Downton Abbey
It's Sunday, which must mean it's time to blog about Downton Abbey. Despite hearing several people crow about their obsession with this show last year, I missed it until this Christmas when I had a chance to catch up with the first season, and now, obsessed.
Sure, it's elitist, conservative, and incredibly nostalgic for a pre-World War I period that was not all that awesome for people not called Earl Granthams, and despite its token Socialist character happier when people Learn Their Place. Sure, one of the two main romantic storylines between Mary and Matthew is deadly dull except when Mary is helping to drag corpses around the castle, which, awesome, and sure, the entire corpse storyline was, to put it mildly, somewhat of a stretch, but the sight of people dragging a corpse through a nice luxury castle is so delightful I was willing to forgive, like, everything. Plus the resulting snobbery afterwards was fun. Sure, two of the villains are pretty stock villains, although at least the Evil Maid seems to have been given more to do this season - I'm only in the second episode, so we'll see, and I'm kinda hoping the Evil Footman Now Some Sort of Medical Orderly gets crushed by a Grand Piano because he bores me.
But against this, you have the delightful crashes between Dame Maggie Smith, playing the Dowager Countess with the precise snobbery she has absolutely down, and Penelope Wilton as her rival Isobel Crawley. I could watch an entire show just for Maggie Smith's one liners. And Bates the valet and Anna the housemaid. The actor playing Bates has this unbelievable shivery creating voice, and if this show does not give Bates and Anna a happy ending in the series finale I may have to hunt some people down. Also, costumes and a Very Cute Dog. Yes, yes, I have a weakness for these sorts of aristocratic British shows anyway, but I have a feeling that even if I didn't, Bates and Maggie Smith would be drawing me back in.
Watching this season, however, has made me aware of just why Americans were complaining last year until we finally had access to the British versions. For some reason PBS is airing episodes where bits have been obviously cut, and in the online version introducing the show with very American accents, missing that half the point of this show is the plummy British accents, and also telling us pointless things instead of just letting us get on to the show. This means, of course, that I'm just going to have to rewatch season 2 once the DVDs with the British episodes are available at the library. I feel just awful about this, I'm telling you.
Sure, it's elitist, conservative, and incredibly nostalgic for a pre-World War I period that was not all that awesome for people not called Earl Granthams, and despite its token Socialist character happier when people Learn Their Place. Sure, one of the two main romantic storylines between Mary and Matthew is deadly dull except when Mary is helping to drag corpses around the castle, which, awesome, and sure, the entire corpse storyline was, to put it mildly, somewhat of a stretch, but the sight of people dragging a corpse through a nice luxury castle is so delightful I was willing to forgive, like, everything. Plus the resulting snobbery afterwards was fun. Sure, two of the villains are pretty stock villains, although at least the Evil Maid seems to have been given more to do this season - I'm only in the second episode, so we'll see, and I'm kinda hoping the Evil Footman Now Some Sort of Medical Orderly gets crushed by a Grand Piano because he bores me.
But against this, you have the delightful crashes between Dame Maggie Smith, playing the Dowager Countess with the precise snobbery she has absolutely down, and Penelope Wilton as her rival Isobel Crawley. I could watch an entire show just for Maggie Smith's one liners. And Bates the valet and Anna the housemaid. The actor playing Bates has this unbelievable shivery creating voice, and if this show does not give Bates and Anna a happy ending in the series finale I may have to hunt some people down. Also, costumes and a Very Cute Dog. Yes, yes, I have a weakness for these sorts of aristocratic British shows anyway, but I have a feeling that even if I didn't, Bates and Maggie Smith would be drawing me back in.
Watching this season, however, has made me aware of just why Americans were complaining last year until we finally had access to the British versions. For some reason PBS is airing episodes where bits have been obviously cut, and in the online version introducing the show with very American accents, missing that half the point of this show is the plummy British accents, and also telling us pointless things instead of just letting us get on to the show. This means, of course, that I'm just going to have to rewatch season 2 once the DVDs with the British episodes are available at the library. I feel just awful about this, I'm telling you.