I suppose she never visited Downton Abbey: Last known WWI veteran dies at 110
I didn’t get to watch this when it aired on PBS, but my pre-ordered DVDs arrived yesterday and I dived right in to watch the first 4 episodes last night. It turns out that the two I saw when I was in the UK last October, which I thought must be somewhere in the middle of the series, were actually the second and third episodes.
I’m surprised they’re moving through the war so quickly–we’re up to 1918 already.
More when I finish watching, and can read the rest of the thread without fear of being spoiled.
I am not happy with the fast-forward pace of the second season. More and more I feel like I’m just being shown a series of important events absent proper drama and storytelling.
And, can I just say Fuck Wikipedia for putting a spoiler for this season in the fucking cast listing for this show. Fuck! Don’t look at Wikipedia until you’ve seen the rest of the season.
The first series ended with the declaration of War. When the second series began, two years had already passed. So they’re shortchanging the War. And also messing with character development. We wonder–how did this character change so radically? Or how another character or relationship had not changed a bit…
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; spoilers are inevitable. So don’t read the article on Citizen Kane unless you want to know what Rosebud means. Don’t read the article on The Usual Suspects unless you want to know the big twist. Et cetera.
I wasn’t reading the plot summary. I was reading the cast list. There’s no reason for there to be a spoiler in the cast list.
There are actually a couple in there. I think it’s important to note that this series has, in fact, been widely broadcast before. It’s only us Americans who are seeing it for the first time. It’s like yelling at someone for hinting that Juliet dies.
I’ve never understood why people who are sensitive to spoilers insist upon reading about things as they’re watching. Myself, I don’t mind in the least, I dislike being left in suspense, so I ran right over to see what I could suss out. Very informative! 
Although I like most of what I’ve seen so far, I can’t help comparing it to the 4th series of Upstairs, Downstairs, which took the Bellamy family and their servants all through WWI over the course of 13 episodes. That set of episodes is among my favorites. By the end of it, I always feel like I’ve been through it all with them. It’s the view from the homefront, however; the one thing it doesn’t do, since they didn’t have the budget for it, is go into battle. We never see Captain James Bellamy’s or Edward the footman’s experiences in the trenches, although we do hear some of what happened to them afterwards.
Downton Abbey feels like it’s checking off some of the same type of incidents—someone volunteering for nursing, someone missing in action, war-time romances—but we jumped past the first two years of the war, and the rest of it’s going by disappointingly quickly.
The one thing I really did enjoy seeing here, though, was the trench set.
She WHAT?!?!?!?!? :eek:
Happy Days, Episode 58*:
Joanie Cunnigham: We’re going to see Psycho.
Ralph Malph: Turns out, Tony Perkins is his own mother!
Howard, Marian and Joanie Cunninghams decide to see Mr. Roberts.
Ralph: I cried when he died.
The Cunninghams decide to see Cinderella.
Howard, to Ralph: Did you see that one too?!?
Ralph: The shoe fits!
*NB: not exact quotes.
On the other hand he actually got to see Lady Georgina’s VAD training or her adjusting to living daily life without servants to wait on her. We didn’t get to see that with Lady Sybil; she got a few cooking lessions from Mrs Patmore, went off to nursing college, then came back a comptent nurse (who still lives at home with servants). We never get to see any of her interactions with her coworkers (well, other than Thomas) either.
Quite. We never even discovered how Sybil’s attempt at a cake turned out. I’m sorry we didn’t get more of her learning how to be a nurse.
I’ve finished the 8 episodes on the DVD set and am not sorry I bought the series sight-unseen, but it doesn’t deal with things very deeply–the sort of little details of living the life that I love to see in period shows.
The show does, however, spend a lot of time yanking the characters around in little ways that end up really amounting to nothing. I hope there are no further threats to Matthew’s inheriting the estate–after the (brief) pregnancy, (brief) paralysis, and (brief) return of the probably faux Patrick, I doubt that any measure short of nuking Downton Abbey from orbit will keep him from becoming the next Earl… and even then, can we be sure?
The DVD set does have the Christmas episode. I’ll have to watch that tonight.
Miss Mapp, you included a spoiler in that post. There are still episodes to air in the US, including the Christmas one. Please, no more spoilers! If you don’t know what has or hasn’t aired here, it’s best to not say anything.
