Last night's viewing: Downton Abbey, IVT1 9pm
This means war! The grandes dames of Downton have come out fighting
TOM SUTCLIFFE MONDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2012
But for the Franklin Mint pretensions that surround ITV's flagship costume drama, the third series of Downton Abbey might most appropriately have been trailed as a Vegas boxing bout.
In the red corner, Violet "The Crusher" Crawley, a woman who can sour milk with a social observation. In the blue corner, the challenger, Martha "The Democrat" Levinson, arriving from America to sneer at the hidebound traditions of the aristocracy.
Between them, Maggie Smith and Shirley MacLaine probably don't add up to a single bantamweight, but they're big hitters for all that – and Julian Fellowes knew how to tease us with the prospect of combat between these two grand dames.
"I'm so looking forward to meeting your mother again," Lady Grantham said to Cora, "When I'm with her I'm reminded of the virtues of the English." "But isn't she American?" said Matthew, rather dimly. "Exactly", she said, tartly.
You never start with the main event, of course. We had to wait for those two to clash, but there was plenty on the undercard to keep us going till then – including the occasional prison visit to Bates so that Anna can display her loving pluck, and a scrappy battle between hot-headed Fenian idealism and English class consciousness. Branson the chauffeur and Lady Sybil were back from Ireland for Lady Mary's wedding to Matthew, and the former was in no mood to soft-pedal his politics to ease the awkwardness in the drawing room. Meanwhile, Lord Grantham had been getting bad news about his railway shares; Cora's fortune has all but gone and Downton's future hangs in the balance, only a highly convenient legacy for Matthew offering any prospect of rescue. Unfortunately his conscience won't let him accept it – an ethical nicety that briefly threatened a last-minute cancellation of the wedding. The Earl's hopes for family economy seem a bit forlorn too: "An aristocrat with no servants is as much use as a glass hammer," sniffed the Dowager, when cutbacks were hinted at.
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