Love and war rage as PBS' 'Downton Abbey' returns
11:00 PM, Jan. 7, 2012 |
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It's an irony that acid-tongued Violet, aka the dowager countess of Grantham, would savor: One of TV's hottest romances is playing out among English nobility, with nary a cell phone or laptop in sight and, most shockingly, on PBS.
"Downton Abbey" devotees eagerly await the drama's season two return 8-10 p.m. today, when the romance of Matthew and Lady Mary resumes its rocky course as World War I scars Europe.
There's also fallout from the war within Mary's family digs, the stately mansion that gives the series its name.
Consider it "Yorkshire 90210," but with writer-creator Julian Fellowes' witty dialogue and rich characters, stunning period costumes and (generally) chaste love affairs.
Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens, who play the star-crossed couple, said they are both delighted and surprised at the series' international success.
"It's huge in Australia," Dockery said.
"And Spain," added Stevens. The 11 Emmy nominations and six trophies, including best miniseries, earned by the period drama's first season were a thrill: "For a show like this to get that kind of attention over here, it's great," he said.
Success has created a burden of secrecy regarding the fate of young lawyer Matthew, unexpected heir to Downton under England's early 20th-century inheritance laws, and Mary, who could keep her family's hold on the estate by marrying him.
In season one, the willful Mary had rejected, accepted and rejected again smitten Matthew, and then she was rebuffed. Now both have turned elsewhere for love, while war and other historical events toy with their fates.
Dockery, 30, and Stevens, 29, project such on-screen chemistry that people who know better confuse fiction with fact.
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20120108/LIFESTYLE/201080312/Love-war-rage-PBS-Downton-Abbey-returns
"Downton Abbey" devotees eagerly await the drama's season two return 8-10 p.m. today, when the romance of Matthew and Lady Mary resumes its rocky course as World War I scars Europe.
There's also fallout from the war within Mary's family digs, the stately mansion that gives the series its name.
Consider it "Yorkshire 90210," but with writer-creator Julian Fellowes' witty dialogue and rich characters, stunning period costumes and (generally) chaste love affairs.
Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens, who play the star-crossed couple, said they are both delighted and surprised at the series' international success.
"It's huge in Australia," Dockery said.
"And Spain," added Stevens. The 11 Emmy nominations and six trophies, including best miniseries, earned by the period drama's first season were a thrill: "For a show like this to get that kind of attention over here, it's great," he said.
Success has created a burden of secrecy regarding the fate of young lawyer Matthew, unexpected heir to Downton under England's early 20th-century inheritance laws, and Mary, who could keep her family's hold on the estate by marrying him.
In season one, the willful Mary had rejected, accepted and rejected again smitten Matthew, and then she was rebuffed. Now both have turned elsewhere for love, while war and other historical events toy with their fates.
Dockery, 30, and Stevens, 29, project such on-screen chemistry that people who know better confuse fiction with fact.
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20120108/LIFESTYLE/201080312/Love-war-rage-PBS-Downton-Abbey-returns
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