View Full Version : Downton Abbey
Anyone catch this on PBS? How many I have missed? Last night's episode was my first. True, it's an Upstairs/Downstairs wannabe but gosh, I love the costumes and the setting.
iris lily
1-24-11, 11:17pm
Apparently I've already missed it, or parts of it (?) and so I will get it at the Library. It is soon being released on dvd.
Maggie Smith. Costume drama.
Doesn't get any better than that.
PS they are planning new episdoes of Upstairs Downstairs.
I missed the very beginning, but I've seen parts of the two before last night's episode. (I keep forgetting to tune in.) I'm really enjoying it. Maggie Smith is absolutely wonderful. I'm not sure what the plot is, but that really doesn't seem to matter.
It's nice to have another entertaining saga on Masterpiece Theater again. :)
IshbelRobertson
1-25-11, 3:42am
It was a wonderful period series - the clothes, the houses, etc. I can't wait for the second series, which I believe is scheduled for Autumn 2011 here in the UK.
There is also an updated 'Upstairs, Downstairs' series which was shown here a month or so ago. Rose is now the housekeeper in the same house in Eaton Square. I think there were only 3 or 4 episodes, for the BBC to see if it would be a flyer, or not! Sadly, it's nowhere near as good as the series in the 70s, but I watched it, despite this! It's also nowhere as good as Downton.
goldensmom
1-25-11, 6:26am
I've seen 3 episodes on PBS and not sure if it was from the beginning or not. I think there are 7 episodes. So far I like it more than most Upstairs/Downstairs. I saw Maggie Smith in several plays in the 1970's at Stratford, Ontario and have been a fan of her work since, even 'Sister Act'. So far I really like it. I'll watch most anything of that time period and locale.
Simplemind
1-26-11, 12:33pm
Have watched it from the begining with DH. I think it is very well done. He always calls me on Sunday evening to remind me it is on and to be home on time :0)
margerymermaid
1-26-11, 1:45pm
Have to wade in on this one! By the way, it's good to be back on these forums. I've missed you guys.
I've seen all of the episodes because I was back in the UK last year and I have to say I was disappointed. I'm not going to comment on the story as I don't want to be a spoiler. I thought the costumes, the acting and the setting was fabulous. Can't fault that. But the writing was not so good. I suppose it felt like it was dumbed down somehow. I know Julian Fellowes has written quite a lot of this kind of thing, (British class system stories) I just find that Anthony Trollope, Dickens, Austin, and many other classical writers do a better job as far as writing characters with more depth. I just cannot imagine characters of this time talking the way they do in Downton Abbey. It felt like I was watching early 20th century characters transported into 21st language and lifestyle. But then I am rather a snob about this kind of thing!
If you missed the first episode or 2 you can watch them on the PBS website.
I can't pull in PBS on my TV so I watch all of their programs on my computer.
Have to wade in on this one! By the way, it's good to be back on these forums. I've missed you guys.
Welcome back, margery! So you glad you found us again. Downtown Abbey does have a contemporary cachet doesn't it. The characters don't seem quite ... repressed enough.
IshbelRobertson
1-28-11, 8:11am
Julian Fellowes has now achieved something he's been after for years, ie a Title, so now he can be as posh as he really always felt he should be!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12178726
iris lily
1-28-11, 10:48am
With all of the great English literature out there, I believe that BBC et al will never run out of fine source material. There are the major authors: Austen, the Brontes, Trollope, Hardy, Thackaray, etc and they can remake those great works every decade and delight new audiences.
And then there are the secondary novelists like Elizabeth Gaskell etc who have turned out many fine novels that can be and have been turned into film.
And then, there are minor novelists who are really very enjoyable. I'm thinking of Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont and The Little Ottleys (can't remember the authors of those, but that level of novel is what I'm talking about) and yes I know that Mrs. Palfrey was made into a film. It was ok but rather forgettable as a big screen work. And what about modern masters of the English character novel such as Barbara Pym and that other author whose name escapes me, art professor turned novel writer? ? Lots of material there.
I was gobsmacked to find that one of my favorite minor novels, Angel by Elizabeth Taylor, had been turned into a film starring Ramola Garai. My library ordered it. Can hardly wait to see it. I LOVE that novel, it's such a soap opera! It's about a working class girl who has a flair for writing pot boilers. She becomes very famous and earns lots of money which allows her to buy her way into the life she believes is "upper class." She surrounds herself with geegaws in a hidously ostentatious house and installs a hustler boyrfriend. She never really finds happiness because she never grows beyond the young girl who sees superficialities. That is one reason why it's a minor novel, there is no character development, Angel doesn't change although that is the author's point.
edtied to add: now I see that MRs. Palfrey is by, once again, Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor is a fine modern novelist who works well within the traditional English novel genre of examining middle class.
