4 Dec 2015
By: Mandi Bierly/Deputy Editor/YahooTV
Mayim Bialik & Ryan McPartlin (The Flight Before Christmas/Lifetime), Candace Cameron Bure and Paul Greene (Christmas Detour/Hallmark) Image: YahooTV
We all know a favorite trope of the holiday TV movie genre is having a workaholic city girl visit a small town during December (for business or returning home after she’s lost her job) and realize she needs to embrace life with whatever handsome man she falls in love with there. In that respect, Lifetime’s The Flight Before Christmas (premiering Saturday at 8 p.m.) and Hallmark Channel’s A Christmas Detour (repeating Friday at 10 p.m.) are novel: Both center on busy professional woman — Mayim Bialik’s marketing exec and Candace Cameron Bure’s feature writer forRadiant Bride magazine, respectively — who return to their jobs in Los Angeles when the movies end. But that doesn’t mean the enjoyable films — which each begin with that woman seated next to a man she initially dislikes on a flight from LAX that gets rerouted due to a sudden storm — are cliché-free. Let’s take a closer look.
#1: One person is about to get married while the other person has sworn off love.
The Flight Before Christmas: Ryan McPartlin’s Michael is thinking about proposing to his girlfriend of five years when he gets to Boston, but Bialik’s Stephanie has just been dumped by the boyfriend she was supposed to move in with over the holidays.
Mayim Bialik and Ryan McPartlin in ‘The Flight Before Christmas’/Lifetime TV Image: Hybrid, LLC
A Christmas Detour: Cameron Bure’s Paige is on her way to meet her fiancé’s parents for the first time in the Hamptons so they can plan their June wedding, while Paul Greene’s Dylan no longer believes in soulmates after his “one” turned out to be made for his brother instead.