Julian Fellowes Overcomes His Scruples and Looks Back at Season 2 of ‘Downton Abbey’ (New York Times)

Dan Stevens as Matthew Crawley and Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary on “Downton Abbey.” Warning: this post contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know how World War I turned out, don’t read any further.

February 19, 2012, 10:39 PM
By DAVE ITZKOFF

When you have only a few episodes and a Christmas special to address World War I and its aftermath, needless to say, you have to cover a lot of ground very quickly.

So it went for the Crawley family and its servants at “Downton Abbey,” the PBS “Masterpiece” series that concluded its second season on Sunday night after a stretch in which: the heir presumptive, Matthew Crawley (played by Dan Stevens), appeared to be grievously wounded in battle and left paralyzed, only to make a miraculous recovery; Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) pursued her practical if unromantic courtship of the ruthless newspaper publisher Sir Richard Carlisle (Iain Glen); the kitchen maid Daisy (Sophie McShera) married ill-fated William (Thomas Howes) before he died from war injuries; the housemaid Anna (Joanne Froggatt) and valet Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle) married before he was arrested for the suspected murder of his previous wife; and, just when everything seemed to have settled down, a bout of Spanish influenza knocked off Matthew’s fiancée, Lavinia Swire (Zoe Boyle), leaving him free to become engaged to Lady Mary.

Also: the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) made some cutting remarks and the dog Isis went missing for a bit.

These miseries, machinations and occasional moments of joy were all set in motion by Julian Fellowes, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter (“Gosford Park”) who is the creator and an executive producer of “Downton Abbey.” In a recent telephone interview from Britain, where work is underway on a third season of the show, Mr. Fellowes, 62, spoke about the many story lines at play in Season 2; the American television series he is influenced by; and when, if ever, “Downton Abbey” might come to a conclusion.

Here are excerpts from that conversation:

Q.  You knew going into this season that World War I was going to dominate the narrative and dictate the fates of your characters. Did you sit down in advance and decide who is coming back alive and who isn’t, or did you let things happen more organically?

 A. I don’t think we did sit down and say, “He’ll live and he’ll die” at the very beginning. But we were conscious of the fact that we had to kill someone we knew really well and liked. Because the danger is, the only people who ever get killed are people with two lines. There is a kind of falseness to that. In my own life, my grandfather died of disease in the trenches, my great uncle died of wounds. It’s not that this was something that happened to people one hardly knew. That went right through society, top to bottom. People were killed and maimed in this war. And we knew in the end, it was the luckless William, because we all loved him, who had to die. Matthew was very badly wounded, though not as bad in the end as it was feared. We knew we had to make it pretty grim for people who were central to the narrative, yes.

 Q. Probably the audience would be calling for your head if you dispensed with Matthew entirely, but you still created the possibility, for at least a couple of episodes, that he would be left paralyzed and unable to have children. Why not leave him in that state?

A. To be honest, when you’re running a series and you have an open end, you don’t want to limit yourself too much with the choices you’ve got for a particular character. In a way, being able to father a child was a bigger issue than whether or not he could walk again. But once you’ve done that, I’m not sure where we would have gone with him. Putting him through the mill and letting him come out the other end was as harsh as we were prepared to be.


Read more of this wonderful interview with Julian Fellowes:  http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/julian-fellowes-overcomes-his-scruples-and-looks-back-at-season-2-of-downton-abbey/

Downton's merry Kissmas: There will be plenty of puckering up... and not all of it under the mistletoe (spoilers) (Mail On Line)

By Tim Oglethorpe
Last updated at 10:41 PM on 23rd December 2011

As you might expect, there’s plenty of puckering up going on in tomorrow night’s Christmas special – and it doesn’t all happen under the mistletoe.

Lady Mary, Anna Bates, the roguish Lord Hepworth (played by Nigel Havers) and the fusty old Earl of Grantham himself are just some of those who find themselves in clinches of one sort or another.

Even Mrs Patmore, Downton’s feisty cook, has a bit of a hot flush when she takes to the floor with Matthew Crawley at the New Year’s Eve servants’ ball, the climax of the show which brings together both upstairs and downstairs for a night of dancing.