First three episodes are up on PBS Masterpiece site, but they warn not for long, if you are thinking to jump in. Last of four episodes is this Sunday, then another series during WWI, I believe I read, follows later. Good actors but Fellows not my fav writer... had to motivate myself to finish Snobs and doubt I would have if not down to last three unread books on a passage.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch/downtonabbey_ep1.html
With all of the great English literature out there, I believe that BBC et al will never run out of fine source material. There are the major authors: Austen, the Brontes, Trollope, Hardy, Thackaray, etc and they can remake those great works every decade and delight new audiences.
Very true. I would be just as happy however if they just started re-showing many of the fine series they've made over the past decades. Like a good old movie, there are many I would totally enjoy watching again. And it would be much less expensive than funding entirely new productions. Or they could do both.
Poldark was the first series that caught my attention - and I missed half of it.. There were so many good ones that followed.
And while they are at it, I'd love to see many of the old 'mystery' series re-run. Rumpole, Morse.... We have channels that re-run generic tv ad nauseum... why not some of these finer series? Must not be enough profit...
ps. Brian, thanks for the link. :)
IshbelRobertson
1-28-11, 4:35pm
Oh, how I loved Poldark!
So much of it was filmed in the area of Cornwall where we have a boat. The Cast had a cricket team which played local village teams - they called themselve Poldark and me Handome ('Me Handsome' being a term of endearment from Cornish women to their menfolk!)
We just finished watching Poldark first series on netflix streaming and are now watching series 2 by netflix on DVD. We were watching that in the 1970s just before the bicentennial. Still love it.
Simplemind
1-28-11, 7:32pm
Ohhhhhhhhhhh thanks for the tip on Poldark. Just ordered it on Netflix.
treehugger
1-28-11, 7:43pm
Ohhhhhhhhhhh thanks for the tip on Poldark. Just ordered it on Netflix.
Ditto that. Also _Angel_ (and of course, also _Downton Abbey_). I love Netflix!!
Another recommendation would be 'Flickers', a relatively short series (comedy/drama) about the early days of movies. It features Bob Hoskins before he hit the big-time.
margerymermaid
1-29-11, 12:33pm
Anne Lee: Thanks for the welcome back. Yes, repressed is a good word to use. Having come from a similar background (dad was Victorian middle class Brit trying to become upper class) I know about British class repression! Meanwhile my mum was brit working class trying to be respectable middle class!! Aaargh! Had to get years of therapy plus many years of USA living to feel almost like I wasn't wrong in everything I chose to do... but sometimes my snobbery rears its ugly head!
IshbelRobertson: OMG! I can just imagine how happy Julian must be about this. I was reading something recently about him.. He and his wife judging dinner party guests by the way they used their cutlery! They said they could tell if they were upper class/real aristocracy by the spoons they chose to use. OH PAHLEASE!
Anne Lee: Thanks for the welcome back. Yes, repressed is a good word to use. Having come from a similar background (dad was Victorian middle class Brit trying to become upper class) I know about British class repression! Meanwhile my mum was brit working class trying to be respectable middle class!! Aaargh! Had to get years of therapy plus many years of USA living to feel almost like I wasn't wrong in everything I chose to do... but sometimes my snobbery rears its ugly head!
IshbelRobertson: OMG! I can just imagine how happy Julian must be about this. I was reading something recently about him.. He and his wife judging dinner party guests by the way they used their cutlery! They said they could tell if they were upper class/real aristocracy by the spoons they chose to use. OH PAHLEASE!
While I am fascinated by all of the class issues and distinctions in the U.K., I am so very happy to have been raised in possibly the least classist place in the US: small town Midwest. Everyone was pretty much the same--a few very poor families, even fewer very rich ones. Everyone uses the same fork. America is the great leveler. I'm glad to have been raised here beause I think I'me wired to be rather snobby and so this background helps ground me.
They said they could tell if they were upper class/real aristocracy by the spoons they chose to use. OH PAHLEASE!
Oh dear. I do pretty well with silver at table settings, out to in then up to the top. But living out here in small town flyover-land, I would be completely out of my depth.
Iris, did you ever read Tom Wolfe's "Two Young Men Who Went West"? in the book Hooking Up? In it, he traces the egalitarianism of silicon valley to the essential classlessness of the Grinnell, I-oh-way. Interesting stuff, that.
IshbelRobertson
1-29-11, 5:47pm
MargeryMermaid
Mr (now Sir or Lord, who knows/who cares) Fellowes is married to Lord Kitchener's descendant (but the title doesn't pass down through the female line) would have given ANYTHING to get a knighthood. Now he's got it... perhaps his snobbery will abate - but I won't be holding my breath!
