Worst Downton Abbey storylines

[DressingGownofDoom]

I love Downton but there have been some really awful storylines. Like at least one per episode Think my least favourite is when the soldier guy turned up at Downton pretending to be cousin Patrick, who had survived the Titanic, got amnesia, and his memory returned to him suddenly in a blast in the war, and Edith actually believed him

Not so much a silly storyline, but rather a lack of one.

Lady Mary (and indeed Edith and Sybil) didn’t have a single girlfriend. Not one confidante. I know they were educated by governesses, but still.

Her best friend was Anna, which was completely improbable.

The way Edith got stroppy about Bertie being sent away while she happened to be pregnant.

I mean. What did she expect?? She knew the life better than anyone.

Mrs pattmore going blind .

I thought it was all terribly cheesy but it was entertaining.

Absolutely! Loved it, improbable story lines and all!

Edith was the Marchioness when she married him. He was the Marquess. And it was utterly improbable.

Exactly. She should have sorted that first with a gap before they got married. As it is, a Marchioness with an unexplained foster child is always going to look dodgy as hell.

But Thomas's character believing O'Brien to the extent that he went into a sleeping man's room, a man he had assessed as "a proper little ladies man" and kissing him without any sign whatsoever from him that he was interested?? The word of a spiteful ex mate would never trump the gaydar of a man whose employment and reputation depended on keeping things totally blank on the surface!

Too be fair, this is the man who went into the black market despite everybody trying to warn him because he trusted to the word of a man he met in the pub. This is the man who believed the duke of Crowborough would be loyal to him. This is the man who nearly killed himself with quack treatment sold him by somebody who knew he would never be able to report them. If there is one thing that is actually consistent in this series, it's Thomas' poor judgment, his desperate need to believe what he wants to believe. You don't have to read the Relationships board for very long to start believing in the plausibility of such a mentality.

What is completely implausible otoh is his damaged hand. Invalided out of the army, has an injury that would cause permanent nerve damage and have shattered the small bones of the hand, yet in the next episode he is deftly making a bed using that very hand.

The bit where Berties Motger says something about Edith being honest. Lady G says "I've been waiting for someone to realise that"
Honest?!!! She did nothing but lie!

I watched the film yesterday. Princess Mary's husband Lascelles was related to Tommy Lascelles from the Crown. It's a small world

Most have already been mentioned but here goes:

The idea that the English aristocracy would think nothing of an Earl's daughter marrying a Fenian communist Irish servant, and would then accept him as estate manager.

Generally, the notion that the Crawleys - members of the aristocracy - were interested in the well-being of the downstairs staff and considered them 'mates' who they allowed to talk back to them.

The idea that nobody twigged that Marigold was Lady Edith's child, because it was so normal for aristocrats to take a deep interest in a child outside of their family. They were barely interested in their own children apart from inspecting them for 10 minutes after dinner.

And last but certainly not least, the fact that the dull and bitchy Lady Mary got herself the exquisite Matthew Goode!

Lady Mary is a bit odd all round. She is supposed to be this successful, wonderfully attractive, spoiled aristocratic daughter, yet as TheOneLeggedJockey pointed out, she doesn't appear to have a social life at all. When she really needs her spirits lifting, she goes to the hairdresser. Once. You would have thought, at the very least, she would be insisting on regular house parties, that she'd be off to dances and house parties elsewhere, that she'd spend time writing to friends and meeting up with them.

The servants also seem to be completely deprived of a social life. One single servant's ball in all those years. Nobody ever comes to see them, nobody stays with them while their own masters are away and they're on board wages, they never get to go do dances or anything else at other houses, the men don't even seem to go to the pub. Like so much else, this has changed from the early series, where there was more of an attempt to show different aspects of life downstairs. Now it seems increasingly to be about a little group huddled together, navel-gazing. They are strangely teetotal, too; you΄d expect the men to at least pop down to the pub now and then.

Anything with Bates and Anna - so dull.

The storyline with Marigold living at the farmers house and his wife getting annoyed with Edith and it causing loads of problems and upset for Edith and eventually the wife too when Marigold is taken back. I spent that whole plot line just yelling ‘just tell her the truth’ at the screen. The whole mess could have been avoided if poor Marg had just known the truth at the beginning.

Carson retires because he’s unwell and shaky but then he’s suddenly well enough to serve the kind and queen? The whole film is ridiculous though

Another one I just thought of - near the beginning they were trying to encourage Mary to get together with Sir Anthony Strallen but then later on they stopped Edith from marrying him because he had a dodgy arm and she would have to be his nurse. He’s clearly a wealthy man I doubt they would have struggled much even with his injury.

Also the whole plot towards the end about cutting staff, there wasn’t really any proper explanation other than ‘no one has an under butler these days’ and they didn’t seem to cut anyone just talk about Thomas needing to leave all the time which drove him to attempted suicide and even then they didn’t seem to feel even slightly guilty about how it had affected him

I thought the same about the Strallen thing. And the constant 'Thomas leaving then getting a reprieve got so boring.
Also none of the below stairs staff ever left for promotion elsewhere. Daisy wouldn't have spent 12 years as a kitchen maid. She'd have moved on to a better position elsewhere. Likewise, Thomas probably would also have gone to be butler somewhere else. And Moseley mending roads as he could t find a job was ridiculous.

I agree with you on the whole bit Molesley was looking for work at a time that had recently seen an enormous influx of men returning from war and competing for jobs (many whom will have been experienced in service prior to the war) so I have no trouble believing that there would have been nothing much left by the time he started looking.

I found Strallen to be a really irritating character. Even drippier than Edith and that takes a bit of doing.

