Downton Abbey (and other BBC type dramas)

[Changsham]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: This topic was split off from What is the last film you watched? (2016)

I bought my wife the complete DOWNTON ABBEY Bluray box set for her birthday. Not sure if a mistake or not as she absolutely loves it and God knows how long it will take to watch it all. Watching other movies will have to wait a long time. We both had never seen an episode before as we don't watch much television. I do find it it an engaging melodrama with good production values and does get one hooked but after watching the first two series it is starting to get me irritated somewhat.

The characters are mostly cardboard 21st century personages masquerading as Edwardian/Georgian types and too much modern political correctness thrown in. Only the villains smoke in an age when any man would have been considered slightly odd if he didn't smoke. Drinking etiquette is very 21st Century in what was an age of drunkards and wowsers. The romantic relationships are very poorly developed. They seem contrived for plot purposes and not convincing. There are so many predictable and some unpredictable plot twists and turns that seem to get more ludicrous as the series progresses with too much angst and little humour. All this leaves me scratching my head for what's in store next. No where near the caliber of other period dramas like BRIDESHEAD REVISITED or DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME but has a junk food kind of addictive appeal.

[entredeuxguerres]

...The characters are mostly cardboard 21st century personages masquerading as Edwardian/Georgian types and too much modern political correctness thrown in...

Don't you understand? History, the past, must be made relevant for a 21st C. audience by the absurd anachronism of working 21st C. PC-preoccupations into the plot; otherwise, why divert one's attention from "reality" TV? If the show had continued another season, someone in the cast would undoubtedly be undergoing a new, experimental, sex-change operation.

Thank God Brideshead was made when it was, and to a level of of unreproduceable perfection! I shudder to think what such a hack as Julian Fellowes would do with the story if entrusted with its dramatization.

The promotional commotion sponsored by PBS in this country is absolutely unprecedented--the show has become PBS' answer to "Dallas." Local PBS affiliates host "Downton Parties" at convention centers or other venues to allow devotees to dress up as their favorite characters and pretend to be to the manor born--a comics-con for the over-30 crowd. My local affiliate advertises a "Downton Tour" of filming sites in England.

[Changsham]

...The characters are mostly cardboard 21st century personages masquerading as Edwardian/Georgian types and too much modern political correctness thrown in...

Don't you understand? History, the past, must be made relevant for a 21st C. audience by the absurd anachronism of working 21st C. PC-preoccupations into the plot; otherwise, why divert one's attention from "reality" TV? If the show had continued another season, someone in the cast would undoubtedly be undergoing a new, experimental, sex-change operation.

Or find the H G Wells time machine in a walled up dungeon in the bowels of Downton and transport themselves to the present where they truly belong.

[westegg]

Give me "Upstairs Downstairs" anytime.

[wich2]

>History, the past, must be made relevant for a 21st C. audience by the absurd anachronism of working 21st C. PC-preoccupations into the plot<

Balance in all things...

Yes, the above can be overdone.

But on the other hand, the old conceit of most Dramers - that human beings in the past did not get at times sire bastards, slap each other around, exhibit racism, visit the loo, accept idiots as their leaders, etc. - was every bit as stoopid.

"Every age is the same. It's only love that makes any of them bearable."

[entredeuxguerres]

...But on the other hand, the old conceit of most Dramers - that human beings in the past did not get at times sire bastards, slap each other around, exhibit racism, visit the loo, accept idiots as their leaders, etc. - was every bit as stoopid.

Good Lord, whose conceit was that? Haven't novelists been writing about all those things since the 18th Century? And dramatists since the 17th?

[wich2]

Great heavens, when it came to the actual details, they usually were oblique and opaque at best!

"I don't like any shows very much, if you want to know the truth. They're not as bad as movies, but they're certainly nothing to rave about ... I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do."
- Holden Caulfield

[entredeuxguerres]

Great heavens, when it came to the actual details, they usually were oblique and opaque at best!

Dust off your copy of 120 Days of Sodom.