I believe he wrote a book called 'Snobs'.. how apt.
If you are on the West Coast, Downton Abbey will be on shorty. I almost forgot again. :)
No, haven't read that. I'll have to look that up.
TOday I ran across a Bill Bryson quote about how lucky he was to grow up middle class in the middle of the country in the middle of the century. He's from my home town and is about my age. I agree, we were lucky. I was looking up an old Des Moines building on the web that a relative had an interest in, and Bryson talked about running around that same bulding, causing havoc as boys will do.
Eggs and Shrubs
1-31-11, 3:01am
Downton Abbey was produced in the UK by ITV. ITV does not do period drama nearly as well as the BBC in my opinion. The programme is littered with mistakes and anachronisms which, to be fair to the writers, never spoil the enjoyment.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1323386/Television-1912-Eagle-eyed-viewers-spot-errors-period-drama-Downton-Abbey.html
One good thing about the show is that it is supposed to be set in North Yorkshire, where I live, and I was unaware of the number of Country Houses in the area.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/features/8454627.So_where_is_Downton_Abbey_/
Eggs and Shrubs
1-31-11, 3:09am
MargeryMermaid
Mr (now Sir or Lord, who knows/who cares) Fellowes is married to Lord Kitchener's descendant (but the title doesn't pass down through the female line) would have given ANYTHING to get a knighthood. Now he's got it... perhaps his snobbery will abate - but I won't be holding my breath!
I believe he wrote a book called 'Snobs'.. how apt.
Fellows is now a Conservative Lord. Scary isn't it?
IshbelRobertson
1-31-11, 7:02am
No more frightening than some of Tony Bliar's 'lords and ladies'... I mean, just LOOK at some of them! The Asian 'lady' (amongst others) who was found guilty of financial misconduct - and all she got was suspension from the house of Lords for a while.
The whole lot of them are rotten to the core!
margerymermaid
1-31-11, 1:05pm
IshbeRobertson: Must say I enjoyed that book "Snobs" by Mr Fellowes. It seemed quite accurate in a lot of places, but "Downton Abbey" definitely did not ring true for me in so many ways. The upper class of that time would so not act the way they were acting. And having an American wife would have been appalling at the time. I'm sure the dialogue and the American wife were only written the way they were so Downton Abbey could sell to the US market. If things were written true to history, no one would be able to watch them I expect. Has anyone watched the original "Brideshead Revisited" recently? the original tv show? Pretty long and boring, altho I loved it at the time. The movie they made of it was awful. But I digress....
Eggs and Shrubs: I visited North Yorkshire last year. My mums family were all from up there and if they were all very direct and down to earth. And yes, there are so many wonderful things to see there from castles to beautiful ancient abbeys to amazing hills and valleys. Very under rated part of the world.
IshbelRobertson
1-31-11, 5:05pm
It was quite the thing for impoverished titled gents to marry Americans - look at Winston churchill's family, for instance!
I read snobs - it just confirmed my belief that Mr Fellowes is a real one...
Drat! Drat! Drat! Something went awry with our dvr recording of the last episode of DA. Was war declared at the end? Did Mary's sister figure out how Mary ruined her marriage proposal? Were they going to fire Edward? Help!
Email just in case spoiler alert OR watch online at PBS masterpiece... I posted link to episode 1 prev page, all four episodes available on link before for next few weeks . Yes it was action packed last 7 mins... well for a period piece. :)
It was quite the thing for impoverished titled gents to marry Americans - look at Winston churchill's family, for instance!
...
Agreed, they held their nose and married rich Americans. Conseulo Vanderbilt was a prime example when she married the Duke of Marlborough..
edited to add: oh doh, I see that the Duke of Marlborough's family is the previosuly mentioned Churchills.
IshbelRobertson
2-2-11, 4:10am
I always feel sorry when I read about the price that so many of those young women paid in order to impress their peers with the fact that they had a European title.. in many cases, a terrible price.
OOOHH! Forgive me if I've divulged TMI! Went to the pbs site and will watch the "gap" that we couldn't. Thanks for the link and I promise not to spoil again! BTW I got names mixed up.
Merski do not worry, you just covered obvious stuff... surprises lay in store for you. Actually not my cup of tea but my DM is enjoying so something to share with her remotely. She likes the characters and think the acting is well done but it does not have the depth of the classics. Sort of Upstairs Downstairs with a Barbara Cartlandesque plot line.
