Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) and the Calvin bunch are back! The last season of Disney+’s The Santa Clauses saw Scott trying to retire from his role as Santa by finding a new successor and giving up the literal jingle bell reins. This season was on a similar track but a little more grimacing. The story picks up with Scott and the family doing their typical Christmas rounds of delivering presents. Afterwards, it spurred on the conversation of what the plans for the future of the North Pole could entail, with Cal also being named as the next Santa candidate.
Scott decided that the whole family should be involved more in the North Pole and considered making Santa’s workshop and the North Pole a “family business.” Carol, aka Mrs. Claus, would be in charge of the elves, their son Cal would focus on his Santa training and learning to use his new powers, and their daughter Sandra would be in charge of the reindeer. What could go wrong with that thinking?
The main antagonist for this season was Magnus Antus, aka Mad Santa (Eric Stonestreet). I have to compliment the makeup and costume department because I did not know that it was the same Stonestreet who played Cameron from Modern Family. The lore of Mad Santa was pretty deep, and it made a lot of sense, especially with how it tied in with the history of the elves. It was also cool to see the additional new member to the cast, Gabriel Iglesias, as Kris Kringle. I thought he fit into the world fairly well as the loveable Christmas believer. It came off too childish initially but was more endearing, if anything.
While I do cringe at some of the referential jokes, like how they have to explain what Roblox is or how a cell phone works, I primarily appreciated the world-building of The Santa Clauses. The fact that they leaned into this more this season was what kept me interested in watching this series. I thought learning more about the relationship of the elves (specifically Betty and Noel) was cute and adorable, especially seeing how they all met.
The overall acting was pretty good, more so being funny with their quips. I enjoyed it for the fact that they sprinkled in a mix of child-oriented jokes with adult jokes, too. But not to the point of the hilarious teen/adult film Violent Night. To me, it showed that they know the audience is a mashup of new kids discovering The Santa Clause universe and people like me who grew up watching the films as a kid but are now seeing the expanded TV universe. There was one dance/music number that kind of made me facepalm a little, but they reeled it in by it being a part of the meme-y punchline.
“The Santa Clauses Season 2 was a perfect follow-up season with more interwoven themes of Christmas spirit, discovering oneself, and learning about responsibilities, “
The set and costume designs also continued to thrill me for this season! I thought a lot of the practical builds of furniture and sets really grounded the zaniness of Santa’s workshop and home. The original films also did this too, so I was glad to see the essence of the series held strong from a technical standpoint. Along with the practical, the VFX/CGI was pretty clean whenever there were scenes with magic. When objects were telekinetically moving, it was not like that scene in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones when Anakin and Padme were eating on Naboo.
The six-episode structure continued to work for me; I thought it was a good way to build up hype week-to-week leading up to Christmas this year. Even though it could be argued that The Santa Clauses could just be a 3-hour film, I believed it was the perfect format for where this film-turned-TV series has evolved. I thought it allowed a good amount of time for characters to be fleshed out as well and provided some breathing time between the weeks.
Again, this series was not something I initially thought was a good idea, but its ability to have the core original actors and expanding lore has kept me intrigued with this show. The Santa Clauses Season 2 is another good example of how a returning series can work well in a similar fashion to The Karate Kid films and the Cobra Kai Netflix series. The Santa Clauses Season 2 was a perfect follow-up season with more interwoven themes of Christmas spirit, discovering oneself, and learning about responsibilities, all filled with plenty of candy cane sweetness and eggnog goodness.