[Donald Binks]

The characters are mostly cardboard 21st century personages masquerading as Edwardian/Georgian types and too much modern political correctness thrown in. Only the villains smoke in an age when any man would have been considered slightly odd if he didn't smoke. Drinking etiquette is very 21st Century in what was an age of drunkards and wowsers. The romantic relationships are very poorly developed. They seem contrived for plot purposes and not convincing. There are so many predictable and some unpredictable plot twists and turns that seem to get more ludicrous as the series progresses with too much angst and little humour. All this leaves me scratching my head for what's in store next. No where near the caliber of other period dramas like BRIDESHEAD REVISITED or DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME but has a junk food kind of addictive appeal

I am intrigued by your summation here and would like to know which episodes and what circumstances in them you take exception to? In other words could you be a little more precise?

I don't know where you were brought up, but there were people around who refrained from smoking despite Aunt Agatha's recommendation on it due to it giving a man an occupation. Same with drinking, it would be very poor form for a person to appear intoxicated in front of his peers in the upper classes.

[entredeuxguerres]

...I don't know where you were brought up, but there were people around who refrained from smoking despite Aunt Agatha's recommendation on it due to it giving a man an occupation. Same with drinking, it would be very poor form for a person to appear intoxicated in front of his peers in the upper classes.

Exceptions to any general rule always exist, but there were damned few men who didn't make generous use of the Gift of Pocahontas in some form before the '60s. No doubt the practice was less universal on the distaff side, though you wouldn't know that by watching '30s pictures. (Or the opera Il Segreto di Susanna.)

Appearing intoxicated in front of one's peers was a breech of etiquette not because alcohol had been consumed, but because a gentleman was expected to be able to hold his liquor, and failing to do so was evidence of unmanliness. (There's a word banished from the 21st C. lexicon!)

But seriously...can you really watch these programs without the feeling, or rather certainty, that many of the characters predicaments were deliberately meant to suggest current events of today?

[Donald Binks]

Exceptions to any general rule always exist, but there were damned few men who didn't make generous use of the Gift of Pocahontas in some form before the '60s. No doubt the practice was less universal on the distaff side, though you wouldn't know that by watching '30s pictures. (Or the opera Il Segreto di Susanna.)

Appearing intoxicated in front of one's peers was a breech of etiquette not because alcohol had been consumed, but because a gentleman was expected to be able to hold his liquor, and failing to do so was evidence of unmanliness. (There's a word banished from the 21st C. lexicon!)

But seriously...can you really watch these programs without the feeling, or rather certainty, that many of the characters predicaments were deliberately meant to suggest current events of today?

I think I must have been one of the few people on this board who watched "Downton Abbey" purely for entertainment value. I had no idea that many were expecting a documentary? I liked the settings, the costuming and all that sort of thing - and, if the plots were somewhat extreme - then I am sure that is permissible in order to stop the thing from being boring.

Yes, smoking was rife - and was the thing to be doing with one's hands when they couldn't otherwise be occupied. I even had a doctor one time who was a chain smoker and used to ask what was wrong with me after nearly coughing his lungs out. One doesn't see very much of it at all in any TV programmes these days. Did it worry me that nobody in "Downton" was having a puff? Not particularly.

As to drinking. Well I didn't notice Lord Grantham knock back a whiskey when offered to him, and he seemed awfully fond of the old Chateau Plonk. The Dowager Duchess also seemed quite able to knock back a few sherries. So, what was expected? Everyone at a ball running around in a heightened state of intoxication?

I think we can assume that Lord Fellowes was aware of the debauchery that may have been occurring elsewhere and decided not to include it in Lord Grantham's household.

[drednm]

I loved Downton Abbey. I liked the writing, the actors, the settings, etc. Sure it wasn't perfect. But it was better than 99.999% of the drek on TV. If it got a bit soapy at times, it made up for it in creating interesting characters and situations.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Yes, smoking was rife - and was the thing to be doing with one's hands when they couldn't otherwise be occupied. I even had a doctor one time who was a chain smoker and used to ask what was wrong with me after nearly coughing his lungs out. One doesn't see very much of it at all in any TV programmes these days. Did it worry me that nobody in "Downton" was having a puff? Not particularly.

Dr Turner in BBC's 'Call the Midwife' (set in the 1950s/1960s) smokes like the proverbial chimney, although I think this subject is about to come up in the next instalment.

I seem to remember a book which featured a [dead] smoker's lungs being examined in the 1600s and the horrible description of them. And for a long time smoking has been regarded as antisocial and unhealthy in some circles. I suppose one of the reasons for its prevalence was to disguise the other disagreeable aromas of olden days. And of course years ago people died younger and from so many other causes, before cancer had a chance to do the dirty.

