Downton Xmas special?

[Tryingtobecalm]

Anyone watching?

I actually thought Mary's singing was really quite good - for a non - professional.

Yes, I imagine that the Mary looks quite good through estate-tinted spectacles.

I'm going to put money on there being a mini-Bates in 9 months time after the grand reunion - which will buy her time from the gallows and allow Moseley to put a nail biting, last hour defence together.

And no thanks to a non realistic-but-grim, we're poor but we're happy Downton

I hope they keep Rose and Atticus in the programme

I so agree. I really admire Atticus. And Rose, of course.

Perhaps he can take his top off.

Aren't Rose and Atticus off to New York for his job?

I like him (for his acting abilities, obv), but she's a PITA - far too twee and giggly

I was thinking we could have everyone travel to NY, meet up with Pickles, Rose etc and Cora's family.

too twee and giggly

But she will love you forever, if you just let her.

Like women should.

I had to fight the urge to gnaw my own arm off at that line Viv

Just watched the Text Santa episodes - if you haven't already seen them you are in for a treat

Oops wrong Part 1. Use this

I am beyond happy Carson proposed to Mrs. Hughes made my Christmas perfect :)

That Text Santa thing is wonderful. Thanks

The following is not very realistic (to put it mildly):

• that servants marry into the family with barely a batted eyelid (and not just servants but members of the IRA)
• that servants have a generous annual leave package
• everyone is welcoming of the openly gay guy
• the bastard child of a daughter of the house is welcomed in as well
• the family stand behind servants repeatedly accused of serious crimes instead of immediately throwing them out and disowning them.

And that's leaving aside the ludicrous nature of the Pamuk storyline!

I seriously don't know where to start Orange.

The relationships between the staff are unrealistically familiar and informal, let alone between staff and family. The behaviour of the family is ridiculously free from social convention (marrying the chauffeur, acknowledging illegitimate children...). The servants just didn't have the leisure time shown, the freedom to marry each other (and keep their jobs), have illegitimate babies and be offered jobs...

Well I'm hoping that the land agent from the Sinderby place will take Tom's job, marry Edith, & then inherit!!

But diddl George is the heir. Edith gets bugger all.

I mean inherit the place that the Sinderby's are renting.

didn't he say that he's the 3rd cousin or something?

Oh I see - yes, he did make rather a thing about that, didn't he?

I thought that all changed after WW1 Viv - that the big houses struggled to attract and keep staff, who in turn had more freedom than they had previously

So any predictions for the next series?

will there be any more of the Bates case or do we think that will just be dropped?

Who/what was the guy that Mary liked?

A neighbour of the Sinderby's?

Titled/idle rich/rich business man?

latter would make a change to the last two interchangeable titled/well off suitors.

Although they did the "nouveau riche" with carlisle!

Will Tom be back at all?

No Atticus & Rose?

What about Lord G's health?

demise of Violet?

Isobel & the Dr marry, or she decides to marry Merton afterall/

i do like that Isobel & Violet get on now, so more of them?

Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton are just in a league of their own, acting-wise. I personally would make it a show about them and just have them riffing off each other, they do it so well.

I think we thought Rose was leaving to make it big in the States (I mean in real life, not in the show) so that may rule her and Atticus out from the next series? Tom presumably is bloody sick of the one-note character duck-out-of-water.

I'm assuming we're keeping Lord 6 alive so he can bugger up the family fortune in the great crash of 1929.

I thought Mary might have met her match with the new guy she liked. She obviously swooned at the energetic and sexy way he jumped into his car - and he was playing a bit hard to get.

"I'm assuming we're keeping Lord 6 alive so he can bugger up the family fortune in the great crash of 1929."

Ah yes, wonder if there might be nothing left for George to inherit at all??!!

that would end it all well!!

Unless Edith could save them all with whatever Michael Gregson left her!

I'd quite like the Matthew Goode character to be totally not interested in mary tbh.

Yes I hope Matthew Goode stays in the picture - and remains tantalisingly attractive yet untouchable. That's the only kind Mary could fall for.

yes, perhaps the Crawleys could be impoverished and have to move into Carson's buy-to-let property - I could imagine his head exploding at the subversion of class traditions involved in that transaction.

Maybe Pickle can make it big in America despite the upcoming Great Depression and come back to bail them out. Or Bates write a sensational memoir 'The Sixteen times I was accused of murder and how completely plausibly I was never guilty'?

I thought it was really sweet how the servants had their own little dinner party while the cat was away.

Love Carson's proposal to Mrs Hughes and her accepting.