Lady Mary is a bit odd all round. She is supposed to be this successful, wonderfully attractive, spoiled aristocratic daughter, yet as TheOneLeggedJockey pointed out, she doesn't appear to have a social life at all. When she really needs her spirits lifting, she goes to the hairdresser. Once. You would have thought, at the very least, she would be insisting on regular house parties, that she'd be off to dances and house parties elsewhere, that she'd spend time writing to friends and meeting up with them.

Yes, I know they were living in the Yorkshire sticks but still, life would have been a social whirl for a young aristocrat like Lady Mary. Yet she seems to have no friends and the servants are her main confidents, which is ridiculous. No servant would have dared get into conversation with her boss, even if the boss were so inclined.

The servants also seem to be completely deprived of a social life. One single servant's ball in all those years. Nobody ever comes to see them, nobody stays with them while their own masters are away and they're on board wages, they never get to go do dances or anything else at other houses, the men don't even seem to go to the pub. Like so much else, this has changed from the early series, where there was more of an attempt to show different aspects of life downstairs. Now it seems increasingly to be about a little group huddled together, navel-gazing. They are strangely teetotal, too; you΄d expect the men to at least pop down to the pub now and then.

I kind of thought the opposite. The servants had way too much free time. In reality, they would have had maybe half a day off a week to go to church, and would have been working hard pretty much dawn to dusk every other day.

Also, the downstairs staff would have consisted almost entirely of single women, but in DA the numbers of men and women are about equal. I can understand why they did that from a dramatic point of view however.

Agree with both Toddlerteaplease and BentBastard: Mosley's situation can be easily explained, but the general unwillingness of staff to look elsewhere is odd to say the least. They seem a strangely unenterprising lot. In Thomas' case that is developed as part of his character (and you do get to see his difficulties when he does try to get work), so fair enough- but a whole household of them? The Bates' who own property and have been talking of getting a pub forever. They'd have provision for their old age (instead of trusting to the uncertain finances of Downton) and a place where young Johnnie could grow up normally.

I can see that they had to have the servants staying at Downton for the sake of the drama, even though it was completely implausible for Daisy to remain in such a junior position within the household (while taking exams to 'better herself' - she could have so easily done that years earlier by moving jobs!)

It's forgivable to take liberties with the facts in order to keep the same cast of characters, but I did get annoyed when they abandoned historical accuracy to the extent that Thomas faced up to Lord G and Lady Mary in the drawing room, when told that Carson would be returning as butler for the royal visit. 'What about me?' Thomas says. 'Did you stop to think about how I'd feel about this?' It was like watching a stroppy teenager argue 'it's not fair' to an indulgent parent. In reality Lord G would have looked at Thomas as if he'd taken leave of his senses (IF he'd said that, which he wouldn't have) and dismiss him on the spot, rather than smoothing his ruffled feathers and waiting until he'd left the room to roll his eyes and say 'that went well then.'

I did get annoyed when they abandoned historical accuracy to the extent that Thomas faced up to Lord G and Lady Mary in the drawing room, when told that Carson would be returning as butler for the royal visit. 'What about me?' Thomas says. 'Did you stop to think about how I'd feel about this?' It was like watching a stroppy teenager argue 'it's not fair' to an indulgent parent. In reality Lord G would have looked at Thomas as if he'd taken leave of his senses (IF he'd said that, which he wouldn't have) and dismiss him on the spot, rather than smoothing his ruffled feathers and waiting until he'd left the room to roll his eyes and say 'that went well then.'

Then again, historical records from the 1920s do actually show servants threatening to leave if they don't get treated right. In a period where trained servants where harder to get hold of, this was a real fear for those employers who could still afford to keep them. The way Lord Grantham treated Thomas there (an actual butler) was unacceptable and it's hard to see how it wouldn't have caused more uproar downstairs. Carson was also totally out of order. Of course, Thomas should have dealt with it better, in a more dignified manner. I was rather hoping he would.

I kind of thought the opposite. The servants had way too much free time. In reality, they would have had maybe half a day off a week to go to church, and would have been working hard pretty much dawn to dusk every other day.

They would have had longer working days, but they would also have been entitled to regular days off and, at least in the case of upper servants, to actual holidays. We are talking 1920s here, not Victorian days. Things changed a lot after the war.

@corythatwas

I kind of thought the opposite. The servants had way too much free time. In reality, they would have had maybe half a day off a week to go to church, and would have been working hard pretty much dawn to dusk every other day.

They would have had longer working days, but they would also have been entitled to regular days off and, at least in the case of upper servants, to actual holidays. We are talking 1920s here, not Victorian days. Things changed a lot after the war.

I thought holidays only became a legal right in the 1940s?

Also, I've read accounts from people who worked in houses like Downton in this era and they said the norm was half a day off a week, and maybe a full day every two weeks. You wouldn't have seen the servants sitting around chatting like this lot do - they'd have been too knackered!

I think when it comes to servants it is easy to confuse:

a) the situation of a single skivvy in a middle class household (though even they would have had the right to afternoons off) with the situation of a top class servants in a household with a large staff.

In real life, neither Carson or Thomas would have accepted sitting down at table with the house boys, eating off a table without a table cloth, not being served wine at dinner, or being spoken to as if they were a skivvy.

b) the situation in, say, 1870 with the situation in 1927

Things like afternoons off are actually regulated in law by this time. Servants also have plenty of access to information about the world around them, they can easily read the adverts and find out what other servants are being offered elsewhere, they are better educated and the world offers a more varied (if not always more easily accessible) employment situation.