superheroes celebrate the holidays. And “Comfort and Joy” shows us exactly how. Spoiler: Your heart may be torn between whether or not Flash or the Martian Manhunter is the most heartwarming of the heroes. (Our vote: Flash, because out of all of them, he’s the only one who fully understands that whole “season of giving” thing. Seriously, come on, Justice League.)
See also: None

The Other Stuff

Eureka “Do You See What I See?” (Season 4, Episode 21)
Years before Community did the retro Claymation pastiche on “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” (see below), Syfy’s cozy sci-fi series beat them to it as part of this episode that switches between multiple forms of animation as the result of (of course) a science experiment gone wrong. Also in Eureka‘s favor? It has snow ninjas.
See also: “O, Little Town” (Season 4, Episode 10)

The X-Files “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas” (Season 6, Episode 6)
We can only hope that whatever genius came up with the idea of getting Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin to play a pair of ghosts intent on turning Mulder and Scully against each other got some kind of raise or recognition for the sheer fun of this spooky little episode. Think of them as ghosts of Christmas Past, and thank Dickens for his second allusion in this column.
See also: “Christmas Carol” (Season 5, Episode 6), “Emily” (Season 5, Episode 7)

Smallville “Lexmas” (Season 5, Episode 9)
Working from the completely understandable starting point of “Hey, It’s A Wonderful Life is a holiday tradition in its own right, right?” Smallville‘s finest holiday moment basically rips the movie off and gives Lex Luthor the happy ending he’d never quite manage in his everyday existence. It’s far more fun than the show’s traditional “Superman, but Without the Costume” format, if nothing else.
See also: “Gemini” (Season 7, Episode 9)

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The Twilight Zone “Night of the Meek” (Season 2, Episode 11)
Trust Rod Serling to come up with an origin story for Santa Claus — or, as much of an origin story as something as purposefully un-straightforward as The Twilight Zone can manage, at least. To make “Night of the Meek” even more enjoyable, it revises the “naughty or nice” rule just a little bit, to ensure that those who get gifts are those who deserve them. Ho ho ho, indeed.
See also: “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” (Season 3, Episode 14), “The Changing of the Guard” (Season 3, Episode 37)

House “It’s A Wonderful Lie” (Season 4, Episode 10)
One of many House episodes to celebrate the holidays (the show’s first five seasons featured seasonal episodes), “It’s a Wonderful Lie” is the episode that comes closest to actually celebrating the season instead of simply snarking in its general direction. House gets to perform a Christmas miracle — or the House equivalent, at least — in solving that week’s medical mystery, and we also get a nativity allusion, as well. If you don’t watch out, you might even feel good after watching it, and how many times can you say that about House?
See also: “Damned if You Do” (Season 1, Episode 5), “Deception” (Season 2, Episode 9), “Merry Little Christmas” (Season 3, Episode 10), “Joy to the World” (Season 5, Episode 11)

Not on Netflix, but Worth Searching Out

Misfits: “Seven” (Season 2, Episode 7) — available on Hulu Plus
The OC: Any of the Chrismukkah episodes, but especially “The Best Chrismukkah Ever” (Season 1, Episode 13) and “The Chrismukk-huh?” (Season 4, Episode 7) — available on DVD
Community: “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” (Season 2, Episode 11) — available on Hulu Plus

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