Yeah, I know it’s Tuesday, but I was watching the Patriots get clobbered Sunday night and only just got around to watching the latest “Downton Abbey” episode. I’m not sure why I like this show so much, but I think part of the appeal is the furry bum of Sir Robert’s yellow lab in the opening sequence:
Thanks to some jackass in one of John’s earlier “Downton Abbey” threads, I know way more about the fate of some of the main characters than I would like (kindly feast on a bag of kipper-flavored dicks, spoilers!). But the program is still compelling, even if it is merely a soap opera with better production values, above-average acting and interesting period costumes.
I doubt writer / executive producer Julian Fellowes reads Balloon Juice, but just in case, here are some ideas: Lady Edith should run off with the tall ginger footman and found a publishing empire. Mrs. Hughes needs to sneak into Carson’s quarters and make him a Cheerful Charlie. Anna should send Bates a cake with a goddamned file in it already. O’Brien and Thomas the Valet should grapple on the tallest Downton spire and fling one another off simultaneously.
Lady Mary and Matthew should hiss recriminations at one another until both are transformed into gooey puddles of self-righteousness and self-regard. Tom and Lady Sybil should return to Dublin, open a pub and become patrons to James Joyce.
Sir Robert and Lady Cora should accidentally get locked in the wine cellar, consume massive amounts of port and hurl drunken, scathing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”-style verbal abuse at each other. The Dowager Countess should not change a bit.
Please consider this an open thread.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Particularly given that Fellowes is a Tory (Conservative) Life Peer.
.
Butch
Until just last week I thought the name of the show was “Downtown” Abbey. I never have seen it….
scav
ahhh, silliness unrelated to abbeys, although could be served for tea on a silver tray I would imagine for sticklers? Whey too hot: cheese fire closes Norwegian road tunnel.
mai naem
Another day in America. Another educational setting shooting. Where’s Rick Perry? Also too, I hate Clint Van Zant. What the hell is Lone Star College? Never heard of it. Is it one of those ripoff private schools where you become a Studio Engineer for $35K?
bemused
Love your ideas Betty…Cheerful Charlie.
JGabriel
Butch:
The thrilling adventures of punk monks and sisters in downtown London, granting communion by day, chasing demons and criminals by night!
.
Xecky Gilchrist
kindly feast on a bag of kipper-flavored dicks, spoilers!
Yeah, this site is not a good place to avoid spoilage, even in threads that have nothing to do with whatever it is you’re trying to avoid spoilage of.
zOMG GOLD MEDAL BY GABBY DOUGLAS!!!!1!111
was my favorite so far.
Emma
Shootout at a college library in Texas.
The Dangerman
It’s not Downtown? Never noticed it previously. Never watched it, either.
My present British episodic is “Midsomer Murders”. I don’t know if Midsomer is an actual area, but, if it is, I’m never vacationing there. People die there at an astonishing rate (I thought hanging near the Murder She Wrote gal would get you killed, but it’s kinda nothing compared to Midsomer).
John O
Looks like the NRA’s dream came true today. Settling those disputes with firearms!
However, it is too soon to talk about gun safety.
The prophet Nostradumbass
If you want to see something funny, check out this (fake) RTE news report.
raven
We just watched the Forsyte Saga and it was quite good. The dude from Homeland is one of the leads.
Calouste
@JGabriel:
There’s no such thing as downtown London. It’s called central London.
scav
@The Dangerman: Cozy villages in England. If it’s not death by a brass letter opener from Benares hidden in a tea cosy, it’s an alien invasion.
SatanicPanic
@John O: That’s the way the founders intended.
rdldot
@mai naem: Lone Star College is a community college. I went there years ago. This is a couple of miles from where I volunteer at a county park. The local news is reporting that 2 people argued, both shot each other, and another person had a heart attack (collateral damage on the heart attack, I guess). Probably more guns would have solved this, somehow.
Emma
@The Dangerman: It’s an actual area but not called Midsomer Visit Midsomer.
I’m addicted to it.