[entredeuxguerres]

...And of course years ago people died younger and from so many other causes, before cancer had a chance to do the dirty.

In the '50s & '60s, the single most common slang term for cigarettes was "cancer stick." Not as common, but still widely used was "coffin nail." No, not all the medical evidence had been assembled at that point, but everyone who wasn't a complete moron realized it was a seriously unhealthy practice--which gives the lie to all those lawsuits by smokers who claimed they "never knew."

[entredeuxguerres]

...If it got a bit soapy at times, it made up for it in creating interesting characters and situations.

The soap I could have lived with fairly easily--but NOT being psychologically dragged out of the Edwardian Age (for me, the Golden Age) and back into the wretched 21st C. by incidents & situations deliberately contrived to remind me of them.

[Changsham]

The characters are mostly cardboard 21st century personages masquerading as Edwardian/Georgian types and too much modern political correctness thrown in. Only the villains smoke in an age when any man would have been considered slightly odd if he didn't smoke. Drinking etiquette is very 21st Century in what was an age of drunkards and wowsers. The romantic relationships are very poorly developed. They seem contrived for plot purposes and not convincing. There are so many predictable and some unpredictable plot twists and turns that seem to get more ludicrous as the series progresses with too much angst and little humour. All this leaves me scratching my head for what's in store next. No where near the caliber of other period dramas like BRIDESHEAD REVISITED or DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME but has a junk food kind of addictive appeal

I am intrigued by your summation here and would like to know which episodes and what circumstances in them you take exception to? In other words could you be a little more precise?

I don't know where you were brought up, but there were people around who refrained from smoking despite Aunt Agatha's recommendation on it due to it giving a man an occupation. Same with drinking, it would be very poor form for a person to appear intoxicated in front of his peers in the upper classes.

Just a few irritating points at the top of my head.
The convenient slip on a bar of soap cliche to cause a miscarriage. The old amnesia/disfigurement cliche to explain why Patrick is not dead and no one believes him. Straight out of old two reel serials and pro wrestlling. The mooning stares and tortured emotions love chemistry formula. Sybil and her beau the biggest culprits. Thomas and Mrs O'Brien the only regular smokers because they are the baddies. They hatch most of their plots while having a smoko break. Is smoking the new cue for the audience "hiss"? The insufferable wet sponge Mr Bates. Hanging is too good for him. His lordship who appears rather clueless and the last to know anything that's happening always seems to have the most wise PC response tailored for audience sympathy when he finds out the latest deception and family scandal then carries on as if nothing has happened. Most of the characters at first appear like they had early 20th century values but suddenly expressing modern values at key and confronting situations.

[entredeuxguerres]

...Everyone at first appear like they had early 20th century values but suddenly expressing modern values at key and confronting situations.

Exactly.

[wich2]

Great heavens, when it came to the actual details, they usually were oblique and opaque at best!

Dust off your copy of 120 Days of Sodom.

"Exceptions to any general rule always exist"

[Donald Binks]

Just a few irritating points at the top of my head.
The convenient slip on a bar of soap cliche to cause a miscarriage. The old amnesia/disfigurement cliche to explain why Patrick is not dead and no one believes him. Straight out of old two reel serials and pro wrestlling. The mooning stares and tortured emotions love chemistry formula. Sybil and her beau the biggest culprits. Thomas and Mrs O'Brien the only regular smokers because they are the baddies. They hatch most of their plots while having a smoko break. Is smoking the new cue for the audience "hiss"? The insufferable wet sponge Mr Bates. Hanging is too good for him. His lordship who appears rather clueless and the last to know anything that's happening always seems to have the most wise PC response tailored for audience sympathy when he finds out the latest deception and family scandal then carries on as if nothing has happened. Most of the characters at first appear like they had early 20th century values but suddenly expressing modern values at key and confronting situations.

Thank you for this. I would probably accept a lot of what you write, but then you see I take the whole show as an entertainment first and foremost.

I am in the throes at the moment of reading the memoirs of Ken G. Hall and he states that the most important thing any producer of filmed entertainment can do is to reap a return on his investment at the box office. I think that the producers of "Downton Abbey" have had a canny eye for recouping their costs - and judging by the world-wide sales and popularity of the series, I would say that they have achieved their objective. This is not to say that they have downgraded their product to appeal to the masses, but perhaps they have tried to make it more approachable to them?

