Grantchester Season 3 Episode 1 Recap: Christmas

Popular mystery series Grantchester returns to Masterpiece at last, starting the long-awaited third season off with the series' first Christmas special, which orginally aired in between Seasons 2 and 3, in December of 2016.

Leonard: As Brecht tells us: "Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it."

Before we dive into the premiere of Grantchester, we should pause for a moment and reflect on the concept of "the Christmas special". As most anglophiles know, despite the pro-Brexit rhetoric of immigrants coming into the country and changing their customs, the UK's monoculture, both cultural and religious, is far more deeply set than it is here in the US. The Christmas holiday (and Easter) cause the country to shut down in a way that just doesn't quite happen here. When it comes to entertainment, the US produces our share of Christmas themed movies. But our television programming for the holidays are more on the "it's a christmas tradition" side of things, rather than producing new work. One is much more likely to find the Rankin/Bass Rudolph claymation from 50+ years ago, or the 1983's A Christmas Story on endless loop, than see current network shows (say Agents of SHIELD, or Once Upon A Time) doing yearly Christmas-themed episodes designed to air over the 48 hour period of December 24th-26th.