Plot

The Starman receives a letter which claims to be from Paul Forrester's mother inviting him to visit her. He accepts the invitation and finds a mother unwilling to see him and a town in turmoil. Scott however forms an attachment to this adoptive grandmother and is devastated when the Starman tells him that she is terminally ill. The Starman heals the rift between Paul Forrester and his mother on her deathbed and encourages collective peace and harmony by encouraging local community participation in decorating the the town's Christmas tree. He also performs some alien magic undoing the best efforts of local vandals to destroy the tree.

I don't know why so many series - particularly American series - feel compelled to do over-sentimentalised Christmas episodes. This is up there with the most treacley of them. But a few personal resonances ground it somewhat. Scott Hayden's grandmother - well... sort of grandmother - dies on Christmas day (a very sanitised death of course). My own father died on Christmas day in hospital two years ago.

By chance I also watched the episode recently (it is almost Christmas at the time of writing) and a week after seeing it read a curious item in the newspaper titled 'Vandals torch town's 8m tree'. It reads 'Residents of a north Queensland town are angry after vandals torched the community's Christmas tree. Atherton residents woke yesterday to find their 8m artificial tree reduced to scalded wire by the flames ... with witnesses spotting two males running from the tree in Main Street about 3.30 am.' (The Sunday Mail Dec 11, 2005, p. 9) Unfortunately there was no Starman to counteract the work of these particular vandals.

There are some attempts to deal with difficult issues in the episode but the 45 minute format, as is often the case in the series, means that problems and situations have to be resolved far too quickly and with too much sleight of hand. It is only due to the fine performances of Robert Hays and CB Barnes that these implausibilities in the episodic plots don't become completely overwhelming.

More later...