They started at the Somme. Which is quite appropriate considering it was in 1916 that the British Empire really began to take the lead.
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Oh come ON!!! Muscle atrophy due to lack of use would keep Matthew from jumping up and standing like that. Cheez-n-Unyunz[sup]TM[/sup]…
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It’s 1919 and why isn’t Isis dead yet? She was not a pup when the show started.
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Mrs. Bates committed suicide/was killed with arsenic? I don’t think arsenic kills quickly. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
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Why “should” Lavinia and Robert’s wedding [del]take[/del] have taken place at London instead of Downton?
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Lady Sybil is wearing a lot less make up. It’s a good look for her.
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I know everyone loves the Bates & Anna sub-plot, but I think it’s melodramatic even by soap opera standards.
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Ha, ha, ha, Thomas! Karma is a beeeyotch!!! (Although I hope the actor didn’t get hurt doing the scene.)
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Now that Thomas has crashed and burned, Mrs. Patmore’s lovin’ it!
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A snog in Lord G’s dressing room? That’s the “big affair”?
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Does Lord G have the right to ask Branson to leave the village?
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O’Brien has a conscience? Wow…it must have been buried under a thick patina made of bitterness, suspicion, jealousy.
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Thomas recognizing on which side his bread is buttered? Is he possibly developing a sense of gratitude?
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I thought they were going to kill Lavinia off, not have her make a noble retreat. Hmmm…oh, okay, they are going to kill her off, aaaaaand she’s going to die nobly.
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The Christmas special is scheduled to air next week on my PBS station.
So… since this episode was two hours, were THESE the “**two **final episodes”? (With next week’s Christmas one being a lagniappe?
The bride’s parents plan and host the wedding.
I’m guessing that the village is part of the estate, so he actually owns all the property. Everyone there is just a tenant of some kind.
Yeah, I think they were the final eps., and the Xmas ep is a lagniappe.
They should have called in an artist to preserve “The Martyrdom of St. Lavinia” as a new stained glass window for the drawing room.
I though Lady Mary’s wedding gift to Bates & Anna was rather odd- a night in a bedroom in the house, but don’t tell anybody and be gone early. (“There’s a nicer room down the hallway, but I’m afraid we haven’t removed the dead body from the bed yet… Mother always helps with that and she’s a bit under the weather”.) Why not just arrange a room for them at the Grantham Arms (now that we know the Grantham Arms exists)?
Odd that Lady Sibyl put on her nurse’s uniform to care for her mother.
I think Lord Grantham should tell Sibyl “I would like for you to live for 6 months in a house or flat that I will provide and on an allowance that I will provide that will be roughly identical to the house or flat and money that Branson can reasonably expect to earn. IF at the end of that time you are still so keen to marry him, I will give my blessings.” While she may really and truly love him, and while money isn’t the most important factor in a relationship, its absence is going to take some serious getting used to for a girl who’s never absolutely had to economize both for her and for her husband; the first time he brings home his week’s pay and she spends it on flowers or a new dress (that she has to put on herself) is going to cause some problems. This would let her and Branson know exactly what to expect as a working class wife, and it would let the Crawleys know if she really is up to it.
Of course if the series went forward a couple of decades it might be interesting to see Sibyl and Branson becoming the wealthiest family as he succeeds in some business or as a writer or something similar while the rest of the family circles the drain following the Depression.
O’Brien redeemed herself somewhat. She can never do so entirely of course (though in fairness she was not entirely responsible for the miscarriage as her ladyship should have watched her step getting out of the tub as well).
I wonder if Ethel would have had any kind of chance at all of getting support in those days. I don’t know when paternity blood testing came into being (I know an early version existed in the ‘30s, but it was much better for disproving than proving) and with nothing save some servants’ testifying to the affair and perhaps a resemblance between the child and pictures of the father for proof. Since the boy’s grandmother seems reasonable hopefully she won’t leave it there. That said, do you think Ethel should have bitten the bullet and allowed her child at least to be raised in comfort even without a mother, or do you think the child will be better off with her instead of with Grandpa Fatbastard?
I wonder if several people falling ill on the same day and very suddenly of the flu was at all realistic, particularly as they all fell ill at evening. I do know that some people who suffered Spanish Flu had a roller coaster of it, sick as a dog then getting better then relapsing and all, and the nosebleeds were accurate.