Mr . Selfridge thoughts
So the B5 rewatch has gotten delayed, because I kind of fell over into a Mr. Selfridge hole for the last couple weeks. I have very quickly marathoned the whole series and I have a few things to say.
Overall I quite like it and now have to wait for season 4 to happen; this is basically what happened with Downton Abbey a couple years ago so I wonder if I’ll ever like it as much again as I do right now, but time will tell. Actually I’m going to make a lot of comparisons to Downton, although it’s got some of The Office in it, and probably more than a little Mad Men but since I never watched Mad Men I can’t speak to it.
It really is following a similar pattern to Downton Abbey, first season starts with small, fairly focused stories; second deals with WW1; third is after the war and trying to get back to normal; except where with DA I feel like a lot of things went backwards once they got past the war (which makes some sense in universe, the characters quite wanted to go back to way things were before), MS really became a very different show, in some ways for the better and in some ways not.
In the Downton vs. Selfridge face off that seems like a natural comparison (not that you can’t like both plenty), I’m going to need some time to think and possibly another viewing. There are things I like better about one and things I like better about the other. I think Downton is better quality in terms of production and acting and...immersion in the story and time (even if it’s not a particularly realistic portrait of that time); but it’s also more of a soap opera in its heightened idyllic version of history, with a bit of an agenda of glorifying the landed gentry and a fairly short memory of big events mixed with an inability to let things actually change. Maybe it’s because Selfridge is at least in part based on actual history, but it seems more able to be a part of the real world. Maybe that’s good and maybe it’s not, or maybe it’s a wash, because I feel like both series really needed to spend two seasons on WW1 instead of packing all their war related stories into one season (though for slightly different reasons, because I felt like DA’s s2 plot was badly paced in a lot of ways, and while that’s a little true of MS it’s mostly that I felt there was far more story to tell in that time).
All three seasons have been very different creatures, each with their strengths and weaknesses. But my going instinct is that I liked s2 the best, hitting a Goldilocks balance between s1 being too light and s3 being too dark. Because s1 is frankly kind of ridiculous and s3 was Bad Decision Theater in a lot of places. While s2 still had things I would have liked to see handled differently, it probably worked the best for me.
I think my favorite character is Ms. Mardle, especially by the last half of s3 when she was not playing Bad Decision Theater and in fact became super awesome. It gives me a weird relationship with Grove, much as one might say she has at this point; because he’s kind of the worst (Loxley is the actual worst, but he’s just generally evil and doomed to fail; Grove is an idiot who gets away with treating people - especially the women in his life - with disregard and lack of consideration) and yet I kind of want those crazy kids to take another chance so long as she sets the rules this time because he absolutely does not deserve her.
Second favorite is probably Mae, but since she wasn’t in s3 my thoughts are less fresh. In fact, assuming it’s something made for the narrative and not based on historical events, I’m holding out hope that the mysterious byer of shares was Mae and she’ll show back up next season, preferably with the Leclairs in tow, and take the world by storm again.
(To aide in this belief, I’m headcanoning that since Mae’s living in Paris with a fashion studio and the Leclairs also moved to France that they come on and help do the design for Mae’s big events while primarily living out of the way to give Henri time to recuperate. Also that Mardle’s plan if she sold the house was that she would move in with them - they were all expecting to live together anyway - but she’d end up working for Mae instead, fall in love with Paris, find herself a nice older French bloke - probably a friend of Mae’s - who doesn’t treat her badly at all and live happily ever after. But I’ll settle for the first scene of s4 taking place when Mae walks in, announces that she owns 15% of the store now, and she dislikes the displays out front and fortunately she has just the idea for how to fix that.
Just to point out that while I do like it for shows to be willing to change things up, rumor has it that Mae was only put on the bus for the season because of real life reasons and will be back for s4. And Agnes was pretty much the second protagonist of the show so I find it doubtful that we’ve seen the last of her. Also the show has not invested much in the new display man except when he’s being difficult and therefore quite easily disposed of in and out of universe. And with Gordon evidently not holding on to the role of store deputy I see the show setting up for the return of old friends next season.)
My favorite ships were Harry/Rose and Agnes/Herni, which made the back half of s3 a little lacking in ship material for me I have to say. I also kind of want to write Agnes/Herni angst fic, probably (if I do it at all) using one of the 1sentence frameworks to cover little snapshots of their story; so much room for angst and pining and hurt/comfort, it’s like ship catnip to me. Like I said, I’m hoping we at least get more of them next season, it’s a little hard to get more with Rose sadly.
I suspect I’ll do a rewatch at some point before s4, but probably at a slower rate even though it currently is still a manageable length to power through quickly. I quite liked it and would recommend it to others who like shows of this sort; but for the moment I think I’ll get back to watching baseball and trying to fit in the B5 rewatch in.
