Downton Abbey, You've Changed

Downton Abbey has not "lost its way", "gone off the rails" or "jumped the shark".  It has, however, changed.

And I don't think that is a good thing.

When Downton Abbey first premiered in 2010 (or 2011, for those who waited to watch it on PBS in the United States), one of the main draws was the simmering romance between Mary and Matthew and the "will they ever get to be together" romance between Mr. Bates and Anna.  The creative folk behind the show did a great job of keeping those love lights quietly, but brightly, burning.

This was, of course, on top of an amazingly acted, gloriously shot period piece.

Even in the second season (the season wherein some do claim that the show lost its way), I held firm, convinced that there were still enough hints at possibly a "happily ever after" ending for our star-crossed pairs to keep me watching.  Even the treacle sweet romances between Daisy and William and Lady Sybil and Branson were bearable, as long as I could hold out hope that Matthew and Mary would finally get together.   

But, by sewing up all of those pairings by the end of Season 2, I feel like the writers have nowhere else to go.  At least with regards to love stories.

And that makes Downton Abbey a very different show from where it started.

In Season 3, if you are not awed by the splendor of the house, amused by the strictures of British society or in love with history, you are not going to love this show.  There is nothing for those who love romance to love; at least not right now.  Which is a shame.

A good love story can make any show easily accessible and can bring back viewers who have given up.  Even if you had never watched Downton before this season, if there was a good romance brewing, you could jump in, watch for the love story and figure out the back story along the way.

Lady Mary and Lady Sybil are happily, if boringly, married.  There is such little fire or passion in those pairings that even I, shipper of Matthew and Mary, find myself terribly bored by their couple scenes.  Anna and Mr. Bates are coupled together but torn apart by circumstances that the writers don't seem in any hurry to resolve.  As such, we wait.

But while we wait, there is really very little else to distract us.  In Downton Abbey time, the war is over, but we see very little change in the household or village.  The house itself, THE Downton Abbey, is in peril, this time from financial constraints.  And Lady Edith, poor Edith, has been given the misery role to play for yet another season.  But none of these are really enough to keep a viewer watching.

What are we expected to be waiting for?  What are we expected to be hoping for?  I don't care if the family keeps the house or loses the house.  I don't care if Thomas gets his come-uppance or not.  I don't even care if Mr. Bates never gets out of prison.  And I love Mr. Bates!  (But really, who doesn't?)

That's how much I've lost interest in this show!

Last season, it seemed like the writers were struggling there as well, but they managed to pull together intrigue towards the end of the season to keep me watching all the way through and happy at the end of the Christmas episode.

While I wait for the next episode I find myself wondering:  Will it be ever thus?  Will we Downton Abbey fans have to, every year, sit through boring starts of seasons before we get to the good stuff?

And will I still care?

- Sis

Out of Context: S.F.W.

I never watched SFW when it came out in 1994.  I also never watched it on DVD.

So it was clearly out of context when I watched it last weekend.

SFW asks the dual question: 

1.  What happens when you become a celebrity but you are still you?
AND
2.  What if you had no control over how you became a celebrity?

Even to a staunch avoider of reality-TV such as myself, watching this movie in 2012 was not a novel experience.  Having been a part of the generation in which 'The Real World' started the whole 'reality' trainwreck, watching a person become a celebrity due to nothing but circumstance and then watching those struggles and pitfalls was not new.

But in 1994, it was.  This movie relies heavily on context, or at least the environment where reality TV or being famous for just being famous is not the norm.

"Unintentional" celebrity is de riguer for roughly one-quarter of the 'known' names nowadays.  Even those who seek viral celebrity status often find that celebrity is not quite the shiny gold ring that it often appears to be.

But what if you couldn't even control how you 'became known'?  That question still rings profound.

Spab, our unlikely hero, (who's name I didn't believe was his full name until I saw it in the end credits) did not set out to become famous and definitely not in the manner in which he became.  What is fun about Spab is that he never seemed to try to rise above/beyond himself; to become the "thing" that everyone wanted him to be.  And I say "thing" because Spab, upon becoming a celebrity, lost his humanity.  He became a mantra, a slogan, an idea; the quintessential 'voice of a generation'.  But not a person, not a human with flaws and vices and needs.

I kept expecting the movie to go in the direction of either 'guru with feet of clay' or self-destruction.  But the movie doesn't go in either direction, choosing the at-the-time-not-yet-overdone 'slice of life', a raw, convoluted, sometimes boring and slow, but true lens.

-Sis