Nicole
Between Shawn of the Dead, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey and now The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Penelope Wilton has become one of my favorite British actors. I just saw “Marigold.” I effing HATE feel good movies, so imagine my surprise when, while watching it, I found myself feeling good.
arguingwithsignposts
At one point, I believe alienemoji Martin mentioned how to get the emoji symbol in his nym to show up on a Mac. Does anyone know how to do that? Martin, if you’re reading, a font I could install?
kthkbai
Brachiator
@Butch:
That’s the American remake.
@The Dangerman:
Fictional(and apparently racially pure) county, with a murder rate higher than that of London.
One of the producers of the show got into a spot of trouble for bragging that “racial diversity in the programme was non-existent because the series was a ‘bastion of Englishness’.”
Emma
@Brachiator: I think he meant to say “a bastion of perversity.” The FIRST episode covers all the major sins in one swoop.
Southern Beale
Okay I can’t read this thread because we have only seen the first ep of this season so far. Mr. Beale and I finally capitulated and caught up on the past two seasons over the past few weeks. So we’re still behind.
That said, I think Downton Abbey is the WORST trash. Awful trash. Guilty pleasure, delightful trash, but it is trash. Alistaire Cook must be tossing in his grave. Am I the only one who remembers Upstairs Downstairs from back in the ’70s? Downton Abbey is like Upstairs Downstairs for the trailer park set. It’s every tabloid headline of the past 15 years set in Edwardian England. It’s like Days of Our Lives with English accents.
Honestly, I’m shocked it’s winning awards and everything. I keep waiting for the story line where aliens from outer space arrive. Or, wait — do we have a drug addiction storyline yet? Maybe that one is next.
Anyway, it’s trash but it appears we are hooked. Sigh.
Amir Khalid
I don’t know a thing about this Downto(w)n Abbey. My pressing concern is that for some reason, I have gone to see the Les Miz movie six times already in less than a month. I’m reading the book. I listen constantly to the soundtrack album. I’m afraid I might be getting addicted.
trollhattan
@rdldot:
“An armed society is a polite society.”
Bookmark it, libs!
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/22/5132645/texas-campus-issues-alert-amid.html#storylink=cpy
trollhattan
@Southern Beale:
Since we’re talking Brits here, might could you perhaps reword that a wee bit, lest I have bad dreams about what Zombie mister Cook might be up to? thx!
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Haven’t seen it yet, but yeah, if you’ve seen it six times in less than a month, you might be a bit addicted. :-)
SatanicPanic
@trollhattan: Guns will bring peace to our society right around the time the Free Market will bring affordable healthcare to everyone.
Mandalay
This should be really good. The fainting couches are being wheeled into the House, and the Villagers are already clutching their pearls….
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/278591-reid-to-goip-36-hours-for-filibuster-deal-or-nuclear-option
Let the poutrage begin.
? Martin
@arguingwithsignposts:
If you’re using Safari, it should Just Work™. Chrome and Firefox don’t appear to use the built-in fonts, so they usually require a plug-in or some such.
Here’s some more info and fun with emoji.
gogol's wife
@bemused:
That’s a subtle reference to Carson’s vaudeville career.
Great post!
FlipYrWhig
@trollhattan: That saying, “an armed society is a polite society,” is it supposed to mean that no one dares to be rude if they risk getting shot? Or is it “polite” in the throwback sense of “sophisticated,” like “Downton Abbey’s parlor is a place for polite conversation”?
gogol's wife
@Nicole:
I love her! My husband can’t stand her as Isobel, but I think he’s just confusing the actress with the character. She’s very subtle and interesting.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
My favorite “cozy village with a secret” movie is Hot Fuzz, followed by Village of the Damned.
Hot Fuzz is on the gruesome side when it comes to showing the results of the “cozy” murders, so be warned.
elmo
So, a repeat of Season One?
tamied
@Mandalay: Yeah Harry Reid!! Does it seems like some balls were grown since the last election?
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
I think what’s habit-forming for me is the sound of other people crying in the audience. (So I know it’s not just me.) I never saw it on stage; that would have meant a trip to Singapore when it was playing there, at a time when I was heartily sick of flying down there almost every week.
You don’t want to know how many times I saw the Disney Beauty and The Beast at the movies. I couldn’t tell you myself, because I lost count.
