I only watch it because DH is a fan of terrible TV and likes to have someone to giggle with, but that was pretty terrible, albeit entertainingly so. Why waste such a good cast, including Harriet 'best Mrs Elton ever' Walter and Duckface?
The writers (or is it just JF?) seem to let some plots creak on at glacial slowness for aeons (Edith's missing editor, which has had zero plot development since the boring bastard vanished, Lady Mary dithering about remarrying one of her indistinguishable suitors), and others gallop along at a rate of knots.
And you know when the children are produced it's because we're being told Time Has Passed, and Sunday's episode couldn't have shouted any louder about Changing Socio-Political Times unless Carson had got out a megaphone and stood on a soap box roaring 'Servants are leaving in droves for better hours and pay in factories and not being replaced! Servants are boffing aristos! Lady Mary has either sorted out her contraception or is planning another anal adventure! The schoolteacher is a Bolshevik spy! Lady Edith is an Unmarried Mother! The villagers prefer me to M'Lud!'
And honestly, quite apart from that being an instantaneous 999 response even by urban 2014 standards, are we honestly supposed to think that the estate tenants who double as emergency firemen were going to be rounded up and get into nice uniforms with shiny buttons and impressive helmets before arriving at the house?
What puzzled me because I have no memory of it from last season is the Lady 'Duckface' Anstruther and the Footman plot line - did we already know this, or was it just a bewildering new introduction to get rid of whatever that dooy footman is called?