Melissa Merry and Brian Bright are the hosts of America’s #1 morning TV show; they play a pair of beaming colleagues for the camera but the minute it stops rolling they’re actually always at each other’s throats. Melissa (Alison Sweeney) prefers the rehearsed approach, while Brian (Marc Blucas) likes to improvise, and insists they’re both better without a teleprompter, which may be true, but his lack or preparation does mean Melissa often has to swoop in and save him. After spending the last year squabbling, the network is honouring Brian’s request to break his contract. As Melissa searches for a replacement, the two are sent to a festive small town where they’ll be shooting live on location for the last week before Christmas, and the last week of their show together. They’ll have to pretend to get along for the sake of appearances, which is a rule neither is keen to follow.

Their taped segments include all your holiday favourites: ice skating, gingerbread making, ugly Christmas sweater wearing. And somewhere amid all this forced cheer, Melissa and Brian will actually start to get cozy and discover there’s more to each other than they thought.

Will the Merry & Bright morning show live to see another day? Have you ever seen a hotel room so overwhelmingly decorated for Christmas? Is the only thing worse than an ugly Christmas sweater an ugly Christmas Hawaiian shirt? Did Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan sue when they realized how closely this relationship mimics theirs?

This Hallmark movie truly has it all, even very questionable morals when the show’s producer decides to invade her stars’ privacy, and send spy cameras to capture their romantic declaration live, without their knowledge or consent. It’s dicey. It’s risky. But will it pay off???