The Dangerman
@SatanicPanic:
Well, to be “fair”, the Free Market would bring affordable health insurance to everyone; it wouldn’t be QUALITY health insurance, of course.
Did anyone else notice that Mickelson decided not to go Galt over taxes, disappointing the Tea Party, no doubt?
Maude
@Amir Khalid:
I used to do that with some music. Enjoy the phase. One day you’ll be tired of it.
@trollhattan:
Thanks for the article. How awful.
The students must be scared out of their minds.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@trollhattan:
If only Texas allowed conceal carry….
elmo
@Amir Khalid:
Oh dear. You are in trouble.
Actually I might have done the same thing myself – it was that good – but the timing is rotten. My Dad died unexpectedly on December 14 (my birthday, natch), so the final scene left me literally sobbing quietly in the theater. I had to sit through the credits, which I never do, to regain my composure.
trollhattan
All together now: “GOOD dog!”
http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2013/01/north-highlands-dog-helps-humans-rescue-buddy-down-the-canal.html#storylink=cpy
shortstop
Lautenberg deserves to lose reelection just for this. WTF is with all these old white men comparing younger black male politicians to unruly or disrespectful children? Is this 2013 in Jersey or 1955 in Mississippi? And all because Booker might dare to run against him?
bemused
@gogol’s wife:
Ah, didn’t know his background. Well done.
? Martin
@The Dangerman:
I suspect someone at the PGA rang him up on that. Golf is already the elitist asshole sport without the players running an elitist asshole ad campaign.
Andrew Pulrang
I love Downton Abbey, but it is about as transparent a love letter to conservative ideas as could be imagined on prime time TV. Not Tea Party-style conservatism, but the real, deep foundational mindset of conservatism. The fear of change. The innate, almost unconscious worship of aristocracy. And especially, the disdain held for anyone who tries to change things or help people. On Downton, the liberals and revolutionaries aren’t so much depicted as being wrong, they’re annoying, naive, and laughable. For example: Mrs. Crawley the ham-fisted do-gooder, Sybil the privileged girl slumming with the proles, and of course, the prole himself, Branson, who’s on the right side, but is a bore and an idiot. It might qualify as the most conservative fictional show on TV.
SatanicPanic
@The Dangerman: I did notice. And he also said that’s why he won’t be part of my Padres’ ownership. GOOD.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
“The Wicker Man” (original version with Christopher Lee).
The stuff of nightmares, that.
danielx
it is 18 degrees outside and the cats don’t want to get within three feet of any door for fear the cold monster will get them. I share their sentiments.
? Martin
@mai naem:
Community college. The gun nuts are already blaming it on the blahs.
Remember kids: white people with guns are patriots, black people with guns are gang members.
shortstop
@danielx: 18?! Here in Chicago, we’re DREAMING of the day we’ll see 18 again!
Mandalay
@tamied:
I think it’s more the case that some assholes are now going to get their balls shrunk. McConnell is on the top of that list.
Linda Featheringill
The butler did it.
bemused
@Andrew Pulrang:
Stuart Varney of Fox said Downton Abbey is a threat to liberals because the rich Crowley’s are nice and create jobs!
Betty Cracker
@Andrew Pulrang:
I hadn’t noticed that about him, but I will say this: He ain’t hard to look at. Which explains why I hadn’t noticed that about him…
? Martin
@shortstop: Thankfully in SoCal our long regional sub-80 degree nightmare is over. There was a very lovely young lady in a bikini riding a skateboard in front of me at lunch. That never gets old.
hitchhiker
I don’t post spoilers, ever, but I love them — kind of depend on them.
I read the last few pages of novels as soon as I realize I care enough to finish. I look up the plot synopses of movies before I go, and yeah, I looked online and read all of what happens in season 3 of DA.
My kids & spouse find this crazy and I know most people agree with ’em, but for me the thing is just way more enjoyable if I’m tracking its path toward a known ending than if I’m trying to guess where it’s going.
