TV round-up: Mr. Selfridge
Even though I should be working on something productive (like a dress made out of the beautiful silks I bought at Vogue Fabrics in Chicago! Squee!) I nevertheless feel more like rambling about fun stuff. So, for today, a post-season TV review: Mr. Selfridge!
I was totally surprised by how immediately and how strongly I was hooked by this show, espcially having gone in with no expectations whatsoever. However, precisely because I was so drawn in by the strong writing and multi-faceted characters, I'm really a little let down by the season finale last Sunday.
I just feel that the last couple episodes dropped the ball entirely, and it degenerated from interesting, fresh drama to melodramatic soap opera. The first episodes were great because they focused on the store, and the ins and outs of the retail business in the 1900s at every level of the store, with a little of each character's personal life thrown in to give perspective from each rung on the ladder. I loved how we'd get to know everyone a little bit more each episode, so that even though in the first episode you sort of had everybody pegged as this or that type, then next episode you'd find out that was only the facade they were presenting to the world, and the reality was much more complicated, and more sympathetic for it:
You think Miss Mardle is just going to be the snippy, prim boss lady giving Agnes a hard time, but there she is, having this long term affair with a married man, and much more in love with him than he is with her, and too blinded by love to realize it till it's too late.
You think Henri is just going to be the snotty French artist, shallowly seducing all the ladies, but then you see that he's actually not so shallow, that he's a good judge of character who does care about other people, and that he doesn't actually approve of Harry's philandering with Ellen Love, because he knows how bad she'll be for Harry personally and professionally. (He saw through Ellen Love even before I did, I must admit!) I really did believe Ellen Love was the cool, confident, calculating courtesan she presented herself as in the beginning, but as it goes on we realize she's just acting a part, masking an insecure, small-town girl with Cinderella dreams and no understanding of the world or the position she's in.
Lady Mae I thought was just going to be nasty and haughty and adversarial throughout, but she has a good side too, and her motivations are more complex, being a smart woman trying to achieve some of kind of power in a man's world; she manipulates, yes, but women had little else available to them in an era when they couldn't even vote or hold most jobs, and she's aware of that disadvantage, and is actively trying to level that playing field not just for herself, but for women in general though her suffragette activities, even as she can't resist engaging in private power games with young men in her boudoir.
Even snotty, obnoxious little shopgirl Kitty isn't really so bad once you get to know her, or at least, once you see her through her nicer best friend Doris's eyes. Even meek accountant Mr. Crabbe had his unexpected moment when, inspired by Harry Selfridge's infectious ideals, he overcame his caution and took the initiative to save the store (or at the least, saved it's windows!)
All that was really super great, but in the last couple episodes, it started to ignore the store and any other aspect of the characters lives in favor of (mostly bad) romances.
The revolving door of hookups and breakups just became too fast for me, and I sort of started disengaging emotionally, because it was really crappy to get to like all these characters and care about them, and then all the sudden, BAM! The women are all stupid idiots and the men are all dishonest weasels! I mean, really? All the relationships are suddenly DRAMA CITY. EVERYBODY is either hookin' up or breakin' up with some other character! One or two illicit affairs in a show at one time is one thing, but this is like, literally EVERY CHARACTER! People just didn't have affairs THAT MUCH in the bloody 1900s. Heck, I don't even think people do now, and now it's not even taboo like it was then. Andrew Davies is known for sexin' up the Classics, but he's just running wild now he's got an original series!
Miss Mardle and Mr. Grove's tragic end we saw coming a mile away, but poor little Doris getting snared by him too! Nooo! I figured Victor would cotton to the fact that Lady Mae was just toying with him eventually, but I don't think that makes him any smarter, or any less of a little man-whore than if he'd stayed with her. And Roddy showing up and turning into a real snake, threatening Rose and going after her daughter, but Rose not telling him off right away when Harry already knows she didn't have an affair with him, makes no sense whatsoever.
But I'm particularly angry about Agnes. She's my favorite character, the one I rooted for from the beginning, and I loved that she was tough and had that fierce determination to make something of herself, no matter what crap life threw at her. And I loved that she was kind, but still smart in realizing she had to take bold chances to get ahead in her career, because it's the only way for her to escape the oppression of both her father and poverty. While I loved the relationship between her and Henri, and definitely think they're much better suited for eachother than her and Victor (the oily little bounder!), I'm kind of disappointed that it got romantic so fast. Heaven knows Henri is kind and honest and gorgeous, and who the hell wouldn't want to be with him? But I just wished they'd had Agnes look out for her career more instead of getting all boy crazy. That line in the Palm Court with Victor just kills me; how she hadn't stayed longer the first time he invited her there because she was too shy. TOO SHY?! I think you mean TOO SMART. She knew that a poor shopgirl who lets any guy, let alone a smooth-talking waiter, put the moves on her all alone after hours is gonna get in trouble for it, one way or another, and then her career would be over, and she'd be doomed to scrubbing floors, or worse, the rest of her life. Agnes, being from some tenement in the East End, wouldn't be sheltered and unaware of how the world works. If she truly wanted to be something more in her life, she'd look out for herself first, and not risk her future for some guy. I can be a little bit more lenient in Henri's case, since he is her boss, it's not like he's going to fire her, and if someone else did find out and it got back to Mr. Selfridge, Harry and Henri are pals, and he could've surely got him to overlook it, or at least write Agnes a reference, so she wouldn't in all likelihood be totally screwed. But still, it seems to me like the implication, now that Henri has been written out of the show (NOOOO!!!) is that Agnes just needed to get laid so she'd loosen up, and now she can just confidently go have sex with as many men as she wants, which as we all know, is what really constitutes a mature, grown up woman! (GAG. ME. WITH. A. SPOON.)
