Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Agatha Raisin: Kissing Christmas Goodbye’ On Acorn TV, A Holiday Special Staring Britain’s Most Fashionable Sleuth

The holiday special is a British TV tradition, and it’s a pretty good one, if you ask us. Instead of forcing a hit show into a semi-yearly Christmas episode, they all get together and do a feature-length special that has that warm holiday feeling but also a real story — or at least one that’s not a treacly mess. The latest hit series from the UK to get a holiday special is Agatha Raisin, the fashionable publicist-turned-sleuth played by Ashley Jensen.

AGATHA RAISIN: KISSING CHRISTMAS GOODBYE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s Christmastime in Carsley, and Agatha Raisin (Ashley Jensen) is hoping for once to have a holiday that isn’t a disaster. Her buddy Roy Silver (Matthew Horne) complains so much about Agatha’s holiday disasters, she tells him to plan the whole thing this year.

Joining Agatha and Roy are Sarah Bloxby (Lucy Liemann), who just became the town’s vicar, replacing her ex-husband Jez; Sir Charles Fraith (Jason Merrells), who’s there to be his usual charming and flirtatious self; Agatha’s assistant detective Toni Gilmour (Jodie Tyack) and her boyfriend, local police detective Bill Wong (Matt McCooey).

Agatha insists that she won’t take any cases during the holiday, but a letter by Phyllis Tamworthy (Maggie McCarthy) intrigues her; Agatha and Roy go to her massive estate and find a bunch of Satan worshipers at a local pub, and then see that Phyllis is a Christmas fanatic.

The crusty old lady has decided to make things right with the man upstairs by willing the estate to charity, starting a school in her name. The problem is, her adult kids Jeffrey (Kevin Bishop) and his wife Alison (Emerald O’Hanrahan), Sadie (Zoe Telford) and Fran (Emma Cunniffe), are expecting to inherit it and splitting the proceeds of a sale. Phyllis definitely thinks her kids will kill her over it and want Agatha to come to her “holiday surprise” announcement as protection.

Of course, the kids are angry at the news, but nothing seemingly happens to Phyllis. But when Agatha and Roy scale a ledge from their room to Phyllis’, they find the old lady’s body in her bed, holding a sprig of what turns out to be hemlock.

Agatha puts Christmas on hold out of duty to her client, to investigate who killed her; Allison comes by Agatha’s house to tell her that the kids want her to figure it out so that the estate can be bequeathed to them without any impedances. As Toni learns to drive, she also dresses up as a Satan worshiper to infiltrate the coven that has had a land beef with Phyllis for years, and Agatha tries to figure out whether the kids, the cook or the gardener, all of whom pretty much hated Phyllis, did the deed. Hemlock keeps popping up, found in various places, but it definitely becomes a focus when more people end up dead.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Agatha Raisin has always felt like a spiritual descendant of Murder, She Wrote, albeit with a (slightly) younger and (much) more fashionable sleuth at its center.

Performance Worth Watching: Matthew Horne has a lot of good lines as Roy in this special, many of which are dirty when you think about them but are said in such a clean way that everyone from a preteen to your grandparents might not even notice. Like when he talked about getting food poisoning from eggnog the previous Christmas, he says, “I couldn’t sit down for a week, and not in a good way.”

Memorable Dialogue: See above about Roy. Another good line: “If we leave now, I can start marinating my ham, pardon the expression.”

Sex and Skin: If there’s any of it, it’s very much implied, except when the daft Mrs. Boggle (Marcia Warren) gives a testicle keychain as a secret Santa gift — she thought it was chestnuts.

Our Take: Holiday specials for British shows aren’t necessarily designed to tell amazing stories; they generally are there to bring familiar characters together for the holidays and give the audience the warm feeling of being with these characters again. That’s more or less what we get with Agatha Raisin: Kissing Christmas Goodbye. 

The enjoyment from this special doesn’t come from the mystery of who killed Phyllis. That mystery plods along, and is obtuse enough that it doesn’t encourage the audience to try to solve things along with Agatha. Also, finding out who actually did the deed doesn’t have the payoff it usually does because it doesn’t come out of left field or is all that ingenious a plot.

No, what we enjoyed about the special was seeing the gang back together again (though not everyone, DC Wong is in charge of the investigation because DCI Wilkes is off “finding himself, for example), and we’re seeing where they are in their lives. Roy putting together a perfect Christmas, Charles being Charles, Toni’s wacky driving, Bill’s family’s formal Christmas dinner… All of it was what brings fans of Agatha Raisin to the table. Well, that and the amazing outfits that Jensen wears throughout the special.

The cast has that family chemistry, and it’s apparent here. When that chemistry is so winning, the mystery that Agatha is trying to solve is beyond the point.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Agatha Raisin: Kissing Christmas Goodbye is a funny and warm addition to Acorn’s winning Agatha Raisin series, with standout performances from Ashley Jensen and Matthew Horne.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Agatha Raisin: Kissing Christmas Goodbye On Acorn TV