Book Review - Twenty Seasons of Mobil Masterpiece Theatre 1971-1991
Twenty Seasons of Mobil Masterpiece Theatre 1971-1991 edited by Gregory Vitiello
Published by: Acme Printing Co.
Publication Date: 1991
Format: Hardcover, 112 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
Out of Print
Television needed something that was culturally significant. WGBH in Boston, underwritten by Mobil, brought us Masterpiece Theatre in 1971. A show to create a new golden age of television by airing the best that Britain had to offer. Not just shows by the BBC, but any British channel that produced quality could qualify. But they needed someone that would lend a gravitas and a voice to the show and that is where Alistair Cooke came in. Most known for his radio show, Letter from America, he was the voice of the Englishman abroad. Who better to be the standard bearer for this show that was being created? But he was extremely busy, but the brains behind Masterpiece Theatre were extremely persistent. Soon he was watching the shows wherever he was in America working on his thirteen-part documentary, America: A Personal History of the United States. He'd work out his thoughts, do research, and fly into Boston to film his bits making it the busiest time of his life. Aside from thinking that The First Churchills was filled with too many bewigged men who didn't know which direction the camera was facing, he knew they had something special. A feeling of the literary, a feeling of the theatrical, brought right into people's homes. A story they could follow over time that became the place to be. A place that was popular, and received many accolades in it's early years, but went stratospheric when they picked up a show that was their first wholly original show not based on historical figures. That show was Upstairs, Downstairs. Jean Marsh reminisces on how she and Eileen Atkins approached British executives about their idea for a show and how the only writer they could think of was Harold Pinter the playwright. While it was John Hawkesworth who helped bring the show to life with his stable of writers whose name you would see year after year on Masterpiece Theatre, Harold Pinter eventually did get a look in with The Heat of the Day which has a stunning poster by Bernie Fuchs. Upstairs, Downstairs ran for five seasons and won numerous awards and had Americans spellbound by the tales of the Bellamy family and their servants. It all came crashing down with the stock market crash of 1929, but the show had solidified itself as a classic of television. Year in and year out, Masterpiece Theatre was broadcasting shows that Americans were voracious for. Before the age of binge television they were the gold standard of event television. Though whomever scheduled Talking Heads: Bed Among the Lentils to repeat on New Year's Eve had a sick sense of humor. Masterpiece Theatre, no matter what it's name now, will forever be a masterpiece.
I feel so validated! Alistair Cooke didn't like The First Churchills either! And no, I did not buy this book off eBay to validate my opinion, it was just a happy coincidence that he trashed a show I deeply disliked in his introduction. I bought this book off eBay because I wanted the full color reproductions of twenty-six of the gorgeous posters Mobil commissioned for the series. Some of them I had never even seen before. In fact, there were around two-hundred movies and miniseries that aired while Mobil was a partner with PBS, and if they all had artwork that means despite my due diligence I have only seen around forty percent of them. Many of which I want on my walls. And I really want the Bleak House one with Diana Rigg if anyone is looking to buy me something really expensive. And until someone finally creates the definitive book of all the poster art over the years done by artists from Symor Chwast to Bernie Fuchs to Al Hirschfeld this is the next best thing. Other than the posters this book is thin on content. Aside from Alistair Cooke's "A Personal Memoir," Allen E. Murray, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mobil Corporation, does the forward, Brendan Gill, a journalist for The New Yorker, has a piece called "By Way of Homage," while the remembrances of Jean Marsh are probably the only writing in this book readers actually cared for as she talks about Master James polishing her Wellies. The book is organized chronologically and lists the original airdates and repeats of every single show aired over the first twenty seasons of Masterpiece Theatre. Each season has one but never more than two shows spotlighted with a paragraph or two on each and exactly three pictures. This is very much in the vein of guides you'd buy of shows before the internet era so that you'd know all the episode names and interesting facts, like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher's Guide, but on nicer paper and with less detail. So IMDb in book form. Life was so much harder before IMDb. Though I have to say some of the seasons when they went with a theme this book actually lists the titles far more accurately than any website I've consulted over the years. So take that IMDb! What I took away from this book, besides lots of pleasant memories of shows I have watched and all the posters I want to own, is that in the early days they really formed Masterpiece Theatre around literature and it's importance. How by airing a story over many weeks worth of Sunday nights they gave viewers the same experience of readers back in the day when a story was serialized by the like of Dickens in his literary magazine All the Year Round. They wanted to make a televisual event where they connected with their audience and created a cultural experience. There was no binging, there was a bringing together of like-minded individuals at a certain place and time. And all these years later as I make it my goal to watch every episode of Masterpiece Theatre, many of which are sadly impossible to find, I still feel that connection. That cultural zeitgeist that took hold of a nation before I was even born is alive and well.
Upstairs Downstairs by John Hawkesworth
Upstairs, Downstairs is like the brick and mortar of Masterpiece. This show took America by storm when it originally aired in the seventies so anyone who considers themselves an Anglophile was excited when a reboot was announced. Instead of retelling the tales of the Bellamys which ended with the stock market crash of 1929 we jumped forward several years with the Holland family taking up residence at 165 Eaton Place in 1936. The wonderful holdover from the original series is that they were able to convince Jean Marsh to return as Rose Buck. Joining her was her co-creator of the original series, Eileen Atkins, finally taking a roll in front of the camera as Sir Hallam Holland's mother. The first season consisted of three magnificent episodes that felt like coming home. The new series had that perfect balance of aristocracy, government intrigue, human rights, and scandal that made the original series so addictive. Yet for me I fell irrevocably in love with the show during the second season because of Hallam's affair with his sister-in-law Lady Persephone, played by future monarch Claire Foy. It all started on the eve of World War II, rescuing Lady Persie from the clutches of the Germans while strains of music drifted through the streets. Almost a decade ago I found this doomed romance beyond thrilling, especially with it's tragic ending. Last year I rewatched all of Upstairs, Downstairs and was surprised that I no longer found this affair romantic. I was firmly on the side of Hallam's wife, Lady Agnes, played by the extraordinary Keeley Hawes. How could I have changed so much in a decade!?! How could I be wishing Persie's demise to arrive sooner!?! It just goes to show that the indication of a great television series is that with each watching you find something new about it and yourself. Which made it all the more painful when the success of Downton Abbey led to Upstairs, Downstairs being cancelled too soon. I'm sorry, but I watched and loved BOTH shows so they can coexist! After all Downton Abbey is just a reinterpretation of Upstairs, Downstairs! 
