Downton Abbey

I am a Johnny-Come-Lately to Downton Abbey.  So American.

The program's buzz had been humming like a hornet's nest and yet, I waited until the final show of Season 2 to watch my first episode.  It was definitely like starting with dessert, and who really can complain about that?  I am hooked!

I quickly reserved Season 1 from my local library and thought I would savor watching each of the seven episodes, sipping on them like a tawny port after a sumptuous meal. 

So dignified. So reserved. So British.

Alas, there was no sipping.

I was gulping show after show, unable to satisfy my hunger for what was to happen next.  Would Mary allow Matthew into her heart? Would Mrs. Patmore ever get off Daisy's back? Would O'Brien grow a conscience?  I needed answers!

While some answers were revealed, more questions arose, continually piquing my interest.
The majestic setting, the detailed period costumes and the highbrow soap opera storylines are tightly woven, leaving little chance to look away.  But, I think the cleverest aspect which keeps me watching is the clipped timing of each scene.  The writing is bright and concise leaving every scene as its own perfect vignette.  Just enough morsels of information are offered, and then it is onto another part of the grand castle.

Dame Maggie Smith as the
Dowager Countess

Not surprising, Dame Maggie Smith brings an estate-sized pedigree to her role as the Dowager Countess, "the irrefutable authority on everything."  It is her unexpected comedic delivery of some of the show's most memorable lines that really keeps things off balance.  When she and her American daughter-in-law, Cora, make an unlikely alliance to find a quick suitor overseas for her eldest granddaughter, Mary, the Dowager Countess goes to what she knows to be true when she flatly states, "In these moments, you can normally find an Italian who isn't too picky."

Or when she enters a brightly lit room recently wired with electricity, she flips open her fan to shield her eyes, and says disdainfully, “Oh dear, such a glare. I feel as if I were on stage at the Gaiety.” Her son, the Earl of Grantham, offers to electrify rooms in her home, to which she snips, “No, I couldn’t have electricity in the house. I wouldn’t sleep a wink; all those vapors seeping about.”  For a look at the top ten Dowager Countess lines, watch this humorous video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVMtffzbAwk

Just as the storyline crosses into the early 20th century, the Dowager Countess represents the pivotal bridge to more stayed times.  She fields change with a stiff sensibility for what is proper and bristles as it seeps in anyway – like an electrical current.

Even though the setting and period are far out of reach, the human themes of love, rejection, equality, class, fear, loathing and secret pasts fuel storylines that travel throughout the stayed upstairs life and the hectic servants’ world below.  The class system is in full flower in this world where servants bow and curtsy to the manor family.  There are, however, even more delineated lines among the servants. When Mr. Carson, the house butler (and highest ranked servant), enters the kitchen while the servants eat, all stand upon his arrival.  A lady’s maid is above a housemaid and poor Daisy, is the lowest of the low, a kitchen maid.  

Siobhan Finneran as Mrs.
Sarah O'Brien

Every one of the 16 principle characters is in some sort of battle to keep their status or to either push through into the next job or gasp! out into the village to work.  All the while, the truth is a commodity for both those with scruples and the unscrupulous.  Where the characters fall on that line of truth changes from show to show- much to my dismay! For example, the hard edged Mrs. O'Brien, lady's maid to the Countess of Grantham, mistakenly thinks she is being replaced at Downton.  In a moment of revenge, she pushes soap where her newly pregnant Lady's foot will land when she steps out of the bath, causing her to fall and miscarry.  Moments before this happens, O'Brien glimpses at the mirror and realizes she does not recognize her scheming self.  But, too late, because seconds later her Lady falls.  Curses! O'Brien!

A quiet but formidable character is the home itself.  The show’s writer/creator, Julian Fellowes, aptly describes the house as a “trumpet blast” and in real life is known as Highclere Castle, a 50-room manor about 1 ½ hours west of London.  Interestingly, the castle was an abbey in its earlier days.  Another example of art imitating life.

The Dowager Countess Paper doll

As for merchandise, there’s plenty.  Mugs and pillows sporting favorite show quotes such as the Dowager’s question “What is a weekend?” or “She is not entitled to opinions until she is married. Then her husband will tell her what her opinions are.”  My favorites are paper doll character cutouts done with a tongue in cheek attitude. http://www.vulture.com/2012/02/print-out-vultures-downton-abbey-paper-dolls.html

So, I now patiently hold my place on the library waiting list for Season 2 to come my way. I shall dig deep, channeling a British sensibility and keep a stiff upper lip. 

In the meantime here are some more favorite quotes from the show.

“First electricity, now the telephone, I sometimes feel I am living in an HG Wells novel.” The Dowager Countess

"It sounds like the cry of the Banshee.”
Mrs. Patmore  (upon hearing the newly installed telephone ring in Downton Abbey.)

"Is there anything worse than losing one’s maid?”
The Dowager Countess

“What we want doesn’t matter. At least that’s not all that matters.”
The Earl of Grantham

“We thought the assassination of an Archduke was a surprise.”
Mrs. O’Brien (her response upon hearing Mrs. Patmore being summoned upstairs to the library. )

“If she’s got a boyfriend, I’m a giraffe.”
Mrs. O’Brien (her response to hearing Mrs. Hughes has a beau.)

“Oh good-let’s talk about money.” 
The Dowager Countess

Link to the PBS website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey/
Link to a video tour of Highclere Castle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQy-k1Pd290