DOWNTON ABBEY - PART 2 EPISODE 6

Spoiler alert!!!

Well now, last night's episode of Downton Abbey was wonderful. I was completely caught up in the lives of the Grantham family and their servants in the expensive soap opera. I'd say the episode was quite satisfying, if the end hadn't left poor Bates in the custody of the police just after marrying Anna, and Matthew poised to make a martyr of himself because Lavinia, his self-sacrificing fiancée, happened upon him dancing with and kissing Lady Mary, and finally with Lavinia dead of a broken heart and the Spanish flu. And the dignified Lord Grantham dallies with Jane, the maid! Shocking, just shocking!

And isn't Bates, sexy, despite the fact that he's a tad overweight (and it's not all muscle!)? And Anna, with her hair down, is lovely. Remember the old movies with plain and prudish women characters who come alive as beauties, simply by letting their hair down? Of course, Anna smolders even with her hair hidden away in her cap.

Dame Maggie Smith, as the Dowager Duchess, speaks a good many brief lines which, if spoken by another actor, might be throwaways, but with Maggie, no lines are throwaways. She commands every scene where she appears. There's none like her. I had the great privilege to see Dame Maggie in Peter Shaffer's Lettece and Lovage in London from the second row. She was magnificent, and I shall never forget her performance.

What a change from last week's episode, which was ruthlessly edited into brief scenes with little context in so choppy a manner that I could barely follow the story. Downton Abbey is soap opera certainly, but, at its best, soap of a very high order.

IF YOU WATCHED "DOWNTON ABBEY"...

...or even if you didn't, enjoy.




Thanks to Lapin for the link.

ARE YOU WATCHING DOWNTON ABBEY?

The Downton Abbey estate stands a splendid example of confidence and mettle, its family enduring for generations and its staff a well-oiled machine of propriety. But change is afoot at Downton — change far surpassing the new electric lights and telephone. A crisis of inheritance threatens to displace the resident Crawley family, in spite of the best efforts of the noble and compassionate Earl, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville, Miss Austen Regrets); his American heiress wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern); his comically implacable, opinionated mother, Violet (Maggie Smith, David Copperfield); and his beautiful, eldest daughter, Mary, intent on charting her own course. Reluctantly, the family is forced to welcome its heir apparent, the self-made and proudly modern Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), himself none too happy about the new arrangements. As Matthew's bristly relationship with Mary begins to crackle with electricity, hope for the future of Downton's dynasty takes shape. But when petty jealousies and ambitions grow among the family and the staff, scheming and secrets — both delicious and dangerous — threaten to derail the scramble to preserve Downton Abbey. Created and written by Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Downton Abbey offers a spot-on portrait of a vanishing way of life.

I'm watching and enjoying the series here in the US on PBS Masterpiece Theatre. If for nothing else, the series is worth watching for the presence of the always delightful Maggie Smith in the role of the Dowager Countess of Grantham, who steals every scene in which she appears. I was fortunate to see Dame Maggie on the stage in London some years ago in the wonderful play "Lettice and Lovage" from a second row seat, and I will never forget the experience.

But the series, a sort of Upstairs Downstairs redux, is not for nothing else, for all the actors do fine jobs. It's high-class soap opera with superior writing (Julian Fellowes, of "Gosford Park"), characters and acting. All is done properly, including the lavish sets, the lighting, which is sometimes quite dark. The series was filmed at Highclere Castle. What more could you want?

My favorite characters after Maggie Smith are Mr Carson, the butler, who is terrific in his part, and John Bates, Lord Grantham's valet. But all the characters are well-written and well-acted. None really disappoint.

You Brits have probably already watched the series if you cared to. For those of you who want more, ITV1 has scheduled a second series of the show for sometime this year.