Knee-deep in the Christmas season, here comes a great, creepy miniseries that should have viewers scratching their heads and wondering about what they just saw.

“The Lost Room” (8 p.m., Sci Fi) is a whole lot easier to watch than to describe. Detective Joe Miller (Peter Krause) investigates a brutal murder at a pawnshop where two victims are burned in a mysterious fire. People seem eager to pay a lot of money and kill people to procure a particular object: a key.

Miller finds the key and discovers that it opens any door. Once opened, this magical door leads to a nondescript motel room that leads anywhere the key’s owner wants to go. What’s more, there are other objects in the room that hold special powers. And everyone who has ever owned or used the key seems to be obsessed with the room, with its objects and what they might mean.

If this seems like a pastiche of “The Prisoner,” “Lost,” “The X-Files” and “The Twilight Zone,” it is. And more. By the end of the first episode, you can throw in “The Fugitive,” too. Don’t take my word for it. Watch “The Lost Room” tonight. You’ll be talking about it tomorrow.

¢ John Goodman plays a burnt-out Saint Nick in the holiday movie “The Year Without a Santa Claus” (8 p.m., NBC).

This star-studded satire sends up the hyper-commercialization of Christmas. Chris Kattan plays Sparky, a corporate elf who wants to push Santa into retirement and launch an “Extreme Santa” to appeal to kids’ taste in skateboarding and violent video games. Mrs. Claus (Delta Burke) worries about Santa’s depression, so two naive elves (Eddie Griffin and Ethan Suplee) embark on a journey to find one good child who still believes in the spirit of Christmas. A clever, silly holiday bauble, “Year” is marred by too many extraneous subplots.

¢ “Everybody Hates Chris” (7 p.m., CW) offers a more heartwarming take on the meaning of the holiday. As you can expect, Julius turns Christmas into an opportunity for earning some extra cash by playing Santa at a local department store. But when Chris contracts the flu while working as his elf, the family’s holiday plans are jeopardized.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Foreman fights for his life on a two-hour “House” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ The Rams host the Bears in NFL action (7:30 p.m., ESPN).

¢ A family needs help on “Supernanny” (8 p.m., ABC).

¢ Sarah Paulson (“Studio 60”) stars in the holiday movie “A Christmas Wedding” (8 p.m., Lifetime).

¢ A terrorist goes on the lam on “CSI: Miami” (9 p.m., CBS).

¢ Brian bonds with his dad on “What About Brian” (9 p.m., ABC).