Am I jaded? With television, that is.

[mariness]

So last night, PBS finally got around to broadcasting the episode of Downton Abbey with The Scene.

If you've been keeping up with season four of Downton Abbey at all (and I'll understand if you haven't), you probably heard about this scene months ago since for various not very good reasons Downton Abbey is broadcast months earlier over in Britain

Comments

[haikujaguar]

*reads this and is confused, probably because she downloaded the entire season from the internet when it originally aired and is way far ahead in the timeline and can't remember anything that might be 'a scene.'*

[mariness]

It's the scene with Anna and Lord Whatever's valet while the opera singer is singing. It lit up my Twitter feed a few months back and was/is apparently very controversial.

(I'm trying to be somewhat spoiler free here; I guess in retrospect I should have been more specific and put it under a spoiler cut.)

[haikujaguar]

Oh! That. I found the whole plotline in poor taste, but the actual filming of it rather low-key, to be honest.

[mariness]

Yeah, but apparently others found it incredibly shocking and awful and very violent, which.....not so much?

I didn't like the leadup to the scene at all since it seemed to be heading to victim blaming/listen when a guy warns you, and I didn't like the aftermath at all, and I agree it was all in poor taste, but "low key" is otherwise correct.

[mariness]

My irritation with the coming out scene is that the number of wesen on the show is now reaching ridiculous levels. It's not just that either the victims or the murderers or both are wesen in nearly every episode, but now Juliet's best friend just happens to be a wesen

[loucheroo]

Yeah no. I get that it was tame in the grand scheme of television. I don't watch those sorts of scenes on television. And if I do, I am destroyed for days. This one was maybe not quite that bad. But because of who it was and what the implications will be down the line? It hit me just as hard.

I hated that episode. This is one of my favorite shows, but I hated that episode. Yes, I liked the part with Edith's beau. And the Mary stuff made me happy. But i despised that episode. just no. seriously Fellowes? WTF? After the story line with those particular characters over the last season or two? REALLY? Pissed me off even more than Thomas's continued existence.

[mariness]

Oh, I am definitely not ranking this episode among one of Downton Abbey's better efforts. That scene aside, which I thought was in poor taste, I was annoyed by several other parts of it -- Moseley's entire storyline, the way the Dowager Countess was the only one to realize hey, Tom could be feeling uncomfortable here, the way Lord Grantham has descended into such a clueless, rude and condescending idiot, the Tom/Edna stuff....I could go on.

My point wasn't that this was a great episode, just that I didn't find this scene as shocking as Brit friends said it was, and I was wondering how much of my response was molded from watching other shows. I may not have made that quite clear.

[loucheroo]

I got that, but to me it was still shocking. but again, i don't watch that kind of stuff so i haven't been inured to it.

[mariness]

Yep, that's why I was wondering about me.

Scandal had a similar sort of scene earlier this season, played entirely for shock value -- it was really irritating -- and even then I was thinking, you know, this is just irritating, not shocking, though it was sorta shocking to see on Scandal, I guess. But mostly irritating.

On a related note if you don't want to watch this kind of stuff definitely avoid season three of Scandal.