I think DA is addicting because for every single character, the dilemma is the same — the world you’ve prepared for all your life is being taken away and replaced by one that you might or might not know what to do with. Also, the whole idea of a family being coddled in that ridiculous way (these people literally did not dress themselves?!) and everybody (except the Irish!) acting like it’s perfectly cool is just mind-boggling. And interesting, politically . . . it wasn’t that long ago.
And I think you ought to get in touch with Mr. Fellowes, Betty. He’s got nothin’ on you for plotlines.
Comrade Mary
Betty, that has to be the single filthiest thing you have ever — oh. You said “fling”, not “toss”. (Still, the grappling? The tallest spire? God knows it’s not my filthy mind reading in things that were not written.)
dms
@The Dangerman: My thoughts exactly regarding that lovely hamlet Midsomer. More murders per capita than any place I’ve ever seen.
Calouste
@Brachiator:
It’s not that fictional that the county is almost exclusively white. Minorities are mostly living in the cities (as that is where recent immigrants tend to end up) in the UK and rural countries like for example Somerset are 98-99% white.
That of course doesn’t excuse the producer’s comment.
Amir Khalid
@elmo:
Sorry about your dad. My mother was watching an old movie on TV one night in 1983, about a month after my dad passed away. There’s a song in that movie about bereavement, sung by the main character who’d just lost his wife. My mother had a reaction much like yours.
Omnes Omnibus
@Andrew Pulrang: IMO the most insufferable people on the show are Matthew and Mary. He is a self- righteous prig and she, while less of a prig, is just as self- righteous.
trollhattan
@shortstop:
If ever a thread was made for The Four Yorkshiremen, this one is it.
“Eighteen degrees? Sheer luxury!! Why, in my day….”
? Martin
More good news from SoCal!
If this works as hoped, it’ll be a watershed moment for the NFL – one way or another.
rdldot
@Maude: It’s all over now. They got both shooters.
Maude
@rdldot:
Thank you.
FlipYrWhig
@Andrew Pulrang: Is it a love letter to conservative ideas, or does it put conservative ideas into conflict with a changing world so that we can enjoy watching them squirm? Because I’m a latecomer to the show, but it seems to me that any time anyone starts saying effusive things about How Important Is Downton, we the audience are supposed to be rolling our eyes at them. There’s something significant to the point of obvious about the family losing its fortune in a railway investment gone sour. They tried to own a piece of the future and got squashed.
elmo
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks. It was just the line, “Forbid me now to die,” and I absolutely lost it.
Butch
@danielx: It was minus 14 this morning and has crept up to minus 3 here in the Upper Peninsula. I brought in three cords of wood over the weekend, and the wood stove is keeping us and the four dogs and seven kitties warm and cozy. Chickens wisely are refusing to come out of their coop.
schrodinger's cat
Dogbum Abbey, I thought it was Meowton Tabby.
rdldot
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you thank you thank you. I feel the same way. Those two drive me nuts. My favorite characters are Matthew’s mother and, oddly enough, Edith.
hitchhiker
@Butch:
Spent my young years in Gladstone, Duluth, Marquette, Traverse City, and Houghton, in that order. Once left our wood-heated house empty in Houghton for a week and came back to find the water in the toilets had frozen solid. Oh, my.
Now I live in Seattle, where if it’s under 40 (like today), you think you’re cold.
schrodinger's cat
I have only seen the British version of the first season. What is O Brien’s problem, why is she such a sour puss?
Grumpy Code Monkey
Lord Grantham, if you please. Dude’s an Earl, not a knight or baronet.
And yes, that lab is gorgeous.
Hugh Bonneville was on “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me” several weeks ago and laughed about his name being displayed above a dog’s ass.
tavella
I thought season 1 had occasional moments, but not enough to make up for the soap opera level plotting (she slips on a conveniently placed bar of soap and has a miscarriage? reaaaally?), stereotypes (of course the one signficant gay character is a scheming evil footman, shesh), and predictability (of course WWI is announced by telegram at a sunny garden party.) Also, I simply didn’t care one whit whether a bunch of overprivileged meatheads got to keep their big shiny house, and the show wasn’t particularly interested in the things I *did* care about (ie, I’d much rather read the adventures of the young redheaded maid in her new job in London than anyone left at Downton.)
