Advent Calendar 2023 Day 5: A Duty Free Christmas

It was the most watched show on television in its heyday, you know. Yet Duty Free feels like it's fallen down the back of TV comedy's sofa, maybe because that's the fate of the vast majority of ITV's work, maybe because... well... it had one idea (two British couples meet in Marbella, one from each conduct an affair) and ran with it over three series no matter where it led Eric Chappell's plot, as in this final ever episode shown right at the heart of the 25th where the couples find they've coincidentally both decided to return from Blighty for a festive break and as such resume covert operations. Unusually, it was the only episode actually filmed entirely on location, which brings a whole new angle to the "cast go on holiday together" cliche, without a laugh track and with dream sequences, which bring it a gravitas that the usual mistletoe get-out and someone having to don a Santa outfit at very short notice can't live with.