There is also something else to consider - when you think of an idea for a plot or scenario - always bear in mind that it has probably been done before - such that Lord Fellowes, like every other writer, may have gained his inspiration and perspiration from something else. Not that people consciously plagiarise, but similarities do occur.

I think also that the script has already indicated that his Lordship is rather clueless - especially where finances and business are concerned, but in one particular episode he treats a would-be blackmailer with a remarkable feat of come comeuppance.

Having myself lived near to three score years and ten, and having had a father born in the 19th Century - I would rate myself at having a very good knowledge of the values of the particular times. Let me firstly say that deep down, people have always basically remained the same - it's just that fashions and whims frequently pass by. If anything, in the 21st Century, conversation is a lost art - but I don't find anything altogether out of place in "Downton Abbey". It is not such a travesty of being out of time as that recent picture about the "Titanic" which was more 2012 than 1912. In fact I find the dialogue that Dame Maggie Smith was given in her character as the Duchess Dowager, priceless!

Anyway it is always interesting to read differing views on the same thing.

[Changsham]

Just a few irritating points at the top of my head.
The convenient slip on a bar of soap cliche to cause a miscarriage. The old amnesia/disfigurement cliche to explain why Patrick is not dead and no one believes him. Straight out of old two reel serials and pro wrestlling. The mooning stares and tortured emotions love chemistry formula. Sybil and her beau the biggest culprits. Thomas and Mrs O'Brien the only regular smokers because they are the baddies. They hatch most of their plots while having a smoko break. Is smoking the new cue for the audience "hiss"? The insufferable wet sponge Mr Bates. Hanging is too good for him. His lordship who appears rather clueless and the last to know anything that's happening always seems to have the most wise PC response tailored for audience sympathy when he finds out the latest deception and family scandal then carries on as if nothing has happened. Most of the characters at first appear like they had early 20th century values but suddenly expressing modern values at key and confronting situations.

Thank you for this. I would probably accept a lot of what you write, but then you see I take the whole show as an entertainment first and foremost.

I am in the throes at the moment of reading the memoirs of Ken G. Hall and he states that the most important thing any producer of filmed entertainment can do is to reap a return on his investment at the box office. I think that the producers of "Downton Abbey" have had a canny eye for recouping their costs - and judging by the world-wide sales and popularity of the series, I would say that they have achieved their objective. This is not to say that they have downgraded their product to appeal to the masses, but perhaps they have tried to make it more approachable to them?

There is also something else to consider - when you think of an idea for a plot or scenario - always bear in mind that it has probably been done before - such that Lord Fellowes, like every other writer, may have gained his inspiration and perspiration from something else. Not that people consciously plagiarise, but similarities do occur.

I think also that the script has already indicated that his Lordship is rather clueless - especially where finances and business are concerned, but in one particular episode he treats a would-be blackmailer with a remarkable feat of come comeuppance.

Having myself lived near to three score years and ten, and having had a father born in the 19th Century - I would rate myself at having a very good knowledge of the values of the particular times. Let me firstly say that deep down, people have always basically remained the same - it's just that fashions and whims frequently pass by. If anything, in the 21st Century, conversation is a lost art - but I don't find anything altogether out of place in "Downton Abbey". It is not such a travesty of being out of time as that recent picture about the "Titanic" which was more 2012 than 1912. In fact I find the dialogue that Dame Maggie Smith was given in her character as the Duchess Dowager, priceless!

Anyway it is always interesting to read differing views on the same thing.

I do find it quite entertaining, holds ones attention and well paced but cheap irritants crop up all too often when they could have been done better. IMO the producers went downmarket to ensure the shows longevity and broader appeal. I only knew of DOWNTON's reputation until recently and was led to believe it was more than a soap opera pot boiler. I took some peoples word for it to be better than BRIDESHEAD. So is somewhat of a let down. Magpie Smith does get some great lines and is a brilliant scene stealer but all too often she has to crack her crusty dowager facade to pander to modern sensibilities as do most other characters that need to be portrayed sympathetically. Most of the acting is terrific but let down by pedestrian directing and asinine plot ideas, I am also sure the flower show sub plot has been lifted from elsewhere in its entirety. Seen it in another old film or TV show which I can't remember right now.

[entredeuxguerres]

...I took some peoples word for it to be better than BRIDESHEAD...

Dismiss them from your acquaintance! This isn't a matter merely of taste & personal preferences, but of basic intelligence!

