By Christopher Bird

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Monday

Tonight! On NBC! Clash of the Choirs! It’s… oh I don’t care and neither do you. (8 p.m.)
Televisualist is sure you are tired of all the ragging on Christmas specials, so as a special treat, CBC is airing four Christmas specials in a row that are actually not bad: How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Mr. Bean’s Christmas Special and this year’s new Christmas (well, Eid, but you get the gist) episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie. Holiday enjoyment for all and sundry. (Starting at 8 p.m.)
Die Hard With A Vengeance tracks the gradual downward spiral of the Die Hard franchise with a reasonable-but-nothing-special outing for John McClane and an amusing sidekick turn for Samuel L. Jackson. (Spike, 9 p.m.)

Tuesday

Yes, it’s more Clash of the Choirs! You know what you love? Choirs! (NBC, 8 p.m.)
If you love singing that, while choirlike, is not horribly choir-y, then enjoy John McDermott: Sharing Christmas. And if you’re like Televisualist and your reaction is “hey, he’s the guy who sings the national anthem at Leafs games sometimes,” then… did we mention the choirs? (CBC, 9 p.m.)
A Spice Girls special? Really? Televisualist feels like it’s 1995 all over again. If girls start walking around in those stupid gigantic-soled sneakers… (City, 9:30 p.m.)

Wednesday

It’s another two hours of Clash of the Choirs! Tonight: the choirs are given pugel sticks and battle one another to death in a pit filled with flaming mud! Or maybe they’ll just sing some more. (ENBC, 8 p.m.)
TVO’s The Whistleblowers is proving to be pretty arresting television, and we have high hopes that this week’s episode is as nifty as the first one was. Although, really, ever since Coupling we’ll watch anything with Richard Coyle in it. (9 p.m.)

Thursday

One more hour of Clash of the Choirs! No, seriously, we’re not making this up: NBC decided to devote an entire week to a program about having vaguely-semi-important musicians create choirs and have them “battle” against one another. Writer’s strike? What writer’s strike? (8 p.m.)
A Christmas Carol. The good black-and-white one with Alastair Sim. Not even colourized! No complaints here. (SunTV, 8 p.m.)
On the other hand, the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street, with Sir Richard Attenborough as Santa and Dakota Fanning as the horrible little girl, is terrible, terrible, terrible and everybody involved with it should feel very ashamed. (CBC, 8 p.m.)

Friday

We haven’t been mentioning it because it’s a lot more fun to make fun of a show about choirs, but all this week ABC is airing Duel, which is another boring stupid quiz game-show that couldn’t even muster up a lame third-tier celebrity as a host and instead settled for somebody from the exciting world of sports radio. Hey, remember when Humble Howard was, for a very short time, the “host” for one of the Ed The Sock programs? One wonders if Duel will be better than that. Likely not. (8 p.m.)
The Simpsons rerun of the week is also a Christmas special: “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace,” with Bart torching their presents and a “touching” story about forgiveness—and an Alex Trebek cameo! (10 p.m.)