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A select viewing guide to the next seven days of television

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MONDAY DECEMBER 15 MasterChef Canada: A Holiday Special (CTV, 8 p.m.) ‘Tis the season to forego calorie-counting. Spinning off the ratings success of last season’s homegrown edition of the popular cooking series, this one-off special brings back four of the show’s most colourful contestants for a less intense competition. How it works: Fan favourites Dora Cote, Marida Mohammed, Pino DiCerbo and Tammara Behl return to the MasterChef kitchen to take part in a series of “festive food challenges” (Strangely missing in action is season-one MasterChef Canada winner Eric Chong). Spouses, kids and relatives pitch in with the cutting and chopping and dicing and the home cook who finishes first will receive $10,000 for the charity of their choice. As before, the culinary adjudication falls to Canadian gourmands Michael Bonacini, Claudio Aprile and the high-volume Alvin Leung. Stop yelling, Alvin!

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TUESDAY DECEMBER 16 MasterChef Junior (Fox, CTV Two, 8 p.m.) Whether an amateur chef is 40 years old or eight years old, Gordon Ramsay will not hesitate to bring him or her to tears. Following a grueling season and several waterwork displays by distraught third-graders, Fox’s juvenile cooking competition grinds to its second-season finale tonight. Last week saw the cruel (and tearful) ejection of female contestants Adiah and Abby, aged 12 and 8, respectively, which leaves the finale to two fine young men, Logan and Samuel, both 12. The closer tasks the lads to prepare a three-course meal to be sampled and scored by Ramsay and fellow judges Gordon Elliott and Joe Bastianich. Get out the handkerchiefs for the moment when they announce the winner.

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WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 17 Corner Gas: The Movie (CTV, CTV Two, 8 p.m.) Query to diehard Corner Gas fans who paid to see this movie two weeks ago: Don’t you feel a little silly now? Fresh from its fleeting theatrical run, this feature-length version of the folksy comedy series more or less picks up where the story left off after six seasons. Life still goes on in the drab prairie burg of Dog River, Saskatchewan. Hoser gas-station proprietor Brent Leroy (Brent Butt) is still town wiseguy around whom everyone else – halfwit buddy Hank (Fred Ewaniuck), dim diner temptress Lacey (Gabrielle Miller), felonious store clerk Wanda (Nancy Robertson) – rotates on a humdrum daily basis. In the movie’s feeble (and needless, really) plotline, Brent and the gang rise to the occasion when the crooked mayor invests all the town’s dough into Detroit real estate. Also, Brent’s testy father Oscar (Eric Peterson) buys a horse. Yep, that’s Corner Gas alright.

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THURSDAY DECEMBER 18 The Man Who Saved Christmas (Vision, 9 p.m.) Jason Alexander will forever be known as George Costanza, but give him the right dramatic role and he rises to the occasion. Based on a true story, this 2002 cable feature casts the former Seinfeld regular into the role of toymaker A.C. Gilbert, owner of a successful toy company in the early 1900s. Shortly after the onset of the First World War, the U.S. military requests that Gilbert retool his factory for the production of wartime goods. Gilbert complies, at first, but when the government actually goes to the effort of asking citizens to refrain from celebrating Christmas in order to support the war effort, Gilbert reverses his decision and immediately resumes toy production, much to the delight of millions of children. Even adorned with a strangely lacquered toupee, Alexander essays a moving portrayal.

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FRIDAY DECEMBER 19 William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge (HBO Canada, 8 p.m.) For at least three decades after the original Star Trek went off the air in 1969, Canada’s William Shatner did everything in his power to distance himself from the seminal sci-fi series. And today he just can’t stop revisiting the Trek well. Through his own production company, the 82-year-old Shatner wrote and directed this documentary paying homage to the followup series Star Trek: The Next Generation, which began in 1986 but not without some hitches. The format finds Shatner sitting down for casual chats with ST:TNG fixtures including Patrick Stewart (Capt. Jean-Luc Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Number One) and John de Lancie, the capricious alien known as Q. The most startling reveal: The studio behind the show did everything it could to block the involvement of original Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

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SATURDAY DECEMBER 20 Scrooged! (Teletoon, 9 p.m.) Are you still trying to force yourself into getting that feelgood holiday spirit? Suitable for softies and cynics alike, this 1988 comedy reshapes the A Christmas Carol for modern times (well, 1988 times at least). A still boyish-looking Bill Murray is perfectly suited to the Ebenezer-inspired role of Frank Cross, a nasty, vodka-swilling network executive with plans to live-broadcast a crass version of the Charles Dickens story on Christmas Eve (in this version, Tiny Tim is played by U.S. Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby). Shortly before the big broadcast, Frank is visited by three ghostly spirits, including a cigar-chomping cabbie (David Johansen) and a toaster-to-the-head-slamming Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane). And if you watch very closely, you’ll see the late jazz legend in a cameo as a street busker.

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SUNDAY DECEMBER 21 The Sound of Music Sing-Along (ABC, 7 p.m.) The hills are alive all over again, and this time you can join in. Running four hours (the actual film clocks at 174 minutes) this airing of the 1965 movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical will mark the first time that it has aired in a sing-a-long version. Set against a snow-capped backdrop during the Second World War, the story was inspired by real-life events and stars a gamine Julie Andrews as Maria, a comely young lass who leaves an Austrian convent to work for the Navy captain George Von Trapp (a never handsomer Christopher Plummer) and take care of his seven towheaded brats. And if you’re looking for some quality time with the family this holiday season, assemble them to join you while warbling along to songs like Edelweiss, My Favorite Things and Sixteen Going on Seventeen.

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