More of the same? Hugh Bonneville's Earl of Grantham kissed the maid in Downton's season finale

And it’s given Lesley Nicols, who plays her, a taste for romance.

‘It would be marvellous if Mrs Patmore were to fall in love with a man in the next series,’ she says. ‘I’d be delighted if Julian Fellowes wrote that into a storyline, although she might be aiming a little high with Matthew.

'I think it’s about time after all those years slaving over a hot stove.’

Romance aside, there are plenty of plot twists to look forward to tomorrow.
Valet Mr Bates (Brendan Coyle) is on trial for murder, there’s an eerie ouija board scene and ruthless Sir Richard Carlisle (Iain Glen) shows his true colours.

 

Puckering up: A make-up artist puts some finishing touches to Michelle Dockery's lips before filming starts

... but everyone wants to know if Michelle's character, Lady Mary Crawley, will kiss Dan Stevens' Matthew Crawley in the Christmas special

Work then begins in February on a new eight-part series, to air in the autumn, and another two-hour Christmas special for next year.

All good news for the show’s army of fans, which these days includes Joan Rivers and Tom Hanks.

Says Siobhan Finneran, who plays Lady Cora’s maid O’Brien, ‘Joan tweets about the fact she watches the programme, and an actor friend of mine worked with Tom and discovered he was a big fan too. Who’d have thought it?’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2077473/Downtons-merry-Kissmas-There-plenty-puckering--mistletoe.html#ixzz1hP5IpGEI

Dan Stevens | "Downton Abbey' Christmas Special *SPOLIERS*

ITV has set out to win the Christmas Day ratings war with a festive serving of Downton Abbey.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor The Telegraph

10:00PM GMT 30 Nov 2011

The commercial broadcaster hopes to end the BBC’s dominance of Christmas viewing with a two-hour special of the period drama. To promote the episode, it has released a series of teasing still photographs that hint at the narrative shocks that lay in store.

A spokesman for ITV promised high drama in the Christmas special, during which viewers will learn the fate of Bates, the valet, who is on trial for the murder of his estranged wife.

Newcomer Lord Hepworth, played by Nigel Havers, is at the centre of a “sensational” storyline. Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) receives some surprising news. And there are more twists and turns in the relationship between Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), as her fiancé, Sir Richard Carlisle (Iain Glen), becomes an unwanted house guest.

The episode is set over Christmas and the New Year, and includes a servants’ ball in which upstairs and downstairs characters come together for a night of dancing.

Fans will also be introduced to one of Downton’s traditions: on Christmas Day, the staff are given the day off and Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) takes charge of the Christmas lunch.

Somewhat predictably, although several storylines reach a climax, the episode will end on a cliffhanger. The drama is returning for a third series next year. BBC One, meanwhile, is pinning its hopes on a combination of EastEnders – traditionally the most watched programme on Christmas Day – and the return of Absolutely Fabulous, which have been scheduled in the same 9-11pm slot as Downton Abbey.

Elsewhere in the Christmas schedules, details of which were unveiled yesterday, BBC One will screen its new version of Great Expectations in three instalments from Dec 27-29. On Boxing Day, ITV’s double episode of Coronation Street is ranged against BBC One’s adaptation of The Borrowers, starring Victoria Wood and Stephen Fry.

The Christmas Day films include Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs Aliens and Ratatouille on BBC One, and March of the Penguins, Miracle on 34th Street and Happy Feet on ITV1.

While the BBC will broadcast a Christmas Eve carol service from St George’s Cathedral in Southwark, ITV has chosen a less traditional venue.

Its carol service will be beamed from a rustic barn in Bucklebury, Berks, the village that is home to Carole and Michael Middleton, parents of the Duchess of Cambridge.

