Every week for the fifth season of PBS's period drama Downton Abbey, Joe Reid, Sophie Gilbert, and Katie Kilkenny will discuss the intrigues, upstairs and downstairs, of public television's favorite Yorkshire manor.
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Boyd
For whatever my be the weakness of this production, it is nevertheless quite representative of the time and culture.
And I have to say (though I expected to hate it) my wife and I are enthralled by it. We like I am sure many millions of other hurry to not miss an episode, buy all the DVDs and watch them over and over again. Either it is truly great or it exposes how pathetic the rest of TV programming is. Possibly both!SaskatoonMark
Although I am as addicted to this series as anyone else reading this page, the most galling elements are when events happen that could never, ever occur in an actual aristocratic manor of that time. Last night's outbursts by Merton's sons fall into that category. Everyone knows that it's bad manners to insult the family of one's host, and for people like the Mertons, such basic etiquette would be part of their DNA. It's simply not believable that the outbursts would have occurred. While this adds pizzazz to the episode, it might have been a more intriguing plot if the Merton sons plotted against Isobel more covertly -- now, that would be believable.
By the way, didn't one of the Merton sons poison Branson in an earlier episode?