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Last year’s Christmas calendar at SVT, “Panic at Santa’s Workshop,” was a sugar snap with celebrities, fart humor, and glitter overdose. Behind the doors of this year’s great television convenience for families with children hides a much more sober event. The 2020 Christmas calendar, with the pleading title “Miracle,” is a bit more “Downton Abbey” than “the world of Wahlgren,” so to speak.
It has been a year that has made most people long for more carefree moments. It is not a bad time that “Mirakel” dates back in part to 1920. Here we find the young Miss Rakel (Bibi Lenhoff) who dreams of adventure, but is raised to be a “good lady” and who lives with her parents in a beautiful mansion.
One hundred years later, the staged house is transformed into a home where the orphan Mira (Sarah Rohdin) and Galad (Emanuel Kielin) live unaccompanied with Christmas decorations. The staff consists of a single person, Agneta (Babben Larsson) listless, who prefers to dream of love again in high school. An elusive “wormhole” reaches the old mansion and connects Rakel and Mira. They are forced to swap bodies with each other and land in their own completely foreign era.
Then begins a manic time travel. It’s the backdrop to a twisty adventure that contains many classic entertainment formulas like “Back to the Future” nostalgia, some mad scientists (Johan Glans, Annika Andersson), a fierce family feud, and a childishly greedy financier. Plus, the dish is spiced up with a splendid dose of women’s emancipation, a history lesson on the practice of children during the bad old days, a bit of appropriate class analysis, and of course some sustainable environmental thinking.
One monkey with “Miracle” is that neither the creators of the series nor the SVT public relations department seem to know what an HVB house is. No, it is not a “modern orphanage” for orphans where prospective adoptive parents can go shopping. It’s bad to even pretend, especially for those who have the ambition to be a little serious with today’s kids.
Aside from this sloppy premise, “Miracle” continues to squeeze and feel its essence. There are many exciting twists and turns when the identity changes, which also includes a cute little jock, begins to change on certain timelines. A cozy, kid-friendly, old-fashioned suspense adventure that traverses time and space with a high level of tension and just the right amount of fun, like when the arrogant Mira (in Rakel’s body) yells at an aggressive Primary teacher: “I’ll report you to Bris, pig!” Stylish cliffhangers also consistently create much-needed forward motion. A small miracle in this hard painting format. And quiet, the Christmas feeling, here mainly in traditional vintage style, is not neglected. Nobody dares anymore.
Read more:
The Christmas calendar travels in time and space: “Powerful to be with”
Read more texts by Helena Lindblad
