Downton Abbey

[MartyS (Gromit)]

And yet I still have no trouble believing that some American studio will decide to do a dumbed-down American remake of it.  Just wait.  It'll happen.

Or they could pull a Coupling, use the exact same dialog but set it in New York with American actors, so nothing they say fits the culture...  What a disaster that was, turned off fans of the original, and I'm sure seemed "wrong" to people that never watched the original.

I agree Downton is really a high end soap opera, with great sets, actors, and dialog.   It's not realistic or truly historical.  I was just watching the extras on the Murder On The Orient Express DVD and they said when recreating a historical setting for fiction you try to get in as many details as possible in but as long as it "feels" right it's good enough, that certainly holds true for Downton Abbey.

For a show that was popular yet made you think, LOST comes to mind.  But I suppose it didn't really require a lot of thought, you could still enjoy it while being spoon fed bits of information each week.

[Tripe]

Yeah Manor House was awesome, the poor old coot and his feelings of being betrayed, it was quite touching.

[D.B. Barnes]

Downton Arby's
 

Edith. 

[Lembach]

Dear Lord. I must be getting old. I started watching Season One on Amazon Prime and was instantly hooked!

Currently on episode 3: The dashing Turkish diplomat, Mr. Pamuk! How scandalous!

[MartyS (Gromit)]

That's how I got hooked, bunch of people at work raving about it, then watched a few on Netflix, then a few more, then the entire first season.  They look really great on Blu-Ray.  I got the people at work to buy the Blu-Rays since they were only watching on PBS and I was telling them about the missing stuff that PBS cut out when they combined two episodes into one.

[D.B. Barnes]

It was a hell of thing when Lavinia died. 

[D.B. Barnes]

Season 3 trailer here:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/08/alls-not-well-downton-season-three-trailer/55810/

Nothing too spoilery I don't think. But hey, what do I know.

Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith should really be something.

Man, I love the music on this show.

[D.B. Barnes]

Julian Fellowes Plans 'Downton Abbey' Prequel

The Oscar-winning scribe says he wants to look at the early relationship between the characters currently played by Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern.

LONDON -- Oscar-winning scribe Julian Fellowes plans to write a prequel to his hit show Downton Abbey.

Fellowes, speaking at a British Academy Film and Television Academy screenwriters lecture, said he is writing a prequel that follows how the Earl and Countess of Grantham -- played by Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern in the current now -- first met. Fellowes' plans, reported on the BBC News website despite the show being a ratings hit for rival commercial broadcaster ITV, will be to look at the pair's early courtship from the American heiress' arrival in the U.K.

The spinoff drama will cast a pair of younger actors in the roles played by Bonneville and McGovern, according to the BBC. Fellowes said the spinoff would be broadcast after the end of Downton Abbey, which airs on PBS in the U.S.

"I don't think you can continue a narrative in more than one area at once," he explained.

He told the BAFTA audience the idea would be to look at the pair's blossoming relationship because McGovern's character was in love with the one played by Bonneville before they married and he married her "entirely for her money." The prequel also might see some of the show set in America.

Downton Abbey star Maggie Smith picked up an Emmy on Sept. 23 for her turn in the show.

Never enough Downton as far as I'm concerned.

I've got all of series three downloaded; now I just need to do a weekend marathon!

[D.B. Barnes]

Does this mean the show is over after S3? Or is there a 4th series coming?

From another article:

“I would hope [there will be more] because of the response to this series, but you know [ITV] are always pretty close to their chest in terms of an actual commission. But I think I’d be surprised if there was not a fourth series,” Fellowes told The Daily Telegraph.

"We haven't announced any further news on that front," an ITV representative told THR on Monday.

Sounds promising?

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Why Downton Abbey?  Why you make cry?

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Yeah, that was brutal, and then add what happens at the end of the season.

Don't read if you haven't seen the last minute:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dan Stevens (Mathew) said in an interview he would not be back for season 4, so that pretty much kills any hope that Mathew survived that car crash.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

So, season 4 has begun.

Meh.

Maybe the people that left the show knew what they were doing?  Nothing that happened in these first 2 hours has me very interested in seeing more.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Guess I'm the only one here still watching.

And WTF, don't mess with Anna like that, I did not need to see that.  And the repercussions are going to suck.

Next why not throw Daisy off a bridge or something?  If that's what good drama is all about......

[JP]

Guess I'm the only one here still watching.

And WTF, don't mess with Anna like that, I did not need to see that.  And the repercussions are going to suck.

Next why not throw Daisy off a bridge or something?  If that's what good drama is all about......

Daisy has been through enough, already!  Let's see....there's the time where she fell madly in love feigned interest in William who then dies on their wedding day, which caused her to swell with apathy.  There was that day she moved away from the Abbey to tend her father-in-law's farm [might have been a whole weekend].  Seems like she also spewed jealousy at the new kitchen maid that she now ignores.  If Daisy was thrown from a bridge, she would be back in the kitchen by episode's end.  She is the teflon of plot development.   

But, yes, don't mess with Anna!

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Finished up the season tonight. 

I was getting kind of disappointed by mid season but thought it picked up very nicely by the end.

Love the final scene of the special.