Overall I quite like it and now have to wait for season 4 to happen; this is basically what happened with Downton Abbey a couple years ago so I wonder if I’ll ever like it as much again as I do right now, but time will tell. Actually I’m going to make a lot of comparisons to Downton, although it’s got some of The Office in it, and probably more than a little Mad Men but since I never watched Mad Men I can’t speak to it.
It really is following a similar pattern to Downton Abbey, first season starts with small, fairly focused stories; second deals with WW1; third is after the war and trying to get back to normal; except where with DA I feel like a lot of things went backwards once they got past the war (which makes some sense in universe, the characters quite wanted to go back to way things were before), MS really became a very different show, in some ways for the better and in some ways not.
In the Downton vs. Selfridge face off that seems like a natural comparison (not that you can’t like both plenty), I’m going to need some time to think and possibly another viewing. There are things I like better about one and things I like better about the other. I think Downton is better quality in terms of production and acting and...immersion in the story and time (even if it’s not a particularly realistic portrait of that time); but it’s also more of a soap opera in its heightened idyllic version of history, with a bit of an agenda of glorifying the landed gentry and a fairly short memory of big events mixed with an inability to let things actually change. Maybe it’s because Selfridge is at least in part based on actual history, but it seems more able to be a part of the real world. Maybe that’s good and maybe it’s not, or maybe it’s a wash, because I feel like both series really needed to spend two seasons on WW1 instead of packing all their war related stories into one season (though for slightly different reasons, because I felt like DA’s s2 plot was badly paced in a lot of ways, and while that’s a little true of MS it’s mostly that I felt there was far more story to tell in that time).
All three seasons have been very different creatures, each with their strengths and weaknesses. But my going instinct is that I liked s2 the best, hitting a Goldilocks balance between s1 being too light and s3 being too dark. Because s1 is frankly kind of ridiculous and s3 was Bad Decision Theater in a lot of places. While s2 still had things I would have liked to see handled differently, it probably worked the best for me.
I think my favorite character is Ms. Mardle, especially by the last half of s3 when she was not playing Bad Decision Theater and in fact became super awesome. It gives me a weird relationship with Grove, much as one might say she has at this point; because he’s kind of the worst (Loxley is the actual worst, but he’s just generally evil and doomed to fail; Grove is an idiot who gets away with treating people - especially the women in his life - with disregard and lack of consideration) and yet I kind of want those crazy kids to take another chance so long as she sets the rules this time because he absolutely does not deserve her.
Second favorite is probably Mae, but since she wasn’t in s3 my thoughts are less fresh. In fact, assuming it’s something made for the narrative and not based on historical events, I’m holding out hope that the mysterious byer of shares was Mae and she’ll show back up next season, preferably with the Leclairs in tow, and take the world by storm again.
(To aide in this belief, I’m headcanoning that since Mae’s living in Paris with a fashion studio and the Leclairs also moved to France that they come on and help do the design for Mae’s big events while primarily living out of the way to give Henri time to recuperate. Also that Mardle’s plan if she sold the house was that she would move in with them - they were all expecting to live together anyway - but she’d end up working for Mae instead, fall in love with Paris, find herself a nice older French bloke - probably a friend of Mae’s - who doesn’t treat her badly at all and live happily ever after. But I’ll settle for the first scene of s4 taking place when Mae walks in, announces that she owns 15% of the store now, and she dislikes the displays out front and fortunately she has just the idea for how to fix that.
Just to point out that while I do like it for shows to be willing to change things up, rumor has it that Mae was only put on the bus for the season because of real life reasons and will be back for s4. And Agnes was pretty much the second protagonist of the show so I find it doubtful that we’ve seen the last of her. Also the show has not invested much in the new display man except when he’s being difficult and therefore quite easily disposed of in and out of universe. And with Gordon evidently not holding on to the role of store deputy I see the show setting up for the return of old friends next season.)
My favorite ships were Harry/Rose and Agnes/Herni, which made the back half of s3 a little lacking in ship material for me I have to say. I also kind of want to write Agnes/Herni angst fic, probably (if I do it at all) using one of the 1sentence frameworks to cover little snapshots of their story; so much room for angst and pining and hurt/comfort, it’s like ship catnip to me. Like I said, I’m hoping we at least get more of them next season, it’s a little hard to get more with Rose sadly.
I suspect I’ll do a rewatch at some point before s4, but probably at a slower rate even though it currently is still a manageable length to power through quickly. I quite liked it and would recommend it to others who like shows of this sort; but for the moment I think I’ll get back to watching baseball and trying to fit in the B5 rewatch in.