Once I read some more about Fellowes, I was extremely glad I had bailed on it when I did.
Linnaeus
Julian Fellowes is the writer/producer? Ah, no wonder Downton Abbey sounds so much like Gosford Park.
NotMax
Haven’t watched any of D.A.
Gave up on Upstairs, Downstairs way back when when concluded it took more energy to try to care about anyone in the series than it was worth.
However, really liked The Manor House (originally The Edwardian Country House), which dropped modern-day folk (not professional actors) into a variety of roles in a recreated 1905 veddy, veddy British household.
rdldot
@tavella: We really just watch it for the clothes, I think.
Andrew Pulrang
@Betty Cracker: I may have been stretching things a little with Branson, but yes, it seems to me we are meant to think he is a “good guy” in terms of history, but way too earnest, humorless, judgmental, and, recently, possibly a coward. Likewise, Mrs. Crawley has the right ideas, but is awfully superior about it and kind of a “lady bountiful”, which is a venerable old dis that conservatives have always had about “do gooders”.
Gindy51
@raven: I have not seen the 2002 version, just the ancient original version. It was the first time on TV a rape scene was filmed, let alone hinted at. Amazing stuff for back then.
http://www.ceejbot.com/EricPorter/Forsyte/
Here’s a link to the 2002 version:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0260615/
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@Mnemosyne: I like Hot Fuzz, but on that theme (small British Isles town with a secret) but much less gory Waking Ned Divine is pretty hilarious.
lojasmo
@hitchhiker:
I grew up in Duluth. Lived in a wood heated log home WITHOUT running water from 1970-1980.
Outhouses suck in Duluth winters.
Andrew Pulrang
@FlipYrWhig: You can read it that way, and it works if you do. That’s part of what makes J. Fellows something a bit more sophisticated than just a propagandist or a hack. All of his characters have layers, and in that sense he is modern. I think Fellows is saying something like, “Of course, they’re right … progress is right, and Lord Grantham is wrong. But it’s just a damned shame because Lord Grantham’s aristocracy, while wrong, is more fun, more dignified, and more compassionate.” Notice that the liberals on the show aren’t very forgiving or considerate of other peoples’ feelings. A nice subtle swipe at liberalism in general. He doesn’t disparage liberalism’s concrete changes, and he notes conservatism’s fatal flaws, but he still prefers old fashioned ways in the end. Reminds me of David Brooks.
Raven
@Gindy51: Ah, I’ve seen it on netflix. Maybe after we watch the original Little Dorrit. We also started “The Story of Film“:An Odyssey
srv
The Netflix/David Freaking Fincher re-imagining of the BBC House of Cards with KEVIN FREAKING SPACEY premiers on February 1st.
What you need to do it put your Downton Abbey port wine down and go watch the original politco-pyscho-thriller House of Cards on Netflix.
Otherwise, you will look like silly n00bs in two weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULwUzF1q5w4
Andrew Pulrang
@schrodinger’s cat: Hard to say. Class resentment? Early on O’Brien was kind of one-dimentional, and to Julian Fellowes’ credit, she gets a little more complex and a little less mean … though devious seems to be her default setting.
Betty Cracker
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ): I love Waking Ned Devine. The scene with that naked old coot on the motorbike is screamingly funny.
PurpleGirl
@mai naem: No, it’s a publicly-funded community college system serving the greater Houston area.
Betty Cracker
@Andrew Pulrang: I like when Daisy says, “I wouldn’t be in her bad books for a gold clock!”
elmo
@hitchhiker:
I lived at 8000 feet in the Eastern Sierra for eight years. Two of those years were spent in an old two-story ski chalet with ground-to-roof windows on two sides, taking in the incredible view of the ski area.
Only one problem: the windows were single-pane, and there was no central heat in the house. Just the woodstove.
Most of the winter, we had to put fragile produce like tomatoes and bananas in the refrigerator overnight to keep it from freezing on the kitchen counter. Every morning we’d check the dogs’ water dish in the kitchen, and knock the ice out.
Still, I loved that house.
