Wynonna Hosts ‘Christmas at the Opry,’ Meet the Real Cary Grant (as ‘Archie’), ‘Frasier’s Christmas Finale, ‘Coach Prime’ on Prime Video

Wynonna Judd rocks around the Christmas tree as host of a holiday concert with fellow country stars at the Grand Ole Opry. Jason Isaacs portrays film legend Cary Grant (aka Archie Leach) in a biographical docudrama. A special guest crashes Frasier’s farcical Christmas party in the season finale. The second season of Prime Video’s Coach Prime sports docuseries follows Deion Sanders during his first full year as coach at CU Boulder.

Breland performs during 'Christmas at the Opry' 2023
Allen Clark/NBC

Christmas at the Opry

Special

There will be a joyful noise bursting from the stage of Nashville’s iconic Grand Ole Opry when Wynonna Judd welcomes fellow country stars to sing holiday classics in front of a live audience for a two-hour music special. Guests include Trace Adkins, Breland, Mickey Guyton and Kelly Clarkson (who duets with Judd on “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem”). They all gather to perform the rollicking “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” with Brenda Lee, the legend who introduced the song back in 1958 when she was just 13. (The song just topped the Billboard 100 chart for the first time.)

Jason Isaacs as Cary Grant in Archie
ITV

Archie

Series Premiere

Currently Turner Classic Movies’ star of the month, Cary Grant was a towering superstar of immense charm, but he’d be the first to admit, as he does in this clichéd biographical miniseries, “I made him up—the perfect man—in order to survive.” Jason Isaacs (Star Trek: Discovery) plays the adult version of the film star, born as Archie Leach in Bristol, England, with a sad childhood worthy of Dickens. Once he arrives in the U.S. with a vaudeville acrobatic troupe, handsome and ambitious Archie/Cary soon finds his ways into the movies. Archie toggles between his early days and his later career in the 1960s, when he cashes in on his celebrity with personal appearances while wooing his future fourth wife Dyan Cannon (Laura Aikman), who doesn’t quite know what to make of a guy who likes eating burgers in bed. (Not to be confused with Netflix’s The Archies, also streaming today, a Bollywood-style musical comedy from India adapting the famous comic-book characters.)

Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane in the 'Frasier' Season 1 finale
Chris Haston/Paramount+

Frasier

Season Finale

The sitcom reboot closes its first season with a well-timed Christmas episode, in which Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) goes predictably overboard in planning a lavish holiday party, with complications including a delivery of too many trees, a live goose on the loose and Eve’s (Jess Salgueiro) more popular gathering across the hall. Stick with it for a somewhat surprise (though previously reported) blast from Frasier’s past, bringing much-needed cheer to the pompous, self-pitying Crane.

Deion Sanders in Prime Video's 'Coach Prime' documentary
Courtesy of Prime Video

Coach Prime

Season Premiere

The docuseries following Deion “Prime Time” Sanders’ post-NFL career as a college football coach devotes its six-episode second season to his move to the University of Colorado Boulder program for the 2023 season. It’s a rebuilding year for the Colorado Buffaloes, which took full advantage of the transfer portal, with 46 players leaving and 50 transferring in—including nine from Sanders’ previous gig at Jackson State, including sons Shedeur and Shilo and high-profile recruit Travis Hunter.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

ON THE STREAM:

  • World War II: From the Frontlines (streaming on Netflix); From Great Britain, a docuseries uses enhanced archival footage and commentary from all sides of the conflict to bring WWII to vivid life.
  • My Life with the Walter Boys (streaming on Netflix): Think “Torn Between Two Brothers” when newly orphaned teenager Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) leaves Manhattan for Colorado, landing in a classic love triangle.
  • The Lovers (streaming on Sundance Now): A romcom set in Belfast brings together Seamus (Johnny Flynn), a conceited political broadcaster from London, and Janet (Roisin Gallagher), an ill-tempered supermarket worker.
  • The Black Hamptons (streaming on BET+): Season 2 of the soapy drama set in Sag Harbor welcomes new cast members including Richard Lawson (as Britton family patriarch Moses), Steven Williams (as billionaire Alexander Cora) and RonReaco Lee as boxing champ Bobby “The Beast” Boyd.
  • Hush (streaming on ALLBLK): Also back for a second season: the steamy drama about the misadventures of embattled sex therapist and TV personality Draya Logan (Joyful Drake).



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  1. J

    Jena

    Why can't some network make holiday movies that are a cross between Hallmark's sickly-sweet pablum and Lifetime's fear-mongering woman-in-jeopardy flicks.

    (Oh wait, I remember some, from maybe 25 years ago... they were decent holiday movies that appeared on-- wait for it-- Hallmark and Lifetime. Back in the day, before each network veered off into extreme opposite paths.)

    1. P

      PurpleSubmarine

      Cable network GAF (Great American Family) might fit the bill for you.

      1 1

      1. C

        CyanFries

        Personally, I think the GAF productions are just as (if not more) sickly-sweet pablum than Hallmark ever was. The network is run by the same person who formerly ran Hallmark Channel, after all. (Actually, many of the Hallmark Christmas movies the last two years have been a vast improvement over previous years, though are maybe still an "acquired taste." 😉)

        1. P

          PurpleSubmarine

          I still watch the old classics every season : Miracle on 34th street, It’s A Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Christmas Carol, Christmas in Connecticut, Bishop’s Wife and many more. These stood the rest of time .

        2. J

          Jena

          I agree. I haven't watched any movies on GAF (I don't watch anything on that channel) but from what I've heard, they're more squeaky-clean and predictable and same-old-same-old than Hallmark.