Stream It or Skip It: ‘The Royal Nanny’ on Hallmark, Where Rachel Skarsten Gives Us Bond for Christmas

In The Royal Nanny, Hallmark sneaks into an entirely new genre: the spy film! This time around, Hallmark’s giving us high stakes holiday hijinks and — can you believe it? — action scenes. Does The Royal Nanny gives Hallmark its very own Bond? Or should Hallmark stick to the genre it knows best: small town romcoms?

THE ROYAL NANNY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Rachel Skarsten (Batwoman) plays Claire, a highly-trained security services officer who’s hot on the trail of a criminal (Barbara Hellemans) who’s orchestrating a terror plot targeting the royal family. When evidence indicates that the criminal is collaborating with someone deep inside the royal palace, Claire must go undercover as a royal nanny to protect Princess Rose (Katie Sheridan) and her two children (Isabelle Wilson, Phoenix Laroche). The catch: Claire is single, has no children, and has no family (she’s an orphan). What does she know about caring for children?!

After a whirlwind 24-hour training session from nanny drill sergeant Ms. Lansbury (Greta Scacchi), Claire ingratiates herself to the princess and the kids — but she clashes with the kids’ uncle, a handsome royal named Colin (Dan Jeannotte). As the days until Christmas dwindle, Claire gets closer to uncovering the traitor in the palace and closer to Colin. But what if Colin is the traitor in the palace? What will Claire do if her crush becomes a suspect?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: A tough field operative having to learn how to handle a posh undercover gig? This is like Hallmark’s version of The Pacifier or Miss Congeniality, but set at Christmas. And screenwriter Brook Durham really knows spy lingo because some of these scenes — specifically the climax — feel like they’re straight out of Alias. But… like, Alias as done by Hallmark.

Performance Worth Watching: Greta Scacchi’s Ms. Lansbury, a.k.a. Scary Poppins, is low-key a badass. She may look and act like a stuffy British nanny stereotype, but then you find out that she’s lethal with an umbrella and has a network of nanny spies acting as her eyes throughout the city… the country… maybe the world???

Memorable Dialogue: “A nanny always plans for rain.”

A Holiday Tradition: Colin spearheads the annual His Majesty’s Christmas Charity, which donates toys to orphanages. There’s also, of course, an annual Christmas tree lighting and a Christmas wishing fountain nearby.

Two Turtle Doves: ION’s A Prince and Pauper Christmas (Dec. 11) features a federal agent whose key informant goes missing — so she grabs a lookalike to fill in… except he’s really a European prince on vacation in America. That’s a lot of premise.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: It makes sense but it’s too generic and completely misses this movie’s selling point: it’s a Hallmark spy romance. Howsabout Dr. Ho Ho Ho, From Christmas with Love, You Only Gift Twice, In His Majesty’s Nanny Service, Presents Are Forever, Octonanny, The Giving Daylights, A View to a Christmas, Quantum of Solstice — I could go on.

Our Take: What is Hallmark doing this season??? You spend all year looking forward to a whole month of cookie cutter movies about women giving up their high-paying jobs in order to move back home and marry their high school crush, who’s now a local baker or mechanic or something. There is a formula, and the formula works! And then Hallmark, the gold standard of formulaic holiday movies, throws out the formula? Hallmark starts making not mere paint-by-numbers holiday movies, but legitimately fun — and original! — holiday movies? This has actually been the ever-increasing case over the past few years, with one or two standouts a season really pushing the idea of what a Hallmark movie can be. The Royal Nanny takes an umbrella and knocks what we think a Hallmark movie should be flat on its back.

I don’t know how an actual spy movie made it through production and on-air, seemingly making just a few concessions to fit into Hallmark’s house style. Yeah, there’s a handsome royal and there’s a simmering sexual tension between the royal and the “nanny” as they trade witty remarks but ultimately find common ground. There’s a tree lighting and Christmas wishes are made and there are misunderstandings that keep our leads apart — but in this movie, the misunderstanding leads to Colin being accused of plotting an attack on his country and him being interrogated.

Is this Hallmark or is this Andor?

I can’t stress enough that this is a spy movie undercover as a Hallmark movie. It looks like a Hallmark movie. It has all the same Christmas decorations and perfectly pleasant performances, but there is an actual threat, actual danger, and actual intrigue. There are red herrings and betrayals! I watched a Hallmark holiday movie sincerely not knowing where the plot was going.

All of this works because the performances have a foot in both of these very different genres. Of course Rachel Skarsten can play an undercover secret agent; she played series villain Alice on Batwoman and Black Canary on Birds of Prey. She takes the role of Claire Champion just as seriously! By the end of the movie, Claire has a signature weapon and a catch phrase. I don’t know if The Royal Nanny is a backdoor pilot for a series of Claire Champion: Royal Spy movies but I’m very much on board if it is.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Who knew Hallmark could get away with sneaking a spy movie into its holiday lineup??