Background:
Kojak was a 1970s series starring Telly Savalas as a bald NYPD Greek-American Lieutenant Theo Kojak. The series was in the top 20 for ratings in its first three seasons. The series and Savalas won multiple awards during its run. In its third season, Kojak featured its first and only Christmas episode, which aired on December 21, 1975.
The Plot:
A skeleton crew is set to work on Christmas Eve at the 11th precinct, with Kojak having the night off. Those plans get scuttled as two different cases emerge with life-and-death stakes. A man who shot a woman in a bar and was injured in the process is still on the loose. In addition, a young woman from a wealthy family wants the police to track down her boyfriend because she fears he’s going to commit a robbery to get her a Christmas present.
Review:
There are crime shows that pretty much abandon their premise for Christmas, but Kojak didn’t. While the stakes were not as big as in other episodes, Kojak still offers two separate cases that involve peril with at least one life on the line in each case. The episode is well-paced and sticks to a mostly realistic plot and story structure, but with some nice Christmas moments, such as when Kojak and his Captain receive presents from his men. The scene of the Christmas party in the precinct gives some good character insight about Kojak and the men who work under him.
The guest cast is competent and features a couple of noted talents. This is the TV debut of Veronica Hamel, who’d go on to net five Emmy nominations for her work on the 1980s police classic Hill Street Blues. A young future Emmy Winner John Laroquette (Night Court, Boston Legal, The Librarians) has a small role as well.
It’s Kojak who has the most memorable moments, showing both wisdom and compassion when confronting difficult situations, and having a lovely personal moment before events interrupt his date.
The biggest challenge with this episode is figuring out how to view it as a Christmas episode. Unlike some Christmas episodes, it doesn’t overwhelm you with Christmas cheer or atmosphere. It also isn’t one of those depressing or truly dark holiday tales that are popular in some quarters. The situations, while serious, are not grim or dire, and neither situation ends up as bad as it could have been.
It’s tempting to view the episode as coincidentally set at Christmastime for the sake of it. The episode approaches a subtler theme of the Christmas story – that of sorrow at the current state of the world. While not depressing, the episode does have some downbeat moments, which makes sense for an episode that aired in a post-Watergate and post-Vietnam world with skyrocketing crime rates.
The opening dialogue-free street scene features a minute of a song of lament (I couldn’t find the title and the IMDB page only listed the traditional Christmas songs in the music credit). It begins with:
What have we lost in
all of the days flown by?
A dream or two has gone to die.
What have we lost in only a year gone on?
We’ve seen some sadness and felt the cold.
One of the episode’s key scenes features Kojak talking to a young Greek lady who immigrated to the United States three years ago. She has very high English proficiency and a grasp of the current cultural situation, but has only picked up vague information about past events. As a lifelong New Yorker, Kojak tells her about the past. This leads to some humorous moments, such as her getting confused about why the Giants are playing in New York rather than San Francisco, and not really understanding why Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were ever a team.
It also finds Kojak reflecting on how life has changed in the city. There’s a whiff of nostalgia, but Kojak also acknowledges that the past had its problems, reflecting on how the streets were dirty, yet not smog-filled as they have become, and not with the level of crime. He reflects, “Summer nights, believe it or not, you could walk in the park—any park in New York.
“And downtown, the Lower East Side. Great place. Pushcarts and selling watermelons and pineapples and bananas and flowers and people and laughter and like that. You let the fun go out of this city, Eleonora. Everybody’s afraid of everybody else now.”
Yet, this sorrow doesn’t sour Kojak. Towards the end of the episode, Kojak warns that everyone in the city will be wearing bulletproof vests if folks don’t wake up, and then adds, “But you know something, Frank? It’s our neighborhood, right, baby? We gotta love it.”
And fundamentally, that’s what makes this episode work. It’s about a man who sees the sorry state of the world but does love and serve the people of his community and mitigate the damage while longing for better days.
Kojak shouting, “Love thy neighbor, baby!” might not be the most usual moment in a Christmas episode, but it sums this one up nicely.
Rating: 4.25 out of 5.
All Five seasons of Kojak are currently streaming on Amazon Prime.(affiliate link)
