3 out of 5

Directed by: Kevin Fair

Whew, one of the post-series movies finally (…okay, I watched this out of order, after Impossible Dream ) just plays things out like the show – light humor, light romance – and doesn’t allow the extra runtime to go all excessively Hallmarky.  Instead, the extra space is enjoyably used to tie up the Oliver’s-wife loose end, with the special cutting back and forth between this, Norman and Rita delights, and a main ‘mystery’ of some long-lost divorce papers, giving us a nigh hour and a half of appreciable performances and warm-cheeked smiles.  With some of the flashbacks to earlier episodes, we’re especially reminded of how far Shane and Oliver’s (Kristin Booth, Eric Mabius) chemistry has come, the writers easing up on Shane’s “wild card tech genius” foolishness and, like the more settled vibe of ‘Paris,’ just letting the actors’ representations of their personalities shine through.  It’s much more believable now, within the context of the show, and self-aware enough to poke at the drama-baiting of Shane’s perpetual steps-from-quitting mentality.

This is the SSD I enjoyed and the version I hope we get more often than not in these movies.