In 1909, you had to choose between marriage and a career if you were a woman, and if you had affairs, you were gambling with your whole life, essentially. To say that a strong, intelligent, driven woman character like Agnes a) is too stupid to understand the way the world works or b) would rather have a man than a life she's buildt for herself on her own talents, frankly, just sucks. If in the next season, as I fear we will, we find Agnes either a) having affairs with Victor, Harry, or anybody and everybody else, or b) married to Victor, barefoot and pregnant in some tenement, scrubbing his floors and giving up her ambitions to support him, while he sleeps with every other woman on the planet to get ahead, I will then vomit my guts up, and never watch the show again. I HOPE to goodness Andrew Davies has some good sense in him and will put a little steel back into Agnes's resolve, but this is the man who gave us Wet T-shirt Darcy, so I'm not altogether sanguine.
Not to mention next season is set in 1914, and jumping ahead 5 years will make it really hard to reconcile all the changes that will surely come, but without us having seen them. I always hate it on a show when they create a situation at the end of one season, and the next season it's disappeared. It feels like such a cheat to say, 'oh, we resolved that while you were out!' then as a viewer you feel like, 'wait, but how?? It was such a big deal before, but now it's nothing? WTF?' I mean, Harry's wife left him and took the children away at the end of this season, but she's coming back next year, so they darn well better address how they reconciled, otherwise that's gonna leave a pretty big pothole full of unanswered questions about their relationship, and that as a viewer is something that's very important to know about characters if we're expected to understand and care about them. Once again, not sanguine here, either, but cautiously hopeful.
This started out as one of the best shows I've seen in years, and I think it can still be saved, and I'm really rooting for it to get good again, unlike Downton Abbey which I've kind of given up hope on. Still, it's a year away. I'll just have to put it out of my head till then. (And go watch The Borgias and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries! [And anything else Gregory Fitoussi has been in, because seriously, I miss my Henri! Why must they take him away from us, WHY?! *sobs*])
I was totally surprised by how immediately and how strongly I was hooked by this show, espcially having gone in with no expectations whatsoever. However, precisely because I was so drawn in by the strong writing and multi-faceted characters, I'm really a little let down by the season finale last Sunday.
I just feel that the last couple episodes dropped the ball entirely, and it degenerated from interesting, fresh drama to melodramatic soap opera. The first episodes were great because they focused on the store, and the ins and outs of the retail business in the 1900s at every level of the store, with a little of each character's personal life thrown in to give perspective from each rung on the ladder. I loved how we'd get to know everyone a little bit more each episode, so that even though in the first episode you sort of had everybody pegged as this or that type, then next episode you'd find out that was only the facade they were presenting to the world, and the reality was much more complicated, and more sympathetic for it:
You think Miss Mardle is just going to be the snippy, prim boss lady giving Agnes a hard time, but there she is, having this long term affair with a married man, and much more in love with him than he is with her, and too blinded by love to realize it till it's too late.
You think Henri is just going to be the snotty French artist, shallowly seducing all the ladies, but then you see that he's actually not so shallow, that he's a good judge of character who does care about other people, and that he doesn't actually approve of Harry's philandering with Ellen Love, because he knows how bad she'll be for Harry personally and professionally. (He saw through Ellen Love even before I did, I must admit!) I really did believe Ellen Love was the cool, confident, calculating courtesan she presented herself as in the beginning, but as it goes on we realize she's just acting a part, masking an insecure, small-town girl with Cinderella dreams and no understanding of the world or the position she's in.
Lady Mae I thought was just going to be nasty and haughty and adversarial throughout, but she has a good side too, and her motivations are more complex, being a smart woman trying to achieve some of kind of power in a man's world; she manipulates, yes, but women had little else available to them in an era when they couldn't even vote or hold most jobs, and she's aware of that disadvantage, and is actively trying to level that playing field not just for herself, but for women in general though her suffragette activities, even as she can't resist engaging in private power games with young men in her boudoir.
Even snotty, obnoxious little shopgirl Kitty isn't really so bad once you get to know her, or at least, once you see her through her nicer best friend Doris's eyes. Even meek accountant Mr. Crabbe had his unexpected moment when, inspired by Harry Selfridge's infectious ideals, he overcame his caution and took the initiative to save the store (or at the least, saved it's windows!)
