OH MY GOD!

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Yep, I'd have to agree; "hideous" is far too kind. While I don't object to musicals as a whole (I liked the late 1960's "Scrooge" with Albert Finney, thank you very much. . .;-}), and I'm not against re-interpretation (LOVE George C. Scott's Scrooge); this one should have just been left under whatever rock the production company found it. A few specifics:

Jason Alexander is just plain annoying! I don't care what he's in, who he's attempting to portray, or what the premise is; he's an annoying little slug. To see him as Marley's ghost was simply painful. And why, oh why, oh WHY was he trying to channel Topol? Am I the only one who thought that god-awful song was a sorry rip-off of "If I Were a Rich Man"?

The Ghost of Christmas Past should never, ever, under any circumstances, be portrayed as sexy. And I LIKE Jane Krakowski. Hell, I used to watch "Ally McBeal" with my wife just so I could drool over Jane K.'s character. But to cast her as Christmas Past and highlight her outrageous sexuality as part of the character is just plain WRONG, on SO many levels!

Kelsey Grammer is a more than competent actor. I understand he's had great reviews as Scrooge on Broadway in recent years. That said, why on EARTH did he give such a lackluster, wooden, one-dimensional, boring, un-inspired, insipid, drab, and generally toneless performance here? If anyone could have saved this piece of drek, he could have. Instead, it seemed as if he just put on the costume and the make-up and hobbled through his lines. I expect better.

I don't expect a modern-day interpretation of a Dickens novel not to take liberties with its source. But, this just went WAY over the top. First of all, Scrooge's profession is never mentioned in Dickens's novel. The likeliest interpretation is that he was a commodities broker (see the George C. Scott version); he certainly wasn't a banker. Fezziwig was in the dry goods business, not banking. Young Ebeneezer was sent to boarding school; he was NOT sent off as an indentured servant. His sister stayed home to maintain the household in the absence of thier mother. Scrooge lived in Marley's home, which he took over upon his partner's death. All of these are important to Scrooge's character, and help us to know how he came to be the grasping, snarling, hard-hearted soul that he was. They also lead to his redemption at the end. Next, Christmas Present is - in Dickens's original and in most other interpretations - a much more threatening (to Scrooge) entity than the jolly song-and-dance man portrayed here. I particularly like Edward Woodward's performance. Christmas Future is faceless, skeletal, formless, a spirit in the truest sense of the word. As such, Scrooge is terrified when confronted with this spirit. And, Christmas Future arrives un-announced.

All in all, this has to have been the worst version of this classic story ever to be put on film. Let's hope the networks and the producers have the common decency to not let it be an annual broadcast.

You're right. It was Undickensian.

That must be why I liked it so much.