Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 29, 2020 10:14:00 GMT -8
I just blew through the last three of the six seasons of Downton Abbey. They ended the series after six seasons but they have recently produced a feature-length movie which I haven’t seen yet.
I was trying to watch a 2005 production of Bleak House the other day. It’s bleak. I thought a good balance between serious and soap-opera was the Julian Fellowes/Robert Altman production, Gosford Park. That, like Fellowes’ Downton Abbey, also includes a wonderful performance by Maggie Smith.
In at least the final three seasons, Downton Abbey is a rather lightweight series dressed up in aristocratic garb. Many of the plot lines are developed in the same manor of the 1970s situation comedy, Three’s Company: Someone overhears something that someone else said and leads to complications. In Downton Abbey, there is always someone listening around the corner. And no matter how important the secret is, no one usually bothers to speak softly or close the door.
Years ago, I watched the first three seasons as they became available and then just lost interest in the show. But I picked it up again, if only for lack of anything better. It is certainly a soap opera and has that appeal. But the lack of depth of it is stunning.
This is clearly a populist series. It often not-so-subtly redefines the aristocracy as just a bunch of Progressive people who put up token resistance to modern ideas but gladly get there in the end. The aristocrats (except for the character played by Maggie Smith) all learn the lesson that the new ways are the future, if not also the better ways.
One thing that surprised me was how the character who had been highly sympathetic in the first three seasons (Mr. and Mrs. Bates), became tiresome and obnoxious in the latter three season. And although Mary Crawley is a bully and a bitch, she generally was of more immediate interest in whatever she was doing.
The resident homosexual, Mr. Thomas Barrow, was the object of some of the worst writing. The writing touched on him superficially. And even when they tried to do something weightier (such as his attempted suicide), this scene (like so many other moments) came and went so rapidly, the situations were inherently trivialized. But the actor (and character) we capable of better moments such as the affection displayed by Barrow to Master George, heir to the Crawley fortune.
But the plot must move on. There is no time to explore anything in depth. There is the running theme of the aristocracy having to adapt (and it’s clear that many great houses have become bankrupt), But it’s also clear that it’s much too touchy of a subject for the Snowflake British audience to tell them that the aristocrats and the great houses were eaten alive by socialist/Progressive policies whereby “the rich” were deemed objects to be eaten.
Instead, these “coming changes” and “changing times” were neutrally presented as if it was simply the weather that had changed.
The writers tried hard to balance downstairs and upstairs stories. But most of the stories from downstairs were trite. The real interest was in the stories happening upstairs.
Maggie Smith, as Violet Crawley, remained one of the few fixtures of quality. Her scenes always had a bit a gravitas even if, near the end of the series, she was as malleable to some extent as the rest of them in order to assuage modern attitudes. Characters and attitudes could always be twisted or changed so that it all worked out in the end — for the sensibilities of a modern audience.
The best acting was done by Maggie Smith, Laura Carmichael (the beleaguered Edith Crawley), Michelle Dockery (bully sister Mary Crawley), Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley), and Kevin Doyle (as one of the few downstairs personalities of some substance, Joseph Molesley). They Molesley character does undergo real character development which is good to see.
Hugh Bonneville is fine as the Earl of Grantham but the writing usually made him the sock puppet of every new idea that was to normalized instead of looking anachronistic. He would give token resistance but that's it. Jim Carter is steady as the butler but like many of the characters, not particularly deep.
The first three seasons had the poisonous Sarah O’Brien as a lady’s maid who was always in cahoots with Thomas Barrow in some dark scheme. But when she left the show, Barrow’s character floundered. They tried to make him somewhat sympathetic as the fish-out-of-water homosexual who just couldn’t find joy in life (so that is why he was always lashing out). But the writing was amateurish, at best.
One of the stronger characters (or at least more interesting) was Allen Leech as Tom Branson. Branson had been the chauffeur until he fell in love and married one of the Crawley daughters. He was a firebrand Irish radical at the time who meshed well with the iconoclastic (read: spoiled) Lady Sybil Crawley. But he is one of the few characters in the show who was somewhat complex. Having become a member of the family, his radical views regarding politics and the aristocracy were moderated.
Conversely (and with some small skill here and there), the attitude of the Crawley aristocracy softened as well toward the rabble, if only because they were being forced to change. But much of this is done with such a fuzzy soft-focus, it loses its punch.
I can’t say precisely that the first three seasons were deeper and better written. But I think they were. And it’s clear these latter three season had shucked any attempt to touch deeper themes and were clearly meant to satisfy a populist mentality. Still, it has a soap opera appeal to it which makes it binge-worthy. But as beloved as this show is by many, I think we need to get a grip about it.