As for flower-show themes, no doubt there have been many of them, but could you be thinking of the one in Mrs. Miniver?

[Changsham]

...I took some peoples word for it to be better than BRIDESHEAD...

Dismiss them from your acquaintance! This isn't a mere matter of taste & personal preferences, but of basic intelligence!

As for flower-show themes, no doubt there have been many of them, but could you be thinking of the one in Mrs. Miniver?

Too right, they have gone down in my estimation but not too easy to get rid of as they are my in laws and one is a know all terminal bore lawyer that always has to have the final word on any topic of conversation. Yes, the flower show I am thinking of could be from Mrs Miniver. Must be 30 years since I've seen it.

[Donald Binks]

I do find it quite entertaining, holds ones attention and well paced but cheap irritants crop up all too often when they could have been done better. IMO the producers went downmarket to ensure the shows longevity and broader appeal. I only knew of DOWNTON's reputation until recently and was led to believe it was more than a soap opera pot boiler. I took some peoples word for it to be better than BRIDESHEAD. So is somewhat of a let down. Magpie Smith does get some great lines and is a brilliant scene stealer but all too often she has to crack her crusty dowager facade to pander to modern sensibilities as do most other characters that need to be portrayed sympathetically. Most of the acting is terrific but let down by pedestrian directing and asinine plot ideas, I am also sure the flower show sub plot has been lifted from elsewhere in its entirety. Seen it in another old film or TV show which I can't remember right now.

Whilst I quite liked "Brideshead" - the first version, I must admit that there were some sections of it that I found quite boring - no doubt the scriptwriters were appealing to the "arty" people and so a lot of that was lost on me, a mere mortal. I also found that there were stereotypical caricatures in it - as I daresay there are in any work. That it was prepared to show the life of a privileged loafer living in abundant debauchery was I suppose its prominent draw factor. Another series which was on roundabout the time of "Brideshead" and which I thoroughly enjoyed, was "Love in a Cold Climate" which was a dramatisation of the early life of the infamous Mitford sisters. I wish I had had an Uncle Mathew!

[Changsham]

BTW, just found this link while trying to refresh my memory.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebri ... laims.html" target="_blank

[entredeuxguerres]

...That it was prepared to show the life of a privileged loafer living in abundant debauchery was I suppose its prominent draw factor...

Such debauchery as might have been faintly suggested (because certainly there was nothing depicted explicitly) could not, I don't think, have commanded too very much attention from those seeking that kind of titillation; nor is it likely the true, glacially-evolved, theme--the mystery of faith--held great appeal for connoisseurs of debauchery.

[Mike Gebert]

Should I move the Downton Abbey discussion off on its own? It seems to be getting big enough to warrant it. [EDIT: I did}

In the meantime, I'm a watcher of it only in the sense that I pass through the room where my wife is watching it, but I thought this was funny-- Stephen Colbert got the cast to play a scene as Americans:

[entredeuxguerres]

Should I move the Downton Abbey discussion off on its own? It seems to be getting big enough to warrant it.

Makes sense, though I expect there's not much more that can be added to the palaver.

Colbert would not think American accents in a British setting so bizarre if he'd seen the scores of '30s pictures set in England with casts which included American actors playing British subjects; I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've seen such an American actor speak "British."

[busby1959]

...And of course years ago people died younger and from so many other causes, before cancer had a chance to do the dirty.

In the '50s & '60s, the single most common slang term for cigarettes was "cancer stick." Not as common, but still widely used was "coffin nail." No, not all the medical evidence had been assembled at that point, but everyone who wasn't a complete moron realized it was a seriously unhealthy practice--which gives the lie to all those lawsuits by smokers who claimed they "never knew."

That would mean being accountable for your own choices, good or bad. But then, those were the old rules. Assigning blame and guilt for one's own stupidity has become a national pastime.

[Donald Binks]

Should I move the Downton Abbey discussion off on its own? It seems to be getting big enough to warrant it. [EDIT: I did}

In the meantime, I'm a watcher of it only in the sense that I pass through the room where my wife is watching it, but I thought this was funny-- Stephen Colbert got the cast to play a scene as Americans:

Arrrrrrghhhh! Carruthers? Bring me my gun. Time to blow me brains out!

[entredeuxguerres]

...Time to blow me brains out!

I'm putting that off until after the next Presidential election, but I'll join you then.