Pro (Hollywood Reporter)
Con (Huffington Post)
I agree with both reviews. But ultimately, even with its flaws, Downton Abbey was worth watching. And British Edwardian society, with all of its hubris, hypocrisy, and flaws, at least had some class and society expectations that you would act like an adult and with honor (even if many fell short of that).
While I believe in evolution--as our prophets warned, it is not necessarily traveling in an upward mode all the time: Example One, Example Two, and Example Three . I could go on but it is frankly too depressing.
Social class position determined military rank in the early days of the war. Men from the upper and upper middle classes were likely to enlist earlier than men of more modest means; elites passed the rudimentary medical examinations at greater rates and joined the officer corps largely because they were deemed the right sort of people to do so. Since the officer casualty rates as a whole were about twice as high as those of men in the ranks, it follows that the higher a man was in the social scale in 1914 Britain, the greater his chances of joining the 'Lost Generation.'
ReplyDelete~ J. M. Winter, War Letters of Fallen Englishmen
Right. As if Maureen Ryan's negative review is going to make me not watch Downton Abbey. It sounds to me like she may have a wee tiny ethnic ax to grind.
ReplyDeleteI like season 2 because of the way it portrays the war's affect on everyone in British society. This was so not America's experience in that world war.
Oh Maureen Ryan, stuff a sock in it! Season Two promises to be every bit as good as One. I'm even beginning to like Thomas the gay manipulative first footman.
ReplyDeleteThere will be a Season 3!!!
I found the editing to be too choppy. I liked the characters and story well enough. The acting is well done. But trying to cram in too much information can be a problem. And we get strange things like Matthew and Mary seated together while his fiancé is farther down the table (I mean, we know they are going to get back together at least they could be subtle about it). The good news is season three has been ordered. The bad news is they will probably drag out this whole cousin romance thing between Matthew and Mary.
ReplyDelete@Allie: But Thomas did such a terrible thing to his hand! It only made me wonder if that sort of thing happened more often.
ReplyDelete@EBL: There is a lot of historical ground to cover and they did jump right into the trenches going from Season 1 to 2. Gallipoli already happened apparently. The history could have benefitted from a story of a Bates' friend going off to fight early and discussion of the situation on the ground in 1915.
@Allie: While watching "A Woman In Berlin," I had to explain quite a bit of history to my wife because that story was almost too highly compressed.
Chickie, true, A Woman in Berlin can be appreciated better for those of us that are fascinated with WW2 history. My mother had a friend that was a victim of the mass rapings, she had a stutter that began after being raped by countless Russian soldiers.
ReplyDeleteTrue it was a cowardly thing for Thomas to do, but he shows some compassion to the blind patient in the hospital scene, kind of makes him a more sympathetic character.
ReplyDeleteI bet that sort of injury happened in all the wars.
True it was a cowardly thing for Thomas to do, but he shows some compassion to the blind patient in the hospital scene, kind of makes him a more sympathetic character.
ReplyDeleteConsidering there wasn't much else to like about him (his scheming with O'Brien)--you're right.