For months and months I've seen Facebook posts about it. I had no interest in the least in even seeing what it was all about. Then I got Netflix and there it was in the "Recently Added" section. Still I had no interest. Why watch it when I could catch up on old episodes of Bones and see the golden days of Saturday Night Live with Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin (who is now playing the medical examiner on Unforgettable).
Then a couple weekends ago when the weather was dreadful and I was still in a cast and confined to my recliner, I thought, "Why not take a peek and see what all the hullabaloo is about."
And that's when it happened. I became addicted to...
The show is set in the fictional home of the Earl and Countess of Grantham. It depicts the lives of the Crawley family and their servants -- an upstairs/downstaris view of life. Season one opened with the news of the sinking of the Titanic, an event which affected the inheritance of Downton, and ended with learning Great Britain was at war with Germany. Season two took viewers through the war years and ended in early 1920. Each season has only 7-8 episodes, so there's not a lot to watch really. It's not like the 5 seasons of Bones I watched in a two-and-a-half week period last summer so I'd be caught up when the new season started. Talk about a marathon! But I digress.
The cast is brilliant, and the MOST brilliant is Dame Maggie Smith as Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham. The plots involve an entail, world events, aristocratic life, valets, ladies maids and footmen, a dead Turk, a cowardly soldier, cover-ups, scandals, crime, forbidden love and more, more, more.
While I'm not normally a fan of British period pieces, this one captivated me, especially the above-named Dowager Countess. PBS has even compiled a video of great Maggie moments.
Watch Downton Abbey: The Best Maggie Moments on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.
Sadly, season 3 will not air in the U.S. until next winter. But they've given us something to look forward to: Shirley McLaine as the mother of the American-born Lady Grantham. Woohoo! I can already guess there will be fireworks between her character and the Dowager Countess.
Are you a Downton Abbey
P.S. We're participating in Barbara Vey's 5th Anniversary Party over at Beyond Her Book. There's lots of fun, hunky cabana boys and some great prizes. Pop over and say hi!