I was trying to watch a 2005 production of Bleak House the other day. It’s bleak. I thought a good balance between serious and soap-opera was the Julian Fellowes/Robert Altman production, Gosford Park. That, like Fellowes’ Downton Abbey, also includes a wonderful performance by Maggie Smith.
In at least the final three seasons, Downton Abbey is a rather lightweight series dressed up in aristocratic garb. Many of the plot lines are developed in the same manor of the 1970s situation comedy, Three’s Company: Someone overhears something that someone else said and leads to complications. In Downton Abbey, there is always someone listening around the corner. And no matter how important the secret is, no one usually bothers to speak softly or close the door.
Years ago, I watched the first three seasons as they became available and then just lost interest in the show. But I picked it up again, if only for lack of anything better. It is certainly a soap opera and has that appeal. But the lack of depth of it is stunning.
This is clearly a populist series. It often not-so-subtly redefines the aristocracy as just a bunch of Progressive people who put up token resistance to modern ideas but gladly get there in the end. The aristocrats (except for the character played by Maggie Smith) all learn the lesson that the new ways are the future, if not also the better ways.
One thing that surprised me was how the character who had been highly sympathetic in the first three seasons (Mr. and Mrs. Bates), became tiresome and obnoxious in the latter three season. And although Mary Crawley is a bully and a bitch, she generally was of more immediate interest in whatever she was doing.
The resident homosexual, Mr. Thomas Barrow, was the object of some of the worst writing. The writing touched on him superficially. And even when they tried to do something weightier (such as his attempted suicide), this scene (like so many other moments) came and went so rapidly, the situations were inherently trivialized. But the actor (and character) we capable of better moments such as the affection displayed by Barrow to Master George, heir to the Crawley fortune.
But the plot must move on. There is no time to explore anything in depth. There is the running theme of the aristocracy having to adapt (and it’s clear that many great houses have become bankrupt), But it’s also clear that it’s much too touchy of a subject for the Snowflake British audience to tell them that the aristocrats and the great houses were eaten alive by socialist/Progressive policies whereby “the rich” were deemed objects to be eaten.
Instead, these “coming changes” and “changing times” were neutrally presented as if it was simply the weather that had changed.
The writers tried hard to balance downstairs and upstairs stories. But most of the stories from downstairs were trite. The real interest was in the stories happening upstairs.
Maggie Smith, as Violet Crawley, remained one of the few fixtures of quality. Her scenes always had a bit a gravitas even if, near the end of the series, she was as malleable to some extent as the rest of them in order to assuage modern attitudes. Characters and attitudes could always be twisted or changed so that it all worked out in the end — for the sensibilities of a modern audience.
The best acting was done by Maggie Smith, Laura Carmichael (the beleaguered Edith Crawley), Michelle Dockery (bully sister Mary Crawley), Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley), and Kevin Doyle (as one of the few downstairs personalities of some substance, Joseph Molesley). They Molesley character does undergo real character development which is good to see.
Hugh Bonneville is fine as the Earl of Grantham but the writing usually made him the sock puppet of every new idea that was to normalized instead of looking anachronistic. He would give token resistance but that's it. Jim Carter is steady as the butler but like many of the characters, not particularly deep.
The first three seasons had the poisonous Sarah O’Brien as a lady’s maid who was always in cahoots with Thomas Barrow in some dark scheme. But when she left the show, Barrow’s character floundered. They tried to make him somewhat sympathetic as the fish-out-of-water homosexual who just couldn’t find joy in life (so that is why he was always lashing out). But the writing was amateurish, at best.
One of the stronger characters (or at least more interesting) was Allen Leech as Tom Branson. Branson had been the chauffeur until he fell in love and married one of the Crawley daughters. He was a firebrand Irish radical at the time who meshed well with the iconoclastic (read: spoiled) Lady Sybil Crawley. But he is one of the few characters in the show who was somewhat complex. Having become a member of the family, his radical views regarding politics and the aristocracy were moderated.
Conversely (and with some small skill here and there), the attitude of the Crawley aristocracy softened as well toward the rabble, if only because they were being forced to change. But much of this is done with such a fuzzy soft-focus, it loses its punch.
I can’t say precisely that the first three seasons were deeper and better written. But I think they were. And it’s clear these latter three season had shucked any attempt to touch deeper themes and were clearly meant to satisfy a populist mentality. Still, it has a soap opera appeal to it which makes it binge-worthy. But as beloved as this show is by many, I think we need to get a grip about it.