Season 2 is great. They really upped the already high production values. I was surprised to see the DVD includes scenes that were cut out for the US airing of the show! Apparently, they felt we didn’t need or couldn’t handle the full version shown in the UK.
Also, I recently Net-Flicked ™ the entire Upstairs Downstairs, and highly recommend it to anyone starving for more Downton. Really good stuff, though you have to get past the dated 4:3 British video tape quality and 70’s sound. Downton copied a bunch of the story lines (Spanish flu, WW1, Titanic, daughter turned nurse, etc…)
Hudson the butler, played by the late Gordon Jackson is just awesome.
Four episodes in and I’m pretty much hooked. It’s nice to find a show I can watch with my wife that isn’t either a CSI clone or some doofy show on the USA network about hot young earnest doctor/lawyer/whitecollarcriminals. All of those shows are the same fucking show! At least Downton Abbey isn’t that. Yes, it’s a soap opera, at least so far, but it’s got good writing and very good acting (although Maggie Smith is getting on my nerves) and so many interesting faces. Brendan Coyle. Dude. I could watch that guy sit in a library and read the phone book. To himself. I love that guy.
I’m not crazy about the fact that I’m really just watching a soap opera with nifty accents, but I like some of the historical social commentary and like how it sticks a finger in my eye every now and then. Like when I sat there whinging about Elizabeth McGovern’s accent and then got duly pwned. You got me. Well and good.
That said Woolen Horde’s link made me laugh my ass off.
I found Season Two to be generally disappointing. Observations:
MANY SPOILERS!
The biggest thing that stood out to me were the plotlines that were introduced and then resolved (or not resolved) in very odd ways. Edith’s fling with the farmer? The wife writes and says she shouldn’t come back. The burned guy claiming to be heir? Just disappears one day, ambiguously. Thomas was made “head of the household” in some form or another, but there were never any scenes showing his role or the conflict it caused. And they kept kinda burying the Bates/Anna story and then bringing it back with strange justifications.
The dowager countess turned into comedy relief.
Matthew as mopey cripple and then mopey martyr.
Out of character scenes: Cora with blatant rudeness telling Matthew’s mother (Isabelle?) to just go away. Lord Crawley’s fling with the maid (although I know it was meant to inform his attitudes toward Sybil and the chauffeur). Anyone allowing Thomas back in that house to do ANYTHING!!
Cora’s acting was even worse than season 1.
Pointless plot threads like the golddigger trying to marry the earl’s sister.
I liked how the war and changing mores were reflected in the life of these characters. I liked the William/Daisy plotline, although it got a little too drawn out. I liked O’Brian’s changes of heart (if slight). I still love many of the characters like Bates and Carson. I stuck through to the end of the season, but it doesn’t bode real well for a third.
I agree. To me, season 2 felt more soap opera-y, whereas I feel like I could convince myself that I was watching a “serious” historical drama in season 1.
That said, I still enjoyed it, but it does leave me a bit tentative. My wife, on the other hand, is still very gung ho about season 3, so its somewhat of a moot point for me.
I think that storyline was the focus of the Christmas special which I don’t believe was aired in the US or on Netflix Instant (though I do believe it is on the DVD set). While it seemed out of place to me when it aired, people explaining the special to me cleared it up some and placed it in context.
I think it was aired in the US, because the US season was labeled as 10 episodes I believe, meaning they threw in the Christmas episode and split it in two.
It was the last episode on the Netflix DVDs for season 2. Whether that’s where it SHOULD be, I don’t know. Well, I guess I do, because it also had stuff about Bates’ trial.
Anyone else catch the season 3 premiere? It ran in the UK last Friday, and is thusly on the Internets at large.
I’m glad they resolved many of the lingering melodramas (Matthew/Mary, Carson’s trial, Youger daughter’s eloping w/ the chaffeur, etc) but the they don’t seem to have created anything new to give this season much bite. Doesn’t matter though. I’m hooked on the show.
Yeah it seemed a bit of a setup, but still I liked it… like an old friend returning. Some of the things we suspected may happen look like they will come to pass, and Thomas took alternating turns being a complete asshat (telling Sybil, “don’t you disappoint me”) and then actually getting some modicum of respect. But I still completely hate the character.
Bates gets on my tits, but any of the scenes with hugh bonneville or maggie smith in make the rest well worth watching. Or any scenes with sybil in :D
If you like hugh bonneville (the earl) you MUST watch the mockumentary series ‘2012’. It’s fucking hilarious
The chauffeur? Him blowing up about the Troubles at dinner? If I had a glass ball that’s where I’d predict the show was going. Not to mention the whole issue with the head honcho losing pretty much all his money on the stock exchange… There’s lots of tension so far in this first episode, and I think that S03E01 was better than anything in S02.
uh well I didn’t see what happened in Episode 5 coming. Well I think it was there in the back of my mind from somewhere but still, goddamn it. Actually that episode might interest you, but I have no idea how accurate it is.
This season is hard to pin down. It’s more excruciating than previous ones… just seems like there’s a ton more drama, and the drama is not just cuddly drama. Violet is razor-sharp and funny as ever. Didn’t really like Shirley Maclaine at all–she felt way too forced of American “ideals” but thankfully she wasn’t around for long. There’s a fairly early deus ex machina dealing with Matthew that is kinda lame.
I think it’s better so far but there are still some annoying parts.
Season 3 starts off very badly, mainly because NOTHING IS HAPPENING. They’re literally complaining about fucking dinner jackets. And, yeah, that Matthew subplot is just painful because it also offers such a tidy solution to another character’s subplot.
It’s also bugging me that it’s drama for drama’s sake. I keep muttering that “Nothing ever happens easily to these people.” Oh, we’re out of milk, I’ll just run down to the corner store and get some… OMG, IT’S MY LONG LOST FATHER COME FROM NOWHERE.
But, yeah, Episode 5 telegraphs what’s gong to happen early on, but it’s still a shock. Badly needed, though. They need more of those to shake up the storytelling.
