I don't watch television-- haven't for years. I think if I tried to get broadcast tv on my television, I wouldn't be able to. But Himself picked up the first season of True Blood a few months ago. Turns out, that was a gateway show. A couple weeks ago, it was on to Game of Thrones.
All the while, me precious Mum has been nudging me to watch Downton Abbey. Apparently, Pop is under strict orders not to disturb her on Sunday nights when a new episode is on. She told me I'd love it. She was right.
I wish I could say I started with even a modicum of moderation, but I can't. I think that first night we watched 6 or 7 episodes of True Blood. Within a week, I'd picked up seasons 2 and 3 at the local video store for $15/season. We burned through those episodes like a crackwhore with $10,000 on a 3 week bender.
True Blood is cheap and smarmy. It's so soap opera it's pathetic, but it's oddly compelling, even through all the baloney. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, is epic fantasy, and it's wonderful and terrible. [SPOILER ALERT - DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THE NEXT SENTENCE UNLESS YOU WANT TO READ A SPOILER] Of course, Sean Bean had to die. This is my favorite role he's done. At least he made it all the way through the first season. I love the strong female characters who are made of ass-kicking win, namely Catelyn and Arya and that chick with the dragons. Most of the family characters even look believably related to each other.
So after all of that, I find I'm quite taken with the upper-, middle- and lower-crust antics on Downton Abbey. The hats are wonderful and I've swooned over more than one pair of shoes.
Maggie Smith is superb as the Dowager Countess
I've only seen a few episodes at this point, but I'm looking forward to seeing all the rest.
5 comments:
Downton Abbey was the focus of one of the best sketches on SNL this season.
Chicken Lady. Giggle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekp9q1zacfI
Sadly, this is as good as it gets on YouTube in terms of quality.
Maggie Smith played the same kind of role in Gosford Park. Julian Fellowes was the writer of Gosford and Downton Abbey. I loved both of them. They are both similar to Upstairs Downstairs.
That was hilarious, Roscoe! Loved it.
Loved Gosford Park, too. Sumptuous visuals in that one. Love love love Maggie Smith in Keeping Mum, too. I love her wit.
Glad y'all are getting at least 'some' down time :-)
Mrs. Roscoe is a huge fan of "Downton Abbey". She admits that, even though it was meant as a joke, the SNL sketch pulls off the near impossible -- accurately summarizing the whole series in less than two minutes.
I'll have to bend copyright laws when new episodes start running in the UK in September.
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