All I Want For Christmas

Tina Johnson returns to stay with Leroy for Christmas, however her past experience has left her disillusioned with the festive season. Leroy sets out to prove to her that Christmas is a special time, but what with teaching all day and studying at night he's already overstretched. 

Meanwhile Shorofsky is in the hospital having his tonsils out. Staying on the children's ward the kids start to believe that Shorofsky is actually Santa Claus! 

Fame does a Christmas episode two years in a row. Despite this being more of an original, if not predictable, episode I enjoy this less than "Ebenezer Morloch". For me it doesn't quite have the same level of fun and Christmas spirit as the previous Christmas story. Debbie, Carlo, Billy, Carrie, Eric and Graham are all missing and the episode feels very empty. Even those characters that are present like Dusty and Jillian have very little to do apart and  from sing. 

Caryn Ward as Leroy's niece Tina is back for her final episode. The story idea behind giving Tina a proper Christmas to show her that it can be a magical time is a good one and gives us some nice continuity with Tina's back story. Although she would have been around the previous Christmas so why Leroy didn't do anything special for her then?  

Sadly we don't get the big sentimental happy ending that I was expecting from a Christmas story. Yes Tina and Leroy are friends again and she forgives him for letting her down and not spending any time with her but I wanted more. It is Christmas after all. I was thinking that even though Leroy failed to get her the present she wanted some how one of the kids would have arranged some kind of collection and they would have been the ones that bought the dolls house out from under Leroy. Santa Shorofsky having handed out all of the presents and then called Tina over at the end and her present would have been bought in and she would have thought Leroy had got it for her. Sadly we are denied this kind of ending which is a great shame.

I'm not sure where the story line of Leroy's studying has suddenly come from, as we've never heard about it before. So that feels like a convenient excuse to keep him busy and to show us how hard he was working but to keep him apart from Tina. It's nice to see how Leroy has matured over the years but I was under the impression he'd got his High School diploma, so this does feel like a bit of a stretch to have him continue studying after he's left school particularly when he's already working as a teaching assistant and doing extra work at Lou's. To me it would have made more sense for him to have a part in a show or choreographing a show or something related to dancing. It could have been his big shot and he chose that over his family. Anyway Leroy's story feels kind of flat to me. It was also frustrating when Leroy was telling Lou to hurry up because the toy store was about to close but he then has time for a song and dance!!!  

I like the idea of Shorfosky being mistaken for Santa but I think they could have had more fun with that story too. Him being forced on to the Kids ward because some producer is in  his room doesn't seem realist and is very convenient to the story. 

The music is only okay too but I can't really rave about any of the songs. It's a shame that Jesse and Ian couldn't have sung some great up-tempo poppy Christmas song.  It seemed a little odd for them to choose a country song that has nothing to do with Christmas.

It was interesting to see Bronwyn Thomas back as one of the dancers for this episode. Obviously she is the ballet specialist and she is the only Fame dancer to dance in every season. Here she has a non speaking part, as she did in season 5 so I guess we aren't suppose to notice that  like Danny, Michelle has been in school for 6 years!

Original  air date in U.S.A.  08th  December 1986

Original  air date in U.K.  The Children's Channel  Broadcast Early 1993

Original air date  in France 17th March 1996