There are any number of reasons actors appear in projects that seem beneath them. Perhaps the paycheck was too big to turn down. Perhaps the script was better than the final project turned out to be. Perhaps the part was big enough or meaty enough that the actor or actress decided that, flawed script or not, he or she needed to play it. Perhaps there was someone else in the cast or on the crew he or she wanted to work with. And, of course, perhaps they just liked the show's message.
The producers and casting director of Miracle at Gate 213 certainly did an excellent job casting their hour-long movie. Two Oscar winners in Shirley Jones and Louis Gossett, Jr. Another highly respected actress in Della Reese. Another reasonably well-known actor in Mackenzie Astin. Multiple Grammy winner Deniece Williams. Longtime Days Of Our Lives supercouple (on the show and in real life) Bill and Susan Hayes. Even the kid actors, Savannah Page Rae and Raymond Ochoa were well-cast, as she was then a regular on Parenthood and he, two years later, would provide the voice of the title character of Pixar's The Good Dinosaur. What the show lacks, however, is an engaging script, as it plods through tired melodrama to present an explicitly Christian message.
It's Christmas Eve, and a waiting room full of passengers is waiting to board a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Among the travelers are a grouchy elderly couple (Gossett and Reese), who are grouchy for different reasons, a young man (Caleb Lane) who we know has a troubled past because he has longish hair and tattoos, a Hispanic family where the father (Armando DuBon Jr.) speaks no English while his wife (Elena Sahagun) and son (Ochoa) speak perfect English, and a young girl (Rae) who is getting shipped off by her father (Astin) to his sister's after he lost his wife and his job in short order. We learn this in an exposition dump by Astin to a friendly fellow traveler (Jones), who turns out to be a retired flight attendant occasionally called in for special jobs, such as accompanying an otherwise unaccompanied minor from Los Angeles to Chicago on Christmas Eve.
As the special is called Miracle at Gate 213, not Miracle of Flight 213, the early scenes of everyone getting on board the flight turn out to be a false flag, as the flight gets delayed for several hours, causing everyone to have to disembark. This allows us to learn more about why Gossett, who spends the first half seemingly speaking in nothing but Fox News talking points, is so grumpy and what Lane is running away from. Meanwhile, Rae spends her time bonding with the grandmotherly (and recently widowed herself) Jones, with each carrying a memento that both go into great detail about its importance, which means of course something is going to happen to both items.
While the religious aspects of the special are constantly hanging overhead, they are delivered with a bit more of a light touch than I was expecting. Reese, naturally, tells the Christmas story to Rae, and there's lots of talk about miracles and God, but the message could have been so much more heavy-handed, a bit of a surprise given how heavy-handed the rest of the special was. And of course, all the subplots get resolved. Will Gossett do a sudden 180? Will Jones escape from his past? Will Rae's most fervent wish come true? Of course!
Honestly, I'm far more interested in the business side of this special than about the actual contents. The producers sold the special to NBC, though not for the network to air it. Instead, NBC syndicated it to its affiliates, allowing them to schedule the show when they wished. While a primetime airing (preempting network programming) was probably too much to ask for, I'm sure the producers were anticipating a weekend afternoon time slot. Instead, as far as I could tell, the various affiliates scheduled it for an overnight run Christmas week. However, I'm sure that didn't really matter too much to the producers, who were probably more interested in marketing the cast and the fact this did air on NBC (sort of) for DVD sales in future years.
The primary thing I took away from Miracle at Gate 213 is the performance of Jones. Her early work in classic musicals and her Oscar-winning, change-of-pace performance in Elmer Gantry has long taken a back seat to The Partridge Family, so it was a bit of a revelation as to just how good she is in this. It's a shame that the script was rather weak and melodramatic and predictable. She, and the entire cast, deserved better.
Next time: This got an Emmy nomination? Wowzers!
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