Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, it’s the holidays!

Episode 3.11 “Holiday: Part One”

(Dir by Philip Earnshaw, originally aired on December 17th, 2003)

It’s Christmas in Canada!

While snow blankets the ground, Sydney and Joey have a tree-trimming party that is attended by Caitlin and Spike.  Caitlin reveals that she’s going to be spending Christmas alone but it doesn’t matter because it’s just one meaningless day out of the year.  Joey is horrified at the thought of Caitlin being by herself for the holidays.  Sydney, on the other hand, is wondering why her boyfriend is so worried about what his high school ex is going to be doing over the holidays.  Still, when Joey and Sydney need someone to babysit Angie for a night, Sydney reaches out to Caitlin.  Caitlin allows Angie to stay up too late and to wear the red dress that Sydney made for her to wear on Christmas day.  Sydney is not amused.  Caitlin says, “Don’t blame her….”  “I’m not,” Sydney replies.

Caitlin, shaken over rightly being called out for her own irresponsible behavior, stumbles out of the house.  Joey follows her and says that Sydney didn’t mean to be harsh.  Sydney just likes things a certain way.  Then, he and Caitlin kiss.

Meanwhile, Joey’s stepson, Craig, is torn between his girlfriend Ashley and his secret girlfriend Manny.  Manny gives Craig an ultimatum.  She tells him to pick either her or Ashley.  Craig picks Manny and then goes over to Ashley’s house to tell her.  Before Craig can say anything, Ashley gives him a guitar that once belonged to her grandfather who, she says, played it with Django Reinhardt.  Craig forgets about dumping Ashley.

The next day, Manny sees Craig at school.  He’s sitting next to Ashley and playing his guitar.  Manny is not amused.  Craig lies and tells Manny that he and Ashley have broken up but “I haven’t told her about us yet.”  The school Christmas show is coming up and Craig and Ashley are scheduled to perform a song together.  Craig explains that it would make the performance awkward if he told Ashley that he liked Manny.  Manny accepts Craig’s lie.  For now.

And that’s it!  If this episode seemed a little anti-climatic, that’s because “Holiday” was actually an hour-long Christmas special that was split into two episodes for syndication.  The action, as it were, doesn’t really pick up until the second half.  We’ll take a look at that next week.

For this week, let me just admit that I’ve always had mixed feelings about this episode.  On the one hand, I love the holidays and, of the many relationship dramas that played out over the course of this series, the whole Ashley/Craig/Manny triangle was a favorite of mine.  But it’s always bothered me that, in this episode, Sydney was suddenly transformed into a bitch just so the show could justify Caitlin and Joey getting back to together.  I mean, really, what did Sydney do wrong?  She wanted the house to be neat.  She wanted the tree to look nice.  And she didn’t want Angie to ruin her pretty dress.  Somehow, all of this is supposed to make Sydney look bad.  Meanwhile, Caitlin is a grown woman who is still obsessing over the boyfriend who treated her terribly in high school.

We’ll conclude this holiday next week!