The Telegraph
Back from the dead to master-servant shenanigans, the new plotlines of the much-loved TV series Downton Abbey are troubling.
Fabulous: Michelle Dockery shines as Lady Mary Crawley
There used to be a familiar Sunday night ritual for Downton Abbey fans: open a bottle of wine, snuggle up on the sofa with a box of chocolates in front of the television – and avidly follow the triumphs and tragedies of the aristocratic Crawley family through a haze of tears.
The problem is that my Downton tears are now usually the result of hysterical laughter. What else to do as the next bonkers plot device is introduced, while the series maintains the straight-faced fiction that it is a period drama in the mould of Brideshead Revisited?
Much has been made of the fact that the second series would show the effect of the First World War as a social leveller, with housemaids able to exchange meaningful glances – and more – with the aristocracy. But the real social levelling that actually appears to have taken place is that Downton has transformed itself into Crossroads with posh frocks.
It pains me to say this. It really does. I was such a fan of Downton that I could even tell you the name of the Earl of Grantham’s dogs (Pharaoh in the first series, Isis the second). I can still remember that it was the Hon Evelyn Napier who went off the idea of proposing to Lady Mary after she took up with Kemal Pamuk, the Turkish diplomat. And while the clunking lines (Lady Edith’s response to the Titanic’s sinking: “I thought it was meant to be unsinkable!”) and gobsmacking plot twists (Pamuk dying in flagrante inconveniently in Lady Mary’s bedroom) were part of the first series, they were weaved in without overshadowing the whole.
But this time round it’s channelling an Acorn Antiques version of Upstairs Downstairs, sacrificing characterisation, credibility and continuity in favour of a whistlestop tour through the war. What should have been a series brimming with confidence (the most critically acclaimed TV show of the year, according to the Guinness Book of Records, and proud winner of a clutch of Emmys and Baftas) has somehow lost its nerve. Or is it that its unexpected success rushed the second series into production too soon?
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are said to be great fans of Downton (and I suppose if anyone is used to ludicrous events then it’s the Royal family). And some elements remain fabulous. Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley looks consistently luminous, even when repeating Alan Clark’s sneer at Michael Heseltine about furniture (“Your lot buys it. My lot inherits it” as she informs her suitor, Sir Richard Carlisle). Dame Maggie Smith romps through her role as the grande dame of Grantham, stealing every scene she is in. And Dan Stevens, growling about his uselessness as the heir, is beautifully easy on the eye.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are said to be great fans of Downton (and I suppose if anyone is used to ludicrous events then it’s the Royal family). And some elements remain fabulous. Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley looks consistently luminous, even when repeating Alan Clark’s sneer at Michael Heseltine about furniture (“Your lot buys it. My lot inherits it” as she informs her suitor, Sir Richard Carlisle). Dame Maggie Smith romps through her role as the grande dame of Grantham, stealing every scene she is in. And Dan Stevens, growling about his uselessness as the heir, is beautifully easy on the eye.
Yet these three remain constant, as the writing around them becomes more frenetic. The war to end wars? Bo-ring. The Easter Rising? The Russian Revolution? That’ll never keep the X Factor audience watching. So we’ve managed to gallop through several defining events of the 20th century as quickly as poor, dead William the footman used to scoff one of Mrs Patmore’s puddings.
Take last night’s episode alone. “The war is over!” declares the Earl of Grantham to the servants. (It’s a sign of my expectations that I was surprised that he didn’t say “The First World War is over!”) But this great epoch-making moment was overshadowed first by the paralysed heir to Downton experiencing the first twinges of recovery to his legs and, we assume, his virility. “I’ll tell you if I feel it again,” he tells the valet (stop sniggering at the back). Then there was the evil Mrs Bates meeting a mysterious end just an advert break after her saintly husband had uttered the fateful words: “I wish she were the late Mrs Bates.”
Trumping these, however, was writer Julian Fellowes’ sheer nerve in devising the story of Patrick Crawley: anyone who has not seen Sunday’s episode, look away now.
To recap for non-Downton aficionados (and those who may have missed two minutes of last night’s episode while putting the kettle on for a coffee – such is the speed of Downton plots at the moment): Patrick, the original male heir to Downton, was believed drowned in the Titanic, hence the elevation of the middle-class solicitor Matthew.
However a man (conveniently) dreadfully disfigured and with a Canadian accent suddenly turned up at Downton claiming to be Patrick. He said he had survived the Titanic after all and had been living in Canada because he had suffered amnesia in the shipwreck, only for his memory to miraculously return when a shell exploded near him during the battle of Passchendaele (do keep up at the back).
Presumably, Downton’s £1 million budget an episode had been blown on Lady Mary’s scrumptious frocks, as Patrick’s prosthetic face looked like an off-cut from a pilot episode of Dr Who, and so it was no surprise that Lady Edith was the only one who believed him (this the same Lady Edith, who had also tried to cop off with a farmer played by the boring management consultant in Cold Feet).
There is an idiom employed about television shows called “jumping the shark” (referring to the point in the evolution of a show when it begins to move beyond its essential qualities, that made it great, and into decline, so-called after a ludicrous moment in the American television series Happy Days, where a water-skiing, leather-jacketed Fonz jumps over a shark). The return of “Patrick” could well have been that moment. In fact, my great regret is that Fellowes did not camp up this utterly outrageous storyline even further and make Patrick turn up with a literal shark under his arm as proof for the sceptical Lady Mary that he had indeed struggled in the icy waters of the Atlantic.
In fact, a quick (if unscientific) consultation indicates that there is now a contingent watching the series just to see how far Fellowes can push it. “No idea what everyone is complaining about; total fun,” says one Downton devotee. “It’s not a documentary, why are you whingeing about lack of social realism?” says another. “Bonkers, but my kind of bonkers,” proclaims a third.
Yet my suspicion is that there is something even more subversive going on. Has Fellowes quietly been promoting a different genre – a cross between horror and mainstream period drama, which plays to our primal fears while everyone wears gorgeous evening gowns? The first series was relatively sensible; the second has become more preposterous, and the third… well, we’ve been lulled into a false sense of security by jokes about O’Brien and her button box – but is that when the real terrors of Downton will be unleashed?
Consider this: whoever gets romantically involved with Lady Mary suffers the most gruesome of fates. First, there’s Patrick Crawley (either shipwrecked or forced to wear the worst bandage provided by wardrobe ever). Kemal Pamuk (death by love-making); Matthew Crawley (paralysed). If I were Sir Richard Carlisle, I would not be uttering menacing remarks such as “Don’t ever cross me” to Mary – I would be marrying Ethel the naughty housemaid and jumping on the first train to London for fear of an axe in my head or zombies pursuing me.
Don’t believe me? Think it’s all going to revert to well-bred period type? Well, I’d be calling my agent if I were Lavinia Swire (Matthew’s ginger-haired fiancée), Jane the new housemaid (who’s got her eye on the Earl), or even Carson the butler. There’s a deadly 1918 flu pandemic round the corner, that killed 50 million in real life before Fellowes ever put pen to paper. Expect Downton to give the Hollywood blockbuster Contagion a good run for its money once the first footman starts coughing up phlegm. Coronets and entails? Forget it. It’ll be all carnage and entrails from now on.