Downton Abbey, episode 7, review (SPOILERS)

The Telegraph

Serena Davies reviews the seventh episode of ITV1's period drama, Downton Abbey

3.5

Sir Richard (Iain Glen) and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) Photo: ITV

By Serena Davies

10:20PM GMT 30 Oct 2011

Tonight I discovered that Downton improves mightily after a couple of glasses of wine. Ok yes I guffawed along with the rest of you when Matthew suddenly stood up from his chair and REALISED HE COULD WALK. Please. Why didn’t Fellowes make him blind? It worked with Rochester, and there’s a hero for you. This way Matthew could have stayed blind and still had children and his love for whichever woman he finally chose could have been even more noble because he could no longer admire their sinuous frame. Rochester even got better under Jane Eyre’s tender loving care and it was a recovery that felt plausible as opposed to TOTALLY IDIOTIC.

But, other than when concerned with the central event of the episode, my emotions were near-perfectly in sync with what Julian Fellowes was hoping for. Particularly as regards the Grand Tragedy of Lady Mary.

Poor Mary, I can hardly bear it. I love the way she’s got all catty and imperious to cover the terrible pain of Matthew and Lavinia’s forthcoming nuptials, including her maudlin talk of our all having to make choices we must stick with (furtive glance at the dreadful Richard).

I loved the way she whipped Sybil away from the jumped-up chauffeur in their inn of (potential) sin, her voice getting several semitones deeper (and haughtier) as she told him – after Sybil’s departure – that yes, contrary to what she’d just said to her sister, she’d do her best to persuade her to forsake him.

But most of all I loved Maggie Smith’s visit to Matthew when she told him that Mary was still in love with him: had he not seen Mary's face when he announced his marriage to Lavinia? “Like Juliet’s when she awoke in the tomb.” Heartbreak.

Thankfully, Robert the Earl has indeed now embarked in a chaste sort of affair with the sweet maid, which meant he was quite a lot less Lord Dull than usual. And I must have been drunk because I found myself actually caring that the nasty Thomas had managed to lose all his money after being ripped off by the sly thief with whose wares Thomas had been hoping to launch himself on the black market.

Next week: the LAST episode, which the excellent Ceri Radford will be reviewing in the main paper and online. This series, for me, has slipped far too often into the ridiculous rather than the sublime, but a good bottle of Merlot can reverse that ratio quite effectively.

DAN STEVENS - DOWNTON ABBEY, SERIES 2

Downton Abbey, ITV1, episode two, review

Serena Davies gets emotional over the second episode of the new series of ITV1's popular period soap Downton Abbey.

By Serena Davies (The Telegraph)

Sir Richard Carlisle (Iain Glen) and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) in episode two of the second series of Downton Abbey

Well it didn’t take long for emotions to run as high as those preposterous spires that jostle for position along the upper reaches of Downton Abbey itself. If it wasn’t the unspoken passion of Lady Mary, it was Anna’s stricken little face after Bates’s abandonment of her, or Edith’s dismay at her fast-thwarted amour for the local farmer.

And that was just the romance, which we got in pre-war Downton too. But now there’s bodily harm to deal with as well. Tonight there was shell shock, a suicide and the execution of Mrs Padmore’s nephew for cowardice. Rarely has a second episode of a long series been so packed with miserable incidents.

The Great War is looking like it’s going to cast a very serious pall indeed over Downton Abbey, as of course it must. And Fellowes’s decision to concentrate on those at home rather than the soldiers at the front is proving an excellent one, giving the viewer some genuine insight into the helpless anxiety of those who were left behind.

It was left to the Dowager Countess alone to give us the occasional laugh. Her monopoly of all the decent lines grows only greater, or perhaps Maggie Smith’s performance is soaring to even more impressive heights. “The truth is neither here nor there, it’s the look of the thing that matters,” was my favourite of the night. In joint second came the admonition to Edith over her eagerness to drive: “This is not Toad of Toad Hall!” (Yes, Fellowes has done his research – The Wind in the Willows came out in 1908). And her dismissal of the pedigree of the family her daughter married into: “They were no great threat to the Plantagenets.”

In all it was a wonderful episode, if one requiring hankies. The one small caveat is that Lady Mary’s new beau, the alarmingly bourgeois Sir Richard Carlisle (that’s not a hereditary “Sir”), seems far too soft spoken and inoffensive to be quite the threat to propriety the Dowager Countess and the rest of her family seem to believe him to be. But then Iain Glen, who plays him, is a subtle, clever actor, and can do nasty with the best of them when the moment truly requires it.