REVIEW: DOWNTON ABBEY - fourth season out, and we have an iconic British drama ***SPOILERS***

INDEPENDENT
OWEN JONES  Author Biography
SUNDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2013

Downton Abbey was one of those national obsessions I never quite understood: it was the watercooler conversation I was excluded from. But with its return to our TV screens, I give in: the first installment of Downton’s fourth season justifies its status as an iconic British drama.

The seasons begins six months after the death of Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), killed suddenly in a car crash, leaving his wife Lady Mary in mourning. It is now 1922, and Britain’s post-war boom has abruptly ended. This was a time of mass unemployment and swingeing Government cuts (sound familiar?). Inter-war Britain was an often traumatizing period of political upheaval, economic crisis and technological progress. “It’s a changing world,” says a servant to the Dowager Countess, played by the formidable Maggie Smith. “You don’t have to tell me,” she says wistfully. Little of the gritty reality of this early 20th-century austerity creeps into the bubble of Downton Abbey, of course.



The most fascinating scenes reveal the quiet violence of the class system, dictating people’s behaviour against their own instincts. At one point, Mr Carson (Jim Carter), the conservative household butler, cautiously confronts the grieving Lady Mary with advice, knowing that he is stepping outside the expectations of the estate’s pecking order: “I would only be so bold as this if I thought it was for your benefit.” Emotionally conflicted and clearly in need of Mr Carson’s comfort, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) avoids engaging with his suggestions by pulling rank: “I’m afraid I may have encouraged the idea you have the right to address me in this way.” The human complexities of the scene are only done justice because of stunning performances from both actors.

There is also the casual humiliation of staff who are unable to speak back. When a waiter’s attempt to serve at lunch is repeatedly sabotaged by a colleague, one of their overlords dismissively tells him: “I hope you’ll soon get back to whatever you were trained to do.” There are also hints at the prevailing sense of women being the mere property of men: this was still six years before all women won the vote. When an excursion is discussed, it is casually said that: “We’re not having the wives!”

READ MORE HERE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/review-downton-abbey--fourth-season-out-and-we-have-an-iconic-british-drama-8833120.html

DOWNTON ABBEY: Feared Downton lost the plot with that car crash? Lady Mary's grief (and the men chasing her) will have you spellbound again

MAIL ON LINE

By CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

PUBLISHED: 18:25 EST, 13 August 2013 | UPDATED: 06:12 EST, 14 August 2013

Downton Abbey is returning to our screens, the most eagerly awaited television event of the year. But instead of simple excitement, there’s the anxious sense this time that the show could be past its best — and ready for the TV scrapyard.

A first preview of the new series revealed yesterday that, after the shocking deaths of two leading characters, Downton is darker and more emotional than ever before.

The elements that have made it the world’s most loved costume drama are still in place, more sumptuous than ever — the acres of brocaded furniture, the glittering silverware, the tapestries and tiaras.

So, too, are the towering central performances of Hugh Bonneville, as an aristocrat struggling in the modern world, and Michelle Dockery as his eldest daughter — now widowed, and frozen in her grief.

ITV chiefs unveiled the first episode of series four at a packed media showing in Mayfair, London, with unparalleled razzmatazz — a reflection of how the show has become the most watched and talked-about drama in the world.

Rumours have swirled around possible plotlines and new characters for months, including reports that renowned opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will be playing a part. 

Yesterday, Dame Kiri walked out on stage herself, to serenade journalists and then reveal that, in a new departure for Downton, her character was based on a real person: the fabled singer Dame Nellie Melba.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2392415/Downton-Abbey-Lady-Marys-grief-men-chasing-spellbound-again.html#ixzz2c3AeYOcb 

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TV REVIEW: Downton Abbey Series 3 Final Episode & Pictures SPOILERS (Huff Post)

Julian Fellowes had his work cut out in the final 90 minutes of this series, with eight sprawling story lines to tie up neatly with a gigantic Christmas-ready bow.

Instead, he threw the gauntlet down with a brand new character, in the form of great-niece Rose, an 18-year-old upstart who "hates London, but loves dancing". Hmmm.

The Dowager’s advice on how to treat the little smart Alec-lette was “keep smiling and never look as if you disapprove" - but that was before Rose announced she was off to the metropolis she claimed to despise, and then did a bunk to that den of iniquity, the Blue Dragon, or “the outer circle of Dante’s inferno” as Matthew Crawley would have it.

Matthew proved his manliness, looking after Rose on the dancefloor of the fabled Blue Dragon

And so, in the dying minutes of this third series, we were at last allowed a bit of nightclub feathers and flapper-dom, a sniff of the 1920s that the Crawley folk had done such a good job of hiding from until now. Strangely for someone with a war-wound who spends half his life in a dressing gown, Matthew knew instinctively how to acquit himself on the dancefloor, while he was coming over all manly and protective to boot.

If only Mary could have seen him in such cavalier stance, because the pair of them were giving the family cause for concern. Mary was just too “tired from London” and busy checking on train times to whip off the dressing gown, but it turned out there was nothing wrong with either of them. How they laughed, and kissed, and prepared to “start making babies”... ewww. Please, no. It’s like watching your parents.

READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/04/tv-review-downton-abbey-series-3-final-episode_n_2073598.html