Downton Abbey - I’m bingeing it, but oh my, nothing much happens

[Snooks1971]

I am strangely drawn into the lives of the Crawleys, I’m on series 4! I watch it on my iPad whilst cooking, but I just can’t imagine sitting down every Sunday night and watching a new episode unfold. Nowt happens!!

agree with this (whilst still binge watching on bi-annual basis) it’s got a very specific brand of pro-capitalistic, property-owning conservatism (the glory of the old grand houses, their ‘positive’ role as employers but the need to of the owners to actively work/invest in order to be worthy of them. By season 6 half the servants are buying property too - it’s almost the sole model of social/moral/economic advancement in the show!)

I always feel like Fellowes knew an older Lady Mary type in his youth and the whole show is justifying/celebrating her specific model of cold, calculating, self-serving and self-invoked English aristocracy! (See her catchphrase ‘you’re not on our side’)

Lady Mary is pretty much the Edwardian aristocrat version of Margaret Thatcher. And yes, Fellowes fancies her something rotten.

I tried watching that. I saw it when I was young and loved it, but now It's just awful I can't watch.
Gilded age is better. Nowhere near as good as Downton, and Mrs Russells voice gets on my nerves a bit.

I agree with others that Dame Maggie saves it, she’s got the best lines. I don’t get the love for Lady Mary though, I find her delivery as stiff as a board. I like Cora!
Bates and Anna - yawn. Look like father and daughter almost, no chemistry.
I like the “conspiracy theories” (wrong phrase) of alternative endings, like the one that Thomas is the love child of O’Brien and the Earl of Grantham.

What were his words??

I loved binge watching Downton Abbey - I was lost for a couple of days after I'd finished it.

Dame Maggie Smith is just fabulous, O'Brien was a sneaky old cow (but I liked her) and Mrs Patmore reminded me of my Nana.

Easy to watch because it's total escapism.

(I can't decide whether I would have been a Lady or a Lady's Maid)

That she would still be a virgin in the morning 😂

You’ll still be a virgin for your husband.

Mary took that to be a proposal.

It wasn’t

although I did find that scene a bit rapey tbh. All that who are going to call? Let the hall boy find me in your bed stuff.

The first four series are the best. Towards the very end the quality really tails off. The casting is brilliant but Julian Fellowes scripts get pretty ropey towards the end.

For me this year is all going to be about Bridgerton. #polin (eek!)