Anybody else hooked on Downton Abbey?
We watched the finale of the PBS Masterpiece Theater "Downton Abbey" tonight and loved its twists and turns to the very end, sad now to have to wait for next season's series to pick up on this wonderful story set in an Edwardian manor house. It's been great fun:
By Sarah Seltzer
Secrets, blackmail, gossip, sex scandals, mysterious deaths, rivalry and scheming mark PBS’s latest period costume drama mini-series, “Downton Abbey”. At times, the show has as much in common with a prime-time soap as it does with an Austen adaptation — though it still features the requisite talk about marriage, property and class.
“Downton Abbey” is an original drama penned by “Gosford Park” and “The Young Victoria” scribe Julian Fellowes and set in the titular Edwardian manor house. The show covers the lives of the aristocratic family “upstairs” and all their servants “downstairs,” who have their own histories and agendas, and who can sway the fate of the wealthy folks above them.
The formula of fast-paced plotting meets classic costume-drama tropes seems to have worked. In the UK, “Downton” aired on ITV and was the network’s most popular drama since 1981’s “Brideshead Revisted.” Early figures stateside, according to ITV, make “Downton” one of Masterpiece’s biggest successes as well. Indeed, while “Downton” initially hooked me in with its twists and cliffhangers, the flawed and fascinating characters have grown more human over the course of a few episodes–and now I’m quite desperate to find out what their fates are for more than curiosity’s sake.
At the center of the all the intrigue is the future of Downton Abbey itself, which by British law must be left to the next male heir, an unfortunate fellow who we learn has drowned in the Titanic in the first episode. The next in line, a middle-class lawyer named Matthew, arrives in the neighborhood determined not to be turned into a snob just because of his new position in life. Meanwhile, the women of the family, led by the formidable Dowager Countess (played to perfection by Maggie Smith), and the headstrong eldest daughter Mary, are equally determined not to be swayed by Matthew. Mary refuses to consider a match with the new heir (which would have allowed her to keep her the family estate and fortune) while she flirts dangerously with the charming son of a Turkish ambassador. The Countess, meanwhile, repeatedly butts heads with Matthew’s mother, a former nurse, who has “reforming inclinations.” All these currents pass back and forth while Mary’s jealous younger sister Edith tries to sabotage her sister’s marital prospects and the youngest sister, Sybil, begins to wear bloomers, sneak the maids away to interviews for secretarial positions, and talk radical politics with a socialist Irish chauffeur.
Downstairs, the noble valet Mr. Bates and the equally noble housemaid Anna have fallen for each other, but he tells her he’s “not a free man.” And the deliciously wicked pair of servants Thomas (who is secretly gay) and O’Brien are desperate to destroy Bates and whoever else crosses them — and they’re stealing wine to boot. All the jockeying for power and inheritance grows even more serious with a shady death in the house, past scandals coming to light, and the steady intrusion of the outside world onto the old-fashioned, corsets and brandy set at Downton. As the series has progressed, Mary has softened towards her middle-class cousin just as he has grown more comfortable being heir — but her pride and rivalry with her sister may prevent her from recognizing her true feelings.
As we approach the finale, which PBS will air tonight at 9 p.m., there are so many plot strings left hanging it will be hard to resolve them all in a mere 90 minutes. The biggest questions lingering downstairs are the resolution of the Bates-Anna romance and the schemes against them by their jealous fellow servants O’Brien and Thomas. Upstairs, Mary’s feelings for Matthew, her sister Edith’s machinations to smear her reputation, and Sybil’s growing interest in politics are the unknowns waiting for a resolution. Since there’s another season of “Downton” headed our way (it enters production this spring), my guess is not everything will be tied up neatly. But the sub-plot I’d most like to see end satisfactorily is the sweet romance between the servants Bates and Anna. These two are so loyal and so loving in a show filled with so much manipulation and deceit — don’t they at least deserve a happy ending?