Brachiator
@raven:
RE: We just watched the Forsyte Saga and it was quite good. The dude from Homeland is one of the leads.
I had a little trouble accepting Damian Lewis in Homeland and the NBC show Life because his Soames Forsyte was so despicable.
@Calouste:
The thing is, that this is still a crock of crap. The “English” are more mixed than they often admit. There probably is no such thing as a 98-99% white Englishman (and this is even more true of Englishwomen).
Andrew Pulrang
The one true, unequivocal villain so far is Thomas, the GAY footman. Not that even he is without his reasons, but he’s got the fewest excuses of any of them for his behavior and general nastiness. Lots of the others do more damage than Thomas, but with them it’s almost always thoughtless damage … Thomas means it.
gogol's wife
@Andrew Pulrang:
That sounds right to me. But they’re being a little hard on Lord Grantham lately. In the first season he could do no wrong, but now he’s making bad investments and mismanaging the estate, etc., not to mention his ridiculous near-fling with a housemaid last season. I don’t think he’s coming off so much better than Branson.
Raven
@Brachiator: I hear ya. Homeland is too$$ but we bought Life and are enjoying it.
Meanwhile Fooking Shameless is amazing!
Andrew Pulrang
@Betty Cracker: Daisy may be the best person overall on the entire estate. I’m anxious to see if she goes ahead and takes little steps towards some kind of liberation, or will she remember her place in the and crawl back chastened.
schrodinger's cat
@Andrew Pulrang: Also we must remember that the aristocracy and its riches were dependent on sucking places like India, that were a part of the Empire, dry. Also famines and droughts where millions died is also a part of the legacy of the Raj. It is pretty telling that the parts of the Indian subcontinent where the British ruled the longest are its poorest parts. Case in point, Bangladesh.
gogol's wife
And thanks to Betty for featuring Isis’ butt. Every week we cheer, “Isis’ butt!”
rdldot
@gogol’s wife: He strikes me as just clueless as to what is going on around him, but basically good-hearted. But isn’t he kind of in a constant state of WTF?
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Wasn’t he in the Band of Brothers too, I think his character was called Dick Winters or something similar.
FlipYrWhig
@Andrew Pulrang: I’ll watch for compassion and its absence going forward. But I hadn’t (yet?) gotten a Gone With the Wind feeling about the lamentable passing of The Old Ways. To the contrary, it was more of a head-shaking, raised-eyebrow feeling that the dinosaurs probably didn’t know they were going extinct until it was too late either.
schrodinger's cat
@rdldot: He is Bertie Wooster all growed up!
Raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Yep, he was excellent.
Butch
@hitchhiker: Traverse City would be the farthest; we’re about 30 miles west of Escanaba. It’s really the first cold weather we’ve had this winter.
gogol's wife
@rdldot:
Yes, but somehow he seemed wiser and more with-it in Season 1. I guess that’s supposed to be because he can’t deal with his world changing, but it seems unbelievable to me. The first clue was when he was so offended that he wasn’t going to be sent to the front in WWI. That seemed a little foolish for someone who’d already served in the Boer War.
Brent
@FlipYrWhig:
The latter would be my assessment for sure. It is even made quite explicit at one point that in the context of their time, the only use for Downton is as a job creator. But that that time is quickly passing and really for the better. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I would argue that is very much an underlying theme throughout the series.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
All I heard was “blah blah Ginger blah blah blah.
gelfling545
@JGabriel: Hmm. Sounds like it could be an interesting concept. Sort of a Buffy in clerical garb.
FlipYrWhig
@Andrew Pulrang: Yes, I’m curious about that arc too.
FlipYrWhig
@Brent:
Yes, I caught that, at many points actually, and my reaction was, “Wow, what bullshit!” Which tends to lead me to believe that that’s the way the show’s creators want you to react: maintaining a house full of servants, even cheeky and spunky ones, is a dopey and outmoded economic model bound for total failure.
Andrew Pulrang
@FlipYrWhig: Re: “that Gone With The Wind feeling”, you may be right! Also, it’s possible Fellows isn’t fully cognizant of his own biases as he writes the show. He may think if himself as much more progressive and modern than he really is, and unaware of how his underlying conservatism seeps into every corner and crevice of his story and characters.
shortstop
@rdldot: Don’t make us sound so shallow! We also love the sets.
