If you not-so-secretly want to be a crooner, and you’ve got the clout to punch your own ticket, what do you do? If you’re Bill Murray, you get on the horn with your A-list friends and put on an old-fashioned Christmas show.

In A Very Murray Christmas, premiering Friday (December 4) on Netflix, the beloved actor resurrects the holiday variety programs of the 1960s and ‘70s, and hauls them into the modern era. This may not be your grandfather’s holiday special, but it is something he might vaguely recognize, even if Andy Williams and Perry Como are nowhere to be seen.

As it turns out, Murray has come a long way from his days as Nick Winters on Saturday Night Live. Through a number of holiday standards, he shows us that his voice, while not pitch-perfect, has mellowed and matured. More importantly, he’s become something of a craftsman—sure, the whole thing’s mostly a goof, but when he applies himself, Murray can really sell a song through his phrasing and a surprisingly restrained subtlety.

What there is of a plot revolves around Murray and others trapped in a hotel bar during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve. It’s really just an excuse to set up songs, however, and that’s where the real fun lies. From traditional to modern, there’s pretty much something for every taste, with enjoyable group efforts featuring the likes of Paul Shaffer, David Johansen, Chris Rock, Rashida Jones, Jason Schwartzman, and the French group Phoenix. There’s also Maya Rudolph channeling Darlene Love for "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" in a fantastic solo effort, and a dream—or, more precisely, a drunken stupor—sequence featuring George Clooney and a radiantly entertaining Miley Cyrus. But the real fireworks, it turns out, come through in a Bill Murray-Jenny Lewis duet of "Baby, It’s Cold Outside".

In spite of the great music, there’s something slightly off about the whole enterprise. Murray’s a charming curmudgeon, as usual, but there’s a hangdog sadness about him here that makes it seem like he’d rather be someplace else. Sure, the Yuletide can be tough (something he acknowledges by opening the show with Sammy Cahn’s "Christmas Blues"), but there’s more to it than that. It’s not that we should expect the Old Yeller speech out of Murray every time he opens his mouth, but the wry—and very sparse—humour present here only serves to punctuate an underlying melancholy which makes the non-musical segments a bit of a slog. Christmas stories don’t always have to be upbeat, but they do need to offer some sort of emotional payoff.

Sadly, Murray, along with director Sofia Coppola, seems to miss this point. And if there’s one scene that encapsulates the whole non-musical portion of the show, it’s when Murray tries to console a jilted bride and asks, “Would you like to take a selfie with me?” When she tells him no, he seems confused and says, “That usually makes people happy.”

As in the selfie offer, A Very Murray Christmas wants to offer up redemption, but doesn’t seem to know how to go about doing it. Unfortunately, the musical numbers—as entertaining as they are—aren’t enough to pull all the baggage on this sleigh.