The Nature of Things

Downton Abbey was fun and entertaining for the first couple of years of its existence. Even season three had it moments. But it is now in its fifth year and these last two years have been pretty uniformly awful. The characters, who were once fairly interesting, have descended into caricature. The plots, such as they are, seem to have been devised by not very bright fifth graders. The writing and the dialogue - well, other than the occasional bon mot by the Dowager Countess, the less said the better. It is all just too staid and predictable. This season, we have seen Mary, the golden daughter whom everyone loves  and whom every man that she meets wants to get into the pants of, become even more of a self-centered bitch than she ever was in the previous seasons. I know we are supposed to think she's wonderful and hang on her every word, but when she went riding in that steeplechase last week, I was really hoping she would fall off her horse and break her swan-like neck. Maybe then ...

The plot of "Downton Abbey" in its third season has been a mess so far. It lurches here and there with no clear purpose, and, seemingly, with no goal in mind. We started the season with Shirley MacLaine appearing as Lady Cora's filthy rich American mother. And why was that, exactly? Well, she showed up for Lady Mary's wedding, but evidently she was there to reinforce just how single-minded Mary is in her determination that Downton remain Downton, that nothing changes. We learned that that idiot Robert had dithered away the family's fortune and that the Granthams were at the point of having to sell Downton, so Mary and the Dowager Countess came up with a devious scheme to inveigle Mary's American grandmother into giving up a sizable portion of her vast fortune in support of saving the old homestead. When she refused, Mary pivoted immediately to insisting that her new husband, Matthew, forget his principles and accept a bequest from the father of his dead fianc...

I missed the first season of the excellent PBS (by way of BBC) television series Downton Abbey , but in this day when the Internet can provide instant gratification, failing to catch the series when it is first shown is no barrier to its enjoyment. After all the acclaim and awards it received in its first season, I decided that perhaps I was missing something, and that I needed to catch up on it by watching online in order to prepare myself for the second season which started a couple of weeks ago. I didn't quite make it in time for the start of the season, but this week I finished watching season one and then went on to watch the two episodes already shown in season two. Now I'm all caught up and ready for Sunday night's showing of the third episode. I'll be there because I am well and truly hooked ! What is it about this upstairs, downstairs soap opera of the veddy, veddy rich of early twentieth century England and their faithful (and not so faithful) servants that so...