This episode was the first time we had real issues with the plotting on the show. Up to this point it’s been fairly well done, but when you have two characters causing drama for no better reason than because drama is needed, the stories start to falter for us a bit. In both instances...

If last episode was the one where the show indulged its soap opera tendencies by introducing a bunch of running plotlines, this is the one that turned in a slightly different direction by setting all those plotlines in motion, away from each other. In other words, the world of Downton keeps...

Somewhere along the way, when we announced we’d be blogging Downton Abbey from the beginning, some people expressed their extreme disappointment with the soon-to-be-aired-in-the-U.S. second season, dismissing it as having become a soap opera. This left us scratching our heads....

As the title of this post indicates, this episode presented a defining moment for the character of Lady Mary, one that was pretty shocking to the viewer the first time they saw it. We knew Mary was intelligent and bold; we knew that she chafed under the rigid social mores of the time, but we...

We should note before we continue that, for a bunch of reasons, we chose the Netflix version of the series to blog. Basically it came down to which platform would be the best way for people who haven’t seen the show to follow along with our writeups. We didn’t realize that PBS...

A drama about the upstairs lives and downstairs lives in a (just post-) Edwardian English country house isn’t exactly a new idea. If you have even the barest interest in the topic, you could probably rattle off a half-dozen films and TV series right off the top of your head that...

Much to discuss regarding the world of the Crawleys and Granthams, darlings. First, here are some video highlights of that fabulous Downton Abbey screening event that we got to attend last week: We wish the entire Q&A was online to be viewed because it was a fun, raucous affair. But we...

We had the distinct pleasure of attending a screening hosted by WNET, the New York PBS station, of Downton Abbey’s premiere episode of season 2. The first 50 minutes of it, anyway. Even better, we had the pure thrill of several cast members coming out for a 45-minute Q&A afterwards....