In the age of the Harlem Shake, Carly Rae Jepson and wedge sneakers on the runways, fads are something we see come and go practically daily. I was weary when “Downton Abbey” started being shown in the U.S. on PBS. I heard the murmurings of a cultural fad sweep.
“Lauren, it’s the best thing ever. There are British people.”
“I swear, I look just like Lavinia. It’s the hair.”
“You have to watch it!”
You get the gist. I remember buying the first season on DVD at Target on Black Friday for $13. Apprehensively, but still willing to give it a fair shot, I watched the first episode and sadly just couldn’t get into it. For some reason the characters all felt oddly distanced from the viewer. Bates seemed cold and Lady Mary’s secret fiancé just died on the Titanic and she couldn’t even muster up enough heart to pretend to be upset.
Winter break rolled around and I decided to give it another shot after hearing all the buzz for season three with its release in the U.S. Long story short, I watched seasons one and two in the time span of about 3 days. Yes, perhaps that’s not healthy and I should have gone outside at some point, but this show is so brilliantly conceptualized and executed, it’s impossible not to get sucked into “Downton.”
The show is the brainchild of Julian Fellowes (whose full title happens to be Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, very Downton-worthy I think), a British actor, screenwriter, novelist and director. It first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom in the fall of 2010, but it was brought to the U.S. in the winter of 2011 as a part of Masterpiece Classics on PBS.
The mini-series is set in a fictional country estate called Downton Abbey in Yorkshire. The first season starts with the sinking of the Titanic in April of 1912. Season two features the war years of WWI and Season three leads us into the roaring 1920s and formation of the Irish Free State.
As a bit of a history nerd, I love the attention to historical detail, but that’s not what “Downton” is about. It’s not a war documentary. It’s a drama about people for people. Throughout three seasons of the show there have been 62 different characters, enough people to populate a small rural town. Each character’s storyline is given so much importance they all become an integral part of the story that’s quite believable.
Whilst a big part of the show is the class division between the members of the household staff and the family members upstairs, no character is more important than another in terms of the dramatic fabric that makes up the show. The stories are so interwoven that every character depends upon one another, much like in real life. I appreciate that and I feel as though it’s unique to “Downton.” Plus, it’s sweet and romantic at times. The characters all live in a drastically changing world and I think it’s easy to see the parallels between their world and our own.
Spoiler Alert: Season three held two big surprises, the death of Dan Stevens’ character, Matthew Crawley and that of Jessica Brown Findlay’s Lady Sybil. Both left newborn children and widowed spouses behind. After the dust settles, it will be interesting to see where the future of the show heads with all these actors leaving.
Moral of this story? Go ahead, indulge in this cultural fad. It’s entertaining, well-done and you just might even learn something.
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