Dishing on Downton, Week 6

As usual a spoiler alert: If you haven't seen this week's episode, don't read this! 

There was some real good emotion last night, wasn't there?  I mean the whole episode with Thomas, revealing him as a vulnerable person. But I thought it was all sewn up rather nicely with his lordship smoothing things over, and Carson making him under butler. In fact I felt it was a whole night of easy solutions--the writer is tiring of his subject, methinks.

The tiresomely noble Bates comes home, thank God. I couldn't have stood one more week of him in prison looking noble and woebegone. But Rats--now I'll have to discard my FREE BATES T shirt! And is given a cottage, which is really a stupid idea because a valet has to be on hand to dress and undress his master at all hours and so does Anna. Now they'll have to walk across the estate in the dark and rain at midnight after a dinner party! I grew up in England. I know how often it rains..

And Tom is made land agent, and starts to prove his worth, which we all guessed. And it seemed there was a little something wrong with Mary--a mere tweak needed--so that she can get pregnant. And Ethel is conveniently re-situated where she can see her child.

They had to introduce the really naughty Rose to bring some life into what is now, on the whole, a dreary plot. She was fun but oh so predictable. And poor Edith, now falling for a man who has a wife in an asylum. What's the betting the wife will conveniently die before too long so they can marry after all?

But nothing else matters really because there was a bloody good game of cricket and that's what counts!

So do you also feel it's losing it's sparkle, it's emotional appeal?  Of course I can't stop watching, but....

Dishing on Downton, Week 4

Okay, who cried last night? I did. My daughter did. I suspect my son-in-law did although he didn't admit to it.

I've watched 3 seasons of Downton. I've felt sad when William died, when Lavinia died--although both were awfully convenient, weren't they? I did feel a few tears when Matthew proposed to Mary but this is the first time that the story really touched me. I suspected that the story for Sibyl and Tom couldn't end happily but I suspected that Tom would die in some kind of Irish uprising and Sibyl would come home.

But I really didn't think that sweet, adorable Sibyl would die thanks to a stupid doctor and a stubborn father. My daughter and I both said instantly "She's got pre-eclampsia" when they mentioned swollen ankles and confusion. They should have listened to us.

So now there are only two Crawley sisters and a hint that Matthew may indeed be sterile. Is there going to be no heir to Downton? I can't stand it!

On a lighter note, I'm enjoying the downstairs love triangle/quadrangle and evil O'Brien up to her tricks again. But what a lot of holier-than-thou pricks when it comes to Ethel. Would one of them let tbeir child starve? Would they have behaved as nobly by finally giving him up? Good for Mrs. Crawley.

But please--Bates and Anna have gone on long enough. Either kill him off or set him free.

What do you think is going to happen? I think Edith is going to make a name for herself. I hope Mary's going to get pregnant.

Can't wait for next week. Buying more tissues, just in case.

Dishing on Downton, Week 3

Spoiler alert. If you haven't yet seen Week 3 do not read on and if you do, don't blame me.

I liked this week--it had some nicely subtle emotion to it--Daisy ready to tell Albert how she feels about him only to have him eyeing the new kitchen maid. And then the tear jerker--Ethel giving up her little boy to the horrible man. Why didn't an outspoken woman like Mrs Crawley point out that Ethel only sank so low because HIS SON got her in trouble to begin with? We guessed that Mrs. Crawley will give her a chance as a maid and the teaser for next week hinted that would happen. And Bates and Anna finally getting their letters. But Bates now has a deadly enemy and Anna isn't pursuing what she found out in London. How many more seasons before this is resolved?

And then there's Sibyl and Branson. Do you think that marriage is doomed? I rather suspect he may return to Ireland and get shot in an uprising, dying a martyr's death. What do you think? I don't see much future in the marriage.

And what do you think about the new footman? The maids adore him and we think he's clearly gay, so there might be attraction between him and Thomas. And someone at table mentioned that he looked like a stage footman, making me wonder if he really is not quite what he seems--on the run? And out of work actor?

Hooray for Edith now writing a column in a newspaper. Maybe she'll outshine them all. And the big question--is Mary pregnant?

So come on--let's hear what you thought of this week's episode.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Are you addicted to the new Upstairs,Downstairs as much as you were to Downton Abbey? Me neither. I wonder why, as the story is just as much soap opera. Maybe it's just that the house is smaller, and the people are correspondingly smaller. Nobody to compare with the nobility of Robert, Earl of Grantham, or Lady Mary Crawley. Or maybe it's just that I remember the original series so fondly. That seemed to have real drama and pathos without being sleazy or reverting to shock value. I remember the episode when Lady Marjorie falls in love with a young officer, but it's just left as a romance that can never be. She doesn't leap into bed with him. And the heart-stretching triangle at the battle front in WWI when James is wounded and his cousin Georgina is his nurse, desperately in love with him, and his wife Hazel goes out to France to bring him home. Those were dramas that really moved me. The dramas in this series seem sensational or small and petty.

Am I just older and wiser now or is this series part of the new school of writing that has to go for blockbuster all the time? Or maybe it's the time frame that's different. Life in the 1930s had definitely changed for the aristocracy. Servants were no longer so subservient to their masters. Uncomfortable movements like the Black Shirts were permeating all levels of society.

Ah well. Only two months to the next Downton season. I know it's already out in England but I'm being good and not emailing relatives to ask what is happening.

And another snippet: my own new Lady Gerogie novel, THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS, which features quite a bit of upstairs/downstairs action in a lovely old manor house, will be in stores and on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com tomorrow. Much more fun that the election, I promise you!