OOOHH! Forgive me if I've divulged TMI! Went to the pbs site and will watch the "gap" that we couldn't. Thanks for the link and I promise not to spoil again! BTW I got names mixed up.
oh yeah, don't worry. It;s not as though I will remember any "spoilers" and in this sort of saga there are issues about marriage, moeny, and not much else so it's not as though it is unpredictible!
You can actually watch ALL the episodes online, all available through 2/22.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch/index.html
A friend just turned me onto it today! I just watched the first three episodes back to back and will finish it tomorrow. The UK version had seven episodes, Masterpiece Theatre in the US, four 90 minute episodes. Can't wait for next season in the fall!
FYI...a friend just told me Downton Abbey was recently released on Netflix (via streaming) in the UK format of seven 60 minute episodes.
And if you like the UK-produced period costume dramas, I highly recommend Wives & Daughters, from the 1860s Elizabeth Gaskell novel of the same name. It aired on Masterpiece Theatre about 11 years ago. Also, a very good book!
Downtown Abbey is out in DVD but there is a long waiting list for it at my Library. I wonder if my ghetto Blockbuster will get it? They do get The Tudors so they are not entirely without English TV shows.
Wives and Daughters is very good, agreed! I read the novel a few times before they ever made it a tv production.
I wish I could download it here in Canada. Can't seem to yet.
Downtown Abbey is out in DVD but there is a long waiting list for it at my Library. I wonder if my ghetto Blockbuster will get it? They do get The Tudors so they are not entirely without English TV shows.
Iris, you could do a free one-month trial to Netflix so you could watch it...
FYI...a friend just told me Downton Abbey was recently released on Netflix (via streaming) in the UK format of seven 60 minute episodes.
Correct--I've just watched the first episode. I like a lot of the actors in it, and I love anything from this era, so I'll keep watching. One thing did jump out at me: the earl's wife (the American) kept calling a visiting duke "Duke." Um, no. I could excuse it if she were a newlywed just arrived in England, but she had lived there for over twenty years. The correct way to address a duke is "Your Grace," as several other characters did.
thanks for the link Tradd. I watched the first 3 episodes on my local PBS station but I swear they never aired the fourth and final episode! or maybe my DVR missed it, or some event made them change their programming or something, but geez ..
treehugger
2-18-11, 12:10pm
I watched all 7 episodes last week via Netflix streaming. I agree there were minor script and character issues, but nothing interfered with my enjoyment of it. Like others said, the production design, locations, and costumes were very fine. Looking forward to the next series!
I am now watching Poldark (recommended above), also via Netflix streaming, and boy, is it dated. And I don't mean because it's set in the 1780s. It was made in 1975 and the indifferent cinematography, awkward editing, stilted and/or clumsy acting style, etc. really show that. But, that said, I think I like it enough to continue.
IshbelRobertson
2-18-11, 4:52pm
Whilst I loved Poldark when it was first shown, I have to confess that, even then, it wasn't as good as the books!
The Downton Abbey DVD set Is new on Amazon for $17. Half off pbs.org price. I just ordered it. :)
iris lily
2-23-11, 12:42am
I've got a wicked crush on Brendon Coyle who plays John Bates in Downton Abbey. I've not seen any of Downton Abbey but I've been waching Lark Rise to Candleford and I have to say that I'm glad this actor got a different gig. They don't give him much interesting to do in Lark Rise...but he is a great screen presence.
IshbelRobertson
2-23-11, 6:07am
The last Lark Rise to Candleford was broadcast here a couple of weeks ago.. the story endings were pretty swiftly dealt with - presumably because they had heard that the programme was to be cancelled after this series!
Sadly, he wasn't in any of the episodes, having 'gone to Oxford to look for work'.
We watched Downton Abbey over the last few nights on netflix and really enjoyed it until the end. I won't spoil anything but I didn't like the end. It was kind of a bummer. I dislike investing that much of my time in a book, movie or TV show to be bummed out. I'm kind of a hopeless optimist.
Downton Abbey was produced in the UK by ITV. ITV does not do period drama nearly as well as the BBC in my opinion. The programme is littered with mistakes and anachronisms which, to be fair to the writers, never spoil the enjoyment.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1323386/Television-1912-Eagle-eyed-viewers-spot-errors-period-drama-Downton-Abbey.html
One good thing about the show is that it is supposed to be set in North Yorkshire, where I live, and I was unaware of the number of Country Houses in the area.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/features/8454627.So_where_is_Downton_Abbey_/
Now, is this the same as produced Virgin Queen? At least I thought Virgin Queen did better than The Tudors, which I felt took huge liberties....but to me, this show is a popcorn muncher in the best sense. It's a soap opera, nothing more. But a damn good one, and i'm enjoying it to pieces. Just starting season 2.
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