UKC

What a cheery ending for the Christmas special!

This sort of gritty realism should be restricted to Eastenders...

A pile of crap. Can't believed my wife's family watched it.

In reply to JLS:
Hugely disappointing ending with another gratuitous tragedy just for the sake of it. It's become just another predictable soap opera.

In reply to Only a hill:

I couldn't agree more. What a tragic waste of a lovely old AC Sports Tourer ...

Dave

In reply to Only a hill:

Ahh, but he can come into The Archers as a new character and replace Nigel Pargiter at Lower Loxley

In reply to wercat:
What, as a legitimate toff? That would never do for the middle class liberals who write The Archers.

Bring back Nigel! (or aristo equivalent), say I!

Sxx

In reply to JLS:

I thought it was quite literally the worst TV prog of its type I've ever seen. Two hours of life wasted (couldn't escape because of family situation). No story; just fragments of potential stories that never came to anything; anything remotely sensational being entirely contingent e.g. robbery and car crash. But in no sense dramatic. Whole trip to Scotland had no dramatic purpose. First, deer stalking suggested possibility of a shooting accident, murder etc - nothing happened; then a big buildup to a local game fair - again, nothing dramatic happened except one of the minor characters pinched someone's bottom. Maggie Smith given nothing to do in the story, except speak a few cliches as interestingly as possible, with haughty eyebrows etc.

Derisory. Pretty moving wallpaper, making no plot demands on the audience whatever; frequent very snobby comments presumably enough to keep senile bums on seats.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

It's fluff, Gordon. What's wrong with fluff? What were you expecting, Dostoevsky?

If Dostoevsky IS what you were expecting, I do rather wonder why. No one's ever pretended that Downton Abbey is anything more than that. I find all this portentousness about it puzzling. It's only entertainment. And it's a damn sight more entertaining than most of the putrid nonsense on telly.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

No, I was not expecting Dostoevsky, I was expecting something like good old 'Upstairs, Downstairs', with a well constructed story and rounded, multifaceted characters. Its overriding problem was that it was extremely dull i.e. not entertaining in any way.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
I quite liked Downton in the first series but I agree, it's lost its way. Upstairs Downstairs was always better in my opinion.

In reply to Only a hill:

Every episode of Upstairs Downstory was a story in its own right, and the characters were about a 1000 times better drawn.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth: So your saying that even tho there had been 3 previous series of Downton, all well advertised you had no idea of what content to expect?

In reply to n-stacey:

No, i don't have a telly. I saw this in someone else's home. I expected it to be something like, and at least as good as, Upstairs Downstairs. i.e, I was expecting dramatic and entertaining content rather than a string of incidental events set against moving scenic wallpaper. It wasn't even funny, ever (though a couple of times unintentionally).

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

First season was great but I was pissed off with the Christmas day special and don't think I will bother with the new season when it starts. Its lost the plot as others have said!

Sam

It all moves far far too fast, with the result that plot development and character development just doesn't occur. It resulted in bland, bland bland.

a few months ago I saw a few of the old Upstairs, Downstairs stuff, and what struck me was that for each 30 min episode, a small simple storyline was properly developed, complete and rounded in its own right, and in between ongoing storylines were developed a little more, too.

The downton lot started well but it's galloping on, and when I look back it strikes me as being either heavily overedited (hell, guys, we have 14 hours of good film here, what can we cut out to get it into 40 minutes?!) or simply not even considered. Jeeze, there was so much that could have been explored and allow us to enjoy. Instead it was a whistle-stop tour. Bloody hell, there wasn't even time to enjoy the cinematography, scenery, or frocks!

Still, at the pace they're going at it will all be over in a few months, with Lady Mary finally snuffing it in 2008 aged 100 and the house being demolished to make way for affordable housing.

Sxx

In reply to JLS:

Since the "upper" classes discredited themselves so thoroughly with the disaster of the First World war, a realistic portrayal of their behaviour would probably provoke mass vandalism of the few remaining country houses and vintage cars. Best to let the TV watching public bask in the mindless romanticism of this hopelessly inaccurate upmarket Coronation Street instead.