TVSquad

The cast of the FX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia gathered a stone's throw from Beverly Hills this week to celebrate the release of the show's new Christmas special.

A Very Sunny Christmas arrives on Blu-ray and DVD November 17 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Fox teamed with Maxim Magazine to hold a festive bash last Thursday night at Guys and Dolls Lounge in the shadow of Cedar Sinai Hospital on Beverly Blvd. (Event gallery below.)

A modest red carpet set-up gathered a cramped collection of reporters and photographers together to greet the arrivals of show stars Danny DeVito, Kaitlin Olson, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day.

As if looking to mimic the bleak Philadelphia winter, rain sprinkled the LA streets in the hours leading up to the event -- and temperatures hovering in the low 50s made it a goose bumpy night for the several cocktail dress-clad ladies mingling in the crowd.

Where would we be without the hallowed television Christmas special? We would be engaged in enthralling conversations with relatives who like to give the backstory about the gall bladder operation pictures they still carry in their wallet. We would be playing defense against every breakable item in the house while the neighbor's kids get enough sugar in their systems to power the Space Shuttle. We would not only have to muster the courage to taste Grandma's homemade rum and Kahula fruitcake, but also to pretend that we like it without our stomach turning inside out, crawling up our esophagus and out of our mouth.

Even if those scenarios will be true for you on Dec. 25, I offer you my pity as my Christmas gift. Plus, you still would rather spend it listening to ol' Uncle Hernia Scar than watching one of these holiday hams.

TV Week reports that the ratings for various holiday special repeats are in decline as compared to last year. I'm curious as to why this is the case.

Network television is a free medium, and all but the most impoverished can afford some form of hardware to watch it. So why is viewership down? Is the recession dulling the holiday spirit? Are people selling their televisions in order to afford the mortgage?

I recall that someone once told me that the pro-wrestling industry always garners worse ratings during a recession. I always thought that was a strange statement to make, but there is some logic to it. Most pro-wrestling is on cable, which people have to pay for and is usually one of the first things to go when money gets tight. These holiday specials are on network TV.

The explanation in the article is the ubiquity of DVD and downloads. Nobody has to wait anymore to watch holiday programs. If this is the case, the television industry better step up their plans to change the medium before the viewership changes it for them.

The BBC broadcast the pre-title sequence (about two minutes) of the Doctor Who Christmas Special slated for Christmas Day 2008 for their Children In Need special on November 14th. It can be viewed here on the BBC website. One word of caution: it can only be viewed from a European IP address, possibly even only a British one.

Fortunately, I have managed to avail myself of those two minutes and I'm already excited about the episode. While I look forward to seeing a new face as the Doctor, it's still a shame that next year is likely David Tennant's last year in the title role.

Based on his brief appearance, David Morrisey could be a potentially good Doctor. However, I am of the opinion that anybody who can have fun with the role can be a good Doctor, since the Doctor can be anybody. I'm very much looking forward to the day after Christmas, when I can download the...uh, I mean hear about the Christmas Special from those who have watched it.

Once again the fate of David Tennant's role as the Doctor on Doctor Who is in question. Earlier this year there were rumors that Tennant would not resume his role for the fourth series of the popular science fiction program. However, those rumors were quickly refuted.

Now comes word directly from the BBC that the show will not be returning for a fifth series until 2010 (the fourth series premieres in 2008). It was postponed to allow Tennant to play Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company late next year. A spokesperson for the show said it was too early to comment on whether or not Tennant would return for a fifth series.

Over the past week, the U.K. press has been saturated with "exclusive" sneak previews of the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas Day special, "The Christmas Invasion" -- most of which are just re-hashes or mash-ups of the same photographs and interviews.

However, BBC News has published an exclusive interview with the new Doctor, David Tennant, which includes an eight-minute TV video interview on Breakfast, in which the 34-year-old Scots actor discusses his preparation for the role, the well-wishes he received from former Doctors Tom Baker and Peter Davidson -- and the Cockney accent he's given his incarnation of the famous Time Lord.

More importantly, there's two exclusive clips from the Christmas special, one of which elaborates on the TARDIS crash-landing in a London council estate.