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A select viewing guide to the next seven days of television

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MONDAY DECEMBER 22 Antiques Roadshow (PBS, 8 p.m.) Have you made your annual holiday donation to American public broadcasting yet? Me neither, but unlike the commercial broadcasters, PBS is still gifting viewers with new outings of its venerable scavenger-hunt series. In fact, tonight’s fresh episode is a special holiday affair (read: clips show) in which host Mark Wahlberg wheels out a dazzling parade of junky but highly-valued Americana to be appraised by the usual team of dusty historians. Cases in point: One man hauls in his vintage collection of Peanuts memorabilia estimated to be worth $250,000, while another shows off his original lobby standee of Elvis Presley for the film Love Me Tender. Why are there only a half-dozen of these standees known to exist? Because Elvis fans tore most of them to shreds back in 1956. Mercy.

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TUESDAY DECEMBER 23 One Direction: The TV Special (NBC, 8 p.m.) ‘Twas two days before Christmas and all parents with impressionable young daughters are hereby advised to visit the nearest shopping mall for their peace and quiet. The Brit phenom boy band One Direction signed a highly-publicized promotional contract with NBC-Universal a few months back in support of their new album titled Four, and all the details of the deal are coming to fruition of late. A few weeks back, the five boyos popped up on NBC’s Today show and showed up on NBC-owned Telemundo shortly after. What we have here is an hourlong commercial to introduce, or reintroduce, the rakish young heartthrobs to teen and tween female viewers, interrupted occasionally for concert clips and music videos. Guess which One Direction likes gummy bears: Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry, or Fredo?

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WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 24 Scrooge (CBC, 8 p.m.) Even after six decades and literally hundreds of incarnations on film, TV and stage, Alastair Sim’s portrayal of the miserly curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge in this 1951 film remains the acting standard. It’s not by accident that when Jim Carrey voiced the character in the animated Disney remake of A Christmas Carol, he did so with a near letter-perfect imitation of Sim’s version. Perhaps the best part of the film is that even after dozens of viewings, the decency behind Dickens’ redemption fable still touches our hearts and you can still find new details with each new viewing. Of course, if you take your holiday sentiment with a more theological tone and a dash of Capra, there’s always It’s A Wonderful Life (NBC, CTV, 8 p.m.)

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THURSDAY DECEMBER 25 The Queen’s Christmas Message (CBC, noon ET) If you can tear yourself away from the figgy pudding and nog drinks for a quarter-hour this Christmas Day, pay attention: The Queen is about to speak. A bona fide Canadian Christmas tradition, or at least a British Christmas tradition that we glommed onto, the Queen’s Message began on BBC Radio way back in 1932 with King George V addressing his loyal subjects. Queen Elizabeth picked up the torch in 1957 and today the annual royal reflection of the year that just was airs in high-def and podcast format around the world. And since Her Majesty finally launched her first Twitter account several weeks ago (seriously, it’s @BritishMonarchy), we can probably expect her primary talking points in the form of tweets. Rule Britannia.

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FRIDAY DECEMBER 26 Now That’s Funny! On Set with TV’s Hottest Comedies (CBS, 8 p.m.) Although this is a new show, it appears to be exactly the sort of program you’d expect a major American TV network to burn off on Boxing Day. Produced by the Paley Center for Media and hosted by Aisha Taylor (she’s one of the talking lady heads on The View, The Talk or The Soup), the low-concept format simply visits the set of several current half-hour sitcoms to determine how funny people crank out funny TV shows. The show includes stops to CBS’s own The Big Bang Theory (hello synergy), along with The Mindy Project, Modern Family and New Girl. Really, that’s all there is to it.

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SATURDAY DECEMBER 27 After The Wave: Boxing Day Tsunami (CBC News Network, 10 p.m.) Even ten years after what came to be known as the Boxing Day Tsunami, the amateur-video images of nature gone so horribly wrong have lost none of their visceral impact. The Tsunami claimed the lives of an estimated 228,000 people in 13 countries - in only a few hours. This well-assembled doc features new interviews with several of the survivors, among them Brit native Edie, whose mother and sister were swept away in the raging waters engulfing Thailand, and Swedish-born Sussi, who lost her two daughters. The film also documents the little-known efforts of Thai authorities to identify and return home the bodies of more than 5000 victims of the tsunami. Watch with your family and feel fortunate.

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SUNDAY DECEMBER 28 The Sixties (CNN, 7 p.m.) Launched earlier this year with the pedigree of Tom Hanks as executive producer (well, he did grow up in the sixties), this eight-part CNN series airs in its entirety tonight. Through the merge of digitally-remastered news footage and interviews with celebrities and historians, the show rewinds the wild and crazy Mad Men decade in detail with each of the eight episodes covering a specific theme. Start the viewing marathon a new appreciation for the decade that gave the world feminism, civil rights, environmentalism and the gay rights movement and wind it up in the wee small hours with fresh insight into the ideology behind the Haight-Ashbury scene and Timothy Leary. Turn on, tune in and drop out, man.

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