Haven’t yet seen any of season three (tonight, though) because have been in a land of no TV for several weeks. They best have pumped out some better scripts than they did in season two. The writing was so bad it kept distracting me from my avid examination of war crinolines and swallowtails.
Andrew Pulrang
I’ve heard several commentators saying that Lord Grantham is writer Julian Fellowes’ “Mary Sue”, which I just recently learned is a character that embodies the writer, often unconsciously.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
“Might be” getting addicted? That ship has sailed.
shortstop
@gogol’s wife: It’s such a friendly butt, gently wagging in a way that’s dear to every dog lover’s heart.
Omnes Omnibus
@rdldot: There is a certain Lord Emsworth quality about him.
schrodinger's cat
This Downton Abbey UK thread on TWOP makes interesting reading, the UK viewers, don’t seem to watch DA with the rose-tinted glasses, their cousins across the pond do.
Calouste
@Brachiator:
The English are white, just not “single origin” so to speak. It’s a mixture of Picts, Celts, Angles, Saxons, Romans, Normans, Vikings, French, Flemish and probably a few other bits here and there from Europe. (Recent genetic research suggests that most Welsh people aren’t actually Celts, but from a people that lived in Britain before the Celts invaded, and adapted Celtish language and culture.)
Non-white, non-European immigration into the UK only started in significant numbers in the 1950’s and hasn’t had that much time yet (2-3 generations) to mingle their genes with the population that was already there.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: No one’s more thoughtlessly deferential to British aristocracy than a certain kind of Yank.
Brachiator
@Andrew Pulrang:
There was also the maid who wanted to be a secretary, a modern woman for the time.
I agree that Daisy’s growth, and the relationship with her dead husband’s father, is nicely depicted on the show.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Another show to put on my “must watch” list. And I think you are right that he was on the show.
More complicated than that. And modern Bangladesh broke away from the old West Pakistan because they were being squeezed and exploited by that government.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: I am aware of how Bangladesh came into being. West Bengal and Bihar are among the poorest regions in India. British first gained a foot hold in India when they won the battle of Plassey in 1757. I could have just as easily used West Bengal which is a part of India to make my point.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: The world of 1912ish was his world. The world in the subsequent seasons is less and less so. Also service in Boer War would not have really informed him of the horrors of WWI.
shortstop
@gogol’s wife: It might have been unrealistic; it wasn’t at all atypical for men of his age to be offended at not being called up for active service, though. The same thing was true in the Britain of 1939-40: WWI vets expecting to go again and bristling at being given desk jobs or being put in the Home Guard. It was a different phenomenon than we saw in the U.S.
shortstop
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I am so proud that I didn’t have to click the link to get that reference.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
The original Britons and other prehistoric people that inhabited Britain may not be “white” in the sense that most people think. And the British have been mixed with African and Spanish peoples (among others) from the time of the Romans. The Scandavian parts of Britain is more genetically diverse (usually through the matrilineal line) than most people assume.
There have been African and other admixtures as well, even a little Native American, from the 1500s and 1600s, along with some Spanish and Portuguese, at least, among others.
Just not true.
There is more Asian admixture, from the 19th century onwards, maybe earlier, than people would like to admit.
BTW, Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon has a character who is is a mulatto heiress from the West Indies. I wonder if this was inspired by an actual person.
There is some speculation that Queen Charlotte, wife of the English King George III (1738-1820), was directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House. Other royals have black ancestry through their Russian connection (the Alexander Pushkin thing).
Similarly, there is an interesting African, and African American connection to France. Quite a few Lousiana whites of French ancestry sent the children they had with their black mistresses to live in France in the 19th century, to get a better future than they would have had in America. A number of these people’s descendants became “white.”
There was an issue of BBC History Magazine and the related podcast that touched on these issues not too long ago.
Jon
Kipper flavored dicks are my favorite. I suppose I would only get shit flavored ones if I told you who shot J.R. too? What happened to at least one of the main characters made the front page in all of the American entertainment news. You knew that already.
