Aristocrats Are Silly

Yes, this is another Downton Abbey post. Feel free to skip if you are not interested/addicted.

One of my favorite things about the Internet is that I am able to find other people who can express the feelings that I am feeling in a much more coherent or artistic or beautiful or hilarious way. Actually, I think this is what tumblr does very well. So, it is not a surprise to me that someone on tumblr has written a great review of Downton Abbey, putting into words everything that I am feeling about the show right now. Here are some of my favorite parts:


"So I have fallen for my new boyfriends and girlfriends at Downton Abbey. But look at them. Can you blame me?



This is Lady Mary Crawley, the eldest of the Crawley sisters of Downton. She should inherit the estate, but—bummer—she’s a girl, and girls can’t inherit property in Edwardian England because … I guess they’ll bleed and cry all over it? I dunno. Anyway, because she wants to continue being rich and because her family needs to keep the estate, she is betrothed to a second cousin she is largely indifferent to. Except, oh wait! He dies on the Titantic (Yeah, this is technically a spoiler but it happens within the first 15 minutes of episode 1, so, you know, get over it.) She’s free of that crashing bore of a second cousin, but, oh yeah, still can’t inherit on account of all the bleeding and crying ladyfolks tend to do. So a hunt is on for another heir, one even more tangentially related to the family, because a distantly related man is better than a directly related female.

Enter this dude.

This is Matthew Crawley, a middle-class (gasp!) solicitor (double gasp!) from Manchester (infinite gasp!). He’s the Crawley’s fourth cousin once removed or some such thing, and he’s the next heir to Downton Abbey. But guess what? He don’t want no stinking estate. He’s all, “Aristocrats are silly!” “I’m progressive!” “I have a job!” “I ride a bike!” “I won’t be forced into marrying any of the Crawley sisters either, because, yuck!”

And then Mary walks in and he’s like, “just kidding.”
 
Then, we’re off to the races, folks. And it’s literally as if Julian Fellowes said, “Here [real person behind PoetSara], I made a show for you.” The time period, the clothing, the repressed longing, the verbal-sparring-as-courtship, the British countryside, all of it. There’s no Fleetwood Mac on the soundtrack yet, but I live in hope.

It probably bears mentioning at this point that Downton Abbey is an ensemble drama. Both aristocratic family life and the servants’ exploits are explored to varying degrees of satisfaction. And Dame Maggie Smith, whom the fandom has correctly identified as the Head Bitch In Charge, shows up once or twice an episode to drop a zinger."

And:
"Imagine my horror then when I stumbled upon (okay, fine, aggressively searched for) spoilers from episode five of season two that seem to indicate a less than fairytale ending for some characters. No, I thought to myself, they wouldn’t really do that … would they? They couldn’t … could they? Perhaps all the pictures, vaguely foreboding reviews, and actor soundbites have all been a clever smokescreen, designed to create suspense where there really isn’t any. I hope so, but I am not convinced. Mostly this is because this is British television, not American. In America, shows need to run for about 100 episodes in order to be sold into syndication and make everyone a shit ton of money. This requires actors to stay put and popular story lines to be nurtured milked. But British ambitions are different. God bless ‘em, they care more about art than Americans do, and they might fuck with a winning formula if it means they can call the results art. Not that they ever would, mind you, at least not publicly, but they’d think it to themselves. They’d know.

I don’t know if my weak American heart—conditioned as it has been on stories of triumph over insurmountable obstacles—can take a dose of reality in my dreamy British costume drama. I just don’t know. But I also can’t take the waiting. I haven’t had to wait to find out what happens next on my favorite shows in a long, long time. This is torture. How did I do it before? I guess I had hobbies or friends? Hah! My point is, I need to know one way or the other so I can either break up with Downton Abbey or exhale in relief."

Here's the full review from PoetSara if you want to read it.