Monday, August 22, 2011

Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is a series produced and filmed in England that was also shown on PBS early in 2011 as a part of Masterpiece Theater. I can't recommend this show enough, and it is streamable from Netflix now in seven 1-hour episodes. It's also re-airing on PBS starting December 18th.

Yes, it's a British period drama, but don't be put off by that - it's a fantastic one. In fact, it's a fantastic show, period. It was also very successful, in both England and the US, as well as 100 other countries. So much so that despite it's shooting cost of over 1 million pounds per episode to it's been picked up for seasons 2 and 3.

Downton follows the lives of a privileged family early in the reign of King George V, spanning the time between the sinking of Titanic in April 1912 and the beginning of WWI in July 1914.

The story, which uses a similar viewpoint to Upstairs/Downstairs and Gosford Park (which I guess figures, since Julian Fellowes, who created Downton Abbey also write the screenplay for Gosford, and won the academy award for it), brilliantly follows the various parallel story lines of the family and their extensive servant staff. The interactions between the characters are very interesting to someone living in the 21st century. The rigid social structure of England in the early 20th century was starting to undergo huge changes driven by powerful forces from telephones, automobiles and electricity to women's rights and the rise of trade unions.

So Downton is caught in a very interesting time and the show makes great use of it. And if you have any interest at all in how society was structured in this long-gone age, you will learn all kinds of interesting facts. I never quite realized how rigidly things ran - even amongst the staff. Here's an example:

The butler of a house managed the entire household and all the staff. He was like the CEO of a company in today's terms. Nothing happened without his knowledge and approval. He ruled over the maids, the kitchen staff, the valet, everyone. He held the key to the wine cellar. But although he was technically in charge, there were other staff members who had far more intimate relationships with the family - especially the Valet and the Lady's Maid. After all, they dressed and bathed their employers daily. This makes for great drama as you can imagine.
 
The isolation of the family, especially the women, from the nastier sides of life such as poverty and work, is airtight and complete. In one scene the elderly Dowager Countess is listening to a conversation where a man who had a job in the real world mentioned having time on the weekend. She (played pitch-perfectly by Maggie Smith) said, with an air of total bafflement: "Pardon me, but what is a week-end?" 

The contrast and interactions between the characters then is somewhat forced by their stations. This was a time that if you were born poor you just knew you would always be poor (not all that different today I suppose but today you can at least hope to win the lottery or get a lucky break - not so back then).
 
One maid in the house tried so hard to get a better job as a secretary and couldn't take the rejection anymore. When asked by a family member why she didn't want to continue pursuing this if she wanted it so badly, she said: "people in my station learn not to invest in our dreams because they so seldom ever come true".

The cast is uniformly excellent, the writing is brilliant, and the show was filmed at a real castle (the producer said if they would have tried to recreate a real English castle in the studio, with all it's breathtaking artwork and huge cavernous spaces, they would have blown their entire budget on the first room). It just all comes together perfectly. I wouldn't be blogging about it if I didn't think this is one of the best shows I've ever seen. And they didn't use any CGI. They didn’t have to. Just look at the crap that's on TV and in theaters right now. I'd so much rather see Downton. Give it a one-episode try. You may find that you can't stop watching it.

2 comments:

wildmary said...

I will!

ingrid said...

You had me at Maggie Smith.

I just saw the picture, had not read any of the post and thought, "That looks like Gosford Park for TV."

I started watching last night, but only got about 5 minutes in before being interrupted. It will probably take me 3 years to watch the first season. It looks great, though!