While waiting for new seasons of Better Call Saul and Rick & Morty I found myself with nothing to watch, so I decided to try the original Upstairs, Downstairs series. I’m up to the first few episodes of season 4.
I’ve been struck by how topical it is. I think it was Isaac Asimov who said science fiction uses a futuristic setting to comment on today’s world. It seems Upstairs, Downstairs does the same using a historical setting. Or rather, it did - nearly 50 years ago, and it’s amazing how it seems to speak to today’s issues. It’s all about privilege, inequality, sexism and entitlement. It could have been made today (and yes, I know there was a “reboot” not long ago - it’s on my list).
The episodes I’m watching now are set during WWI, and I was startled at one major plot point that involved how propaganda and misinformation led to suspicion and violence toward immigrants. It’s almost like somebody went back in time to write it based on what’s been happening lately.
So I’m wondering what others think of Upstairs, Downstairs. I guess we should say no spoilers though, please.
I thought they were about the same: silly soap operas with only the thinnest veneer of historicity. At least Downton Abbey had lavish production values; I thought Upstairs Downstairs looked like they spent about $1.75 per episode (not the producers fault, of course – the budget is what it is).
Downton Abbey was a few delectable appetizers. A beautiful beaded gown.
Upstairs, Downstairs was the whole feast. It was an entire fashion show.
Upstairs, Downstairs hit every big topic of the years from beginning to end, many memorable episodes. while DA was more ‘soapy’ and somehow made more palatable for ‘today’.
It’s one of my favorite shows of the '70s, and one of the few I have in its entirety on DVD. There are one or two uneven episodes in the 1st series when they were finding their feet, and if you pay attention to the dates on the title cards at the beginning of the episodes, they go through 1908 twice–but once it gets going, the writing is brilliant. You stop noticing the flimsy walls of 165 Eaton Place.
The WWI series is I think the consistently best of all 5 seasons, and still gives you one of the best presentations of life on the home front you’re likely to see on TV.
My favorite episode, and the one I would use to introduce people to the show, would be “Miss Forrest.” Playboy James is buzzing around his father’s new secretary and invites her to have lunch with him in the house. Mr. Hudson is greatly offended by this breach of social classes, especially when James insists on having Mr. Bellamy’s best claret with the lunch. Mr. Hudson resigns over this issue, which very much upsets the Bellamies when they return home.
What’s great about the episode is how we get everybody’s opinion on the issue, upstairs and down. The younger servants don’t see the big deal about James asking anybody to lunch he likes. Mr. Bellamy wants James to apologize to Hudson so he’ll stay, and Lady Margery is shocked at this notion. Apologize to a servant! She’s inclined to blame Miss Forrest for the whole thing and wants her husband to fire her.
And underlying all of this is a subplot about Lady Margery about to leave on a visit to America, with little hints about the surprise coming up at the end: she’s sailing to New York; she’s off to catch the boat train to Southhampton; it’s April 1912… and at the very end her husband sends her a “marconigram” aboard her ship.
I was a little kid when Upstairs, Downstairs was first broadcast on public television, so I never saw it, but this bit is interesting as a tie-in, as Downton Abbey starts with the expected heir to the Grantham fortune dying on the Titanic sinking.
I did see the 2010 revival/sequel to Upstairs, Downstairs. It was only OK but apparently didn’t get good numbers as they only did two series.
Alistair Cooke’s intros and ending commentaries explaining the history and cultural references are what made “Upstairs, Downstairs” really great. Without him, the show is mostly just another costume drama/soap opera.
I remember my parents didn’t miss a show, and that’s saying something as my mother in particular loathed the whole idea of television and wouldn’t allow ours in the house until the mid 1970’s at least. We had to watch it in the garage.
I mostly remember the echoing interior stage sets, dim lighting, and lack of music, so different from any American shows at the time.
I sort of liked Downton Abbey although mostly for the eye candy. I wouldn’t mind revisiting Upstairs Downstairs.
Even a manly man I knew back in the 70’s, who watched war movies and westerns and so on, wouldn’t miss an episode. At the end of the final episode, I heard some suspicious sniffling noises from the next room. But of course I said nothing, doing plenty of sniffling myself.
