The Santa Clauses is a mini-series that was released on DisneyPlus on the 16th of November 2022, and which was written by Jack Burditt, Leo Benvenuti, and Steve Rudnick. It features at least some of the original characters that we’ve grown to love over the years, including Scott Calvin / Santa (Tim Allen), Carol / Mrs Claus (Elizabeth Mitchell) — who we are introduced to in the 2nd film — and their family.
The storyline follows an older Scott Calvin than the one we saw in the 3rd film, who is about to turn 65, and not as good at the job as he used to be. After a freak accident occurs, he is forced into considering retirement, and therefore a replacement needs to be found.
But finding a replacement Santa isn’t as easy as it sounds, with some characters who we originally thought would be the heir deciding not to take it up, and thus forcing the family into holding interviews for it. Santa is eventually replaced, but by someone who isn’t exactly the right fit. However, drama unfolds soon after Santa moves his family out of the poll, with some things going well, but some other things go wrong.
In this, I’m going to quickly summarise the episodes in the series, and give my opinion on how good it is.
Episode 1 Summary
The first episode reintroduces us to Scott Calvin, who is now 65, and is feeling like the last 28 years have gone by too quickly. He goes on his usual Christmas deliveries and plans to drop round the homes of kids he’s visited in the past again — including Sara (the first child he gave a present to before becoming Santa).
Sadly, he soon discovers that even Sara has grown up, and that she is now a young adult who lives with her parents and no longer believes. He eventually convinces her to believe he is who he says he is, but soon after he leaves, we learn that his magic is starting to fail, and on Christmas Eve a year later, something goes drastically wrong, as he gets into a serious accident when he falls off the roof.
Episode 2 Summary
After returning to the North Poll, Scott is guided through the options he has in relation to retiring, through a thing called the Secessus Clause. But torn between retiring and choosing a successor, he tries to involve his children as possible candidates, although none of them — even Charlie (played by Eric Lloyd) — seem to be interested, so finding a replacement is slightly more difficult.
Episode 3 Summary
Possible Santa candidates are being interviewed, including a man called Simon Choksi (Kal Penn), who is a struggling e-commerce man failing to succeed in his business, and has arrived with his daughter, Grace (Rupali Redd). Things get serious, however, when Grace and Sandra — Scott Calvin’s daughter — go missing after Scott decides not to take a chance on Choksi, but he changes his mind after they find their daughters deep in the wobbly woods, when he has a change of heart and decides to hire him.
Episode 4 Summary
Having moved away from the North Poll to start a new life with his family, Scott, Carol, Cal and Sandra are settling into their new lives in Chicago.
Meanwhile, Simon settles into life as the new Santa in the North Poll, and sets upon trying to make Santa’s delivery system an online business, although he ended up diminishing Christmas Spirit in the process.
Episode 5 Summary
Scott is taken into the Yule-verse by Bernard the Elf (David Krumholtz), where he learns the truth about why and how he became Santa. But while this is taking place, things have turned for the worse at the Poll, as elves have started to disappear, and Christmas feels like it’s in complete peril.
After Scott returns from from the Yule-verse, he returns to the Pole along with his current Head Elf, Noel (Devin Bright), but before he can, he is captured by Simon.
Carol, Cal and Sandra also start to run back to the North Poll.
Episode 6 Summary
As the Calvins race against Simon to return to the North Poll, to be the first one to put on Santa’s red coat and to save Christmas. Simon is eventually convinced to see his faults and to step aside, and once Scott resumes his role as Santa, the elves return and hustle to get Christmas deliveries made in time.
They are then returned as the first family of the North Poll, and on the next Christmas Eve, Scott takes his family on the Christmas run with him.
Overall Thoughts
While there have been a lot of people who liked this series and others who didn’t like it, the side that I come to it from is that I liked a lot of things about it, but there’s some other things that I wish Jack Burditt had’ve shown us more of, as well as other plots that I was more than happy with.
Starting off with what all I liked about the series, I liked how the viewer got to see the relationships that Scott Calvin has with his family, as well as his relationships with all of his children. I also liked how other historical / mythical versions of Santa Clause, including La Befana and Krampus, were portrayed like they existed in the same universe, and how the viewer got to learn more about them that was funny, a bit serious but also educational, in a way that makes them entertaining to the audience. But also, I also found it funny how some hidden dark Comedy was also hidden in the series, but that wouldn’t necessarily be noticed by children and are only noticeable to adults.
My favourite scene with that type of comedy is when the elves throw a rather Christmasy goodbye song and flashmob for Santa and his family and try to stand with letters spelling out S.A.N.T.A, but unfortunately they accidentally stand so that the T in Santa’s name is after the first A and the N is at the end, which Scott thankfully corrects them about. What had me laughing uncontrollably, however, at the end of the episode is that one of the elves uses magic dust to send the family on their way, but does it by clapping along with the music and pretends that it was totally accidental, but the whole way it was done made it just too funny.
But while it’s good to talk about what I liked about a series, it’s also good to post about what I didn’t like and what could possibly make that better.
I found the ending of the series slightly disappointing, but only in the way that I wanted to know a bit more about who would become Santa’s heir. I felt like episode 4, episode 5 and episode 6 were preparing me for hearing that Sandra would be Santa’s heir just because it rhymes, but I also felt like more info was being withheld from me, which I think needs to be explained more in a future series.
Some of the things I would like to see in Series 2 is a bit more sibling rivalry between Cal and Sandra in who would be chosen to eventually succeed Santa, as well as a few more Daddy / Daughter moments between Scott and Sandra, other than just the small glimpse we got to see at the beginning of the series.
But other than that, I still found the series highly enjoyable, and I will rate it 9 stars.
It was announced that The Santa Clauses would be getting a second series on the 14th of December 2022, so let’s see if we’ll see any of my suggestions in that. If you missed out on it and would like to watch all of the first series, you can watch it on Disney+.
Phoebelyle.com 