All that was really super great, but in the last couple episodes, it started to ignore the store and any other aspect of the characters lives in favor of (mostly bad) romances.
The revolving door of hookups and breakups just became too fast for me, and I sort of started disengaging emotionally, because it was really crappy to get to like all these characters and care about them, and then all the sudden, BAM! The women are all stupid idiots and the men are all dishonest weasels! I mean, really? All the relationships are suddenly DRAMA CITY. EVERYBODY is either hookin' up or breakin' up with some other character! One or two illicit affairs in a show at one time is one thing, but this is like, literally EVERY CHARACTER! People just didn't have affairs THAT MUCH in the bloody 1900s. Heck, I don't even think people do now, and now it's not even taboo like it was then. Andrew Davies is known for sexin' up the Classics, but he's just running wild now he's got an original series!
Miss Mardle and Mr. Grove's tragic end we saw coming a mile away, but poor little Doris getting snared by him too! Nooo! I figured Victor would cotton to the fact that Lady Mae was just toying with him eventually, but I don't think that makes him any smarter, or any less of a little man-whore than if he'd stayed with her. And Roddy showing up and turning into a real snake, threatening Rose and going after her daughter, but Rose not telling him off right away when Harry already knows she didn't have an affair with him, makes no sense whatsoever.
But I'm particularly angry about Agnes. She's my favorite character, the one I rooted for from the beginning, and I loved that she was tough and had that fierce determination to make something of herself, no matter what crap life threw at her. And I loved that she was kind, but still smart in realizing she had to take bold chances to get ahead in her career, because it's the only way for her to escape the oppression of both her father and poverty. While I loved the relationship between her and Henri, and definitely think they're much better suited for eachother than her and Victor (the oily little bounder!), I'm kind of disappointed that it got romantic so fast. Heaven knows Henri is kind and honest and gorgeous, and who the hell wouldn't want to be with him? But I just wished they'd had Agnes look out for her career more instead of getting all boy crazy. That line in the Palm Court with Victor just kills me; how she hadn't stayed longer the first time he invited her there because she was too shy. TOO SHY?! I think you mean TOO SMART. She knew that a poor shopgirl who lets any guy, let alone a smooth-talking waiter, put the moves on her all alone after hours is gonna get in trouble for it, one way or another, and then her career would be over, and she'd be doomed to scrubbing floors, or worse, the rest of her life. Agnes, being from some tenement in the East End, wouldn't be sheltered and unaware of how the world works. If she truly wanted to be something more in her life, she'd look out for herself first, and not risk her future for some guy. I can be a little bit more lenient in Henri's case, since he is her boss, it's not like he's going to fire her, and if someone else did find out and it got back to Mr. Selfridge, Harry and Henri are pals, and he could've surely got him to overlook it, or at least write Agnes a reference, so she wouldn't in all likelihood be totally screwed. But still, it seems to me like the implication, now that Henri has been written out of the show (NOOOO!!!) is that Agnes just needed to get laid so she'd loosen up, and now she can just confidently go have sex with as many men as she wants, which as we all know, is what really constitutes a mature, grown up woman! (GAG. ME. WITH. A. SPOON.)
In 1909, you had to choose between marriage and a career if you were a woman, and if you had affairs, you were gambling with your whole life, essentially. To say that a strong, intelligent, driven woman character like Agnes a) is too stupid to understand the way the world works or b) would rather have a man than a life she's buildt for herself on her own talents, frankly, just sucks. If in the next season, as I fear we will, we find Agnes either a) having affairs with Victor, Harry, or anybody and everybody else, or b) married to Victor, barefoot and pregnant in some tenement, scrubbing his floors and giving up her ambitions to support him, while he sleeps with every other woman on the planet to get ahead, I will then vomit my guts up, and never watch the show again. I HOPE to goodness Andrew Davies has some good sense in him and will put a little steel back into Agnes's resolve, but this is the man who gave us Wet T-shirt Darcy, so I'm not altogether sanguine.
Not to mention next season is set in 1914, and jumping ahead 5 years will make it really hard to reconcile all the changes that will surely come, but without us having seen them. I always hate it on a show when they create a situation at the end of one season, and the next season it's disappeared. It feels like such a cheat to say, 'oh, we resolved that while you were out!' then as a viewer you feel like, 'wait, but how?? It was such a big deal before, but now it's nothing? WTF?' I mean, Harry's wife left him and took the children away at the end of this season, but she's coming back next year, so they darn well better address how they reconciled, otherwise that's gonna leave a pretty big pothole full of unanswered questions about their relationship, and that as a viewer is something that's very important to know about characters if we're expected to understand and care about them. Once again, not sanguine here, either, but cautiously hopeful.
This started out as one of the best shows I've seen in years, and I think it can still be saved, and I'm really rooting for it to get good again, unlike Downton Abbey which I've kind of given up hope on. Still, it's a year away. I'll just have to put it out of my head till then. (And go watch The Borgias and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries! [And anything else Gregory Fitoussi has been in, because seriously, I miss my Henri! Why must they take him away from us, WHY?! *sobs*])