What I’m telling you is that you’re going to be sorry you watched that far in. The show is trolling its viewers. You just think the Anna/Bates storyline is a waste of time. Wait till you realize which one is the real trolling. Sigh.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, and the Marathas ravished Bangladesh as well.
This does not excuse British imperialism, but exploitation of the region did not begin with them.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
I think you’re vastly underestimating how much mixing there was during the empire years in India. I can think of at least two classic Hollywood Brits who were part Indian: Merle Oberon and Boris Karloff.
hitchhiker
@Butch:
Are we cousins? Everybody up there named Gafner is related to me. :) SO COLD, but there’s still nothing anywhere as lovely as a long summer day at Lake Michigan.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: I don’t know what your point is. This is a pretty strange tangent to go off on.
Besides according to your block quote the Marathas held Bengal and Bihar for 9 years compared to almost two hundred years of British rule. There simply is no comparison.
SiubhanDuinne
@Nicole: THANK you! I knew I had seen her, and knew I knew her name, but hadn’t made the “Marigold Hotel” connection. She is a wonderful actor.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
I know, right? It’s great!
SiubhanDuinne
@tamied:
Read that as “some balls were gown” and wondered why we hadn’t discussed this to death in the FLOTUS fashion thread.
SiubhanDuinne
I am going to write to Sir Julian Fellowes and suggest that he write cameos for Betty Cracker, Sarah P&T, and ABL for Season Four. Foils for the Dowager Countess if Shirley MacLaine is otherwise engaged.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s pretty simple. Your assertion that “the parts of the Indian subcontinent where the British ruled the longest are its poorest parts” is provocative, but I don’t think it is entirely supported by the facts, and ignores the impact of other conquerors, including the Mughals and the Marathas, not to mention the modern history of Bangladesh.
Speaking of tangents, did you see and have any opinion on the mini-series The Jewel in the Crown?
Also, are there significant differences between the US and UK versions of Downton Abbey?
Tehanu
I couldn’t watch the 2002 Forsyte Saga — memories of the original were too strong (Eric Porter!!!!! Margaret Tyzack! Susan Hampshire!) On the other hand, I loathed Upstairs Downstairs because I couldn’t (and still can’t) stand Jean Marsh, although I worship her co-creator Eileen Atkins like a goddess. As for Downton, I love it passionately but I’m beginning to actually hope that Bates did it, and although Dan Stevens is handsome, his character is such a simp that I’m really glad he’s leaving at the end of this season. Thank God the other simp, Sir Anthony Whatshisface, dumped Edith. She deserves better!
rikyrah
LMBAO at the suggestions..
I SO want CARSON/MRS. HUGHES.
oh yeah….
FREE BATES
pseudonymous in nc
Dan Stevens, aka Matthew: (won’t link, as spoilers)
pseudonymous in nc
@Calouste:
Friends of mine lived in the most villagey village slap on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. One street, two churches, three pubs. It had (and still has) a Chinese takeaway.
snarkyspice
@Nicole:
Search ‘Ever Decreasing Circles’ on Youtube and watch Penelope Wilton as a young woman. She’s great!
Ellyn
My daughter is always telling me I should watch Dogbum Abbey because she knows I’ll like it. I haven’t gotten around to it yet but I’m still laughing at your post. You are so funny. If it’s half as amusing as you maybe I will watch it.
Red from Texas
@JGabriel:
What about poor Daisy? She stuffs Mrs. Patmore in a Yorkshire pudding and takes over as Head Cook. And pitiful Lady Edith must be shat upon again somehow.
Red from Texas
@JGabriel:
What about poor Daisy? She stuffs Mrs. Patmore in a Yorkshire pudding and takes over as Head Cook. And pitiful Lady Edith must be shat upon again somehow.
Ecks
The Downton were weird to read here in the UK, where we’ve already seen the full season. So many of those plot suggestions are no longer possible for so many reasons (it’s not a spoiler to say that sh*t changes a lot on that show over a season).
Sue (Garnet's foster mom)
I agree completely w/ the advice given i the original blog comment! AND we should see more of the dog!