strange and random happenstance

Two series about the advent of department stories debuted within six months of each other and if I had to pick one I would not have picked Mr Selfridge, Jeremy Piven and Andrew Davies must accept my apologizes, because I would have picked The Paradise. Created by the team behind Lark Rise to Candleford with many of the same actors, this was another loose adaptation of a classic that captured my heart and swiftly became one of my most favorite series ever. There was just such heart and romance and, unlike Mr Selfridge, there was more than a little of the Upstairs, Downstairs dynamic. Here we really got stuck into the lives of those working at The Paradise as well as those running and funding the roadshow. We saw the haves versus the have nots and how a major department store economically impacted it's small business competitors, a concern that is even more relevant today. When Denise Lovett arrives on the scene she becomes the focal point of all that is happening. She straddles both worlds, he uncle having a business that is struggling because of The Paradise, while she herself takes a job at The Paradise, and is soon seen by the owner, John Moray, as a girl after his own heart. She's smart and a self-starter and soon steals his heart. Of course there's a love triangle and many complications. This wouldn't be a show worthy of Masterpiece if there wasn't. But what I really liked most about this series is it wasn't afraid to go dark. As in, there's a murder! Arthur Darvill of Doctor Who fame gets involved in The Paradise when his storefront is bought by the expanding store. His style doesn't mesh well with the glamour Moray sells and, well, one thing leads to another, and his body is found in the river. The culprit is of course revealed, which goes into the ties that bind us as a community and as a company and as a people together. Just writing this makes me sad all over again that such a lovely show was cancelled too soon. But I'd rather have it cancelled too soon than have it overstay it's welcome, which is sadly what happened to Lark Rise to Candleford.

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Labels: Andrew Davies, Arthur Darvill, Denise Lovett, Department Store, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Jeremy Piven, John Moray, Lark Rise to Candleford, Mr Selfridge, Murder, The Paradise, Upstairs Downstairs

Making Masterpiece by Rebecca Eaton
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: October 29th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Rebecca Eaton was born in 1947 to an English Literature professor and an actress, both of whom where alcoholics, which led to her being a very organized, hypervigilant child working to meet everyone's needs. The show that would come to define her life is, as she sees it, stories about families. And her family circumstances led to her, in essence, producing their lives. She was there to keep everything on an even keel. It's no wonder that she ended up one of the most famous executive producers in television history. Spending much of her childhood in books when not managing her family she received an English degree from Vassar and on August 9, 1969, she left New York for London to begin her job at the BBC, it just happened to be the same day as the Manson murders. She knew nothing about radio, or even that the job was in radio, all she knew was that she could live in London for a year and that's where she wanted to be. This was when her love affair with England truly began. Meanwhile America's love affair with England was also beginning in earnest. With the airing of The Forsyte Saga in the same year Americans couldn't get enough period dramas from across the pond. PBS was officially formed in 1970 and in 1971 Masterpiece Theatre was launched with The First Churchills, a show no one, particularly the host Alistair Cook, who would be on one year contracts the entirety of his twenty-one year tenure, liked. The show was entirely paid for by Mobil, with the first season consisting of thirty-nine hours of already-made BBC drama. Mobil believed in affinity marketing, if Masterpiece Theatre was beloved and classy, they would be viewed the same way. But it was a delicate dance that would end spectacularly after thirty-three years. By the second year of Masterpiece Theatre Rebecca was already in the door at WGBH in Boston. She was producing non-fiction shows and documentaries. She developed a strong reputation and work ethic and when the second executive producer of Masterpiece Theatre died of Cancer Rebecca was offered the position. On the same day she learned she was pregnant. She took the leap and ended up on the journey of a lifetime. When British tastes started to change to modern fare and the backlog of shows that Masterpiece Theatre could buy dried up, Rebecca was the one leading the charge to not just produce shows that were already in the pipeline but to suggest and shepherd new shows. And thus Middlemarch and The Buccaneers were made. Which lead the British to see that there was still an interest in period dramas. But Masterpiece Theatre and Rebecca would again and again come up against changing audiences and expanding markets and, in a rather remarkable show of vengeance, how petty HBO could be. Yet they weathered the storms, they rebranded, and while The Buccaneers was a resounding hit, they were always looking for their next Upstairs Downstairs or The Jewel in the Crown. Which would unexpectedly arrive in the form of Downton Abbey. A show Rebecca initially turned down but everything worked out. Because as she's said, "I've been very, very lucky in my career, in spite of myself."

Historically I have never been a fan of Rebecca Eaton. The reason is twofold. The way her name appears in the credits of the shows she has executive produced makes her seem, to me, and apparently others, above Masterpiece. That she is somehow better than her job title and that she alone should be getting credit for a show she might have had no involvement in other than buying it for distribution. It has never sat well with me and has made me think less of her. The second reason is more to do with my local PBS station, WHA-TV. They are not well run and their practices can be a bit sus. Rebecca Eaton was coming to do a big event for WHA-TV which is located on the UW-Madison campus within Vilas Hall which houses the departments of Comm Arts and Theatre and Drama. I was invited because not only was I a Theatre and Drama alumna but a PBS supporter. I was excited. Then the day before the event they sent out an email saying that the event was free but meeting Rebecca cost extra. I remember it as a hundred dollars, my Dad thinks it was more. I mean, I know they need to make money, but it was badly timed. Why not have a great event with Rebecca and have her ask for donations not demand an entrance fee right before your partygoers head out the door? Needles to say I did not attend and that was the last fuck I had to give with regards to my local PBS station. Therefore I approached this book with mild trepidation. Booked as a biography of someone I don't really like I think the average person would question my sanity. But my love for Masterpiece is so great that I will endure any hardship. I mean, just the lengths I go to to watch old shows is staggering and so much more energy than I expended downloading this to my Kindle. Plus I got it on sale. I was actually expecting it to be more of a autobiography given some reviews I had read. But it's not really her bio, just a bio inasmuch as how her upbringing prepared her for the job and what was happening in her life to frame her state of mind while dealing with Masterpiece. Because that's whose biography this is, this is Masterpiece's. Rebecca just happened to be there for a lot of it and was able to get the stories. She's a plainspoken writer who relies too much on aphorisms and platitudes, but she's willing to admit when she makes mistakes and that she was always constantly learning on the job. She never stopped. She openly admits that they could have had Colin Firth in a wet shirt back in 1996 but she was convinced that viewers wouldn't care. She was wrong and it made her realize that adaptions of classics aren't one and done but cyclical. Each generation wants their own version. But the incident of losing out on Colin Firth just demonstrates how myopic she can be. She never thought Mobil would leave, she never thought that HBO would be a threat, and seeing as this was written before the streaming boom, one can only imagine what that has done to their numbers with so many outlets vying for the same content. But what made me sad reading this book is that it was the introductions of Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker and Diana Rigg and Vincent Price that set Masterpiece and Mystery! apart and that is gone with the changing times. This is true lost media and I mourn its loss. At least Alan Cumming makes up for a bit and that's down to Rebecca. So I guess I can say I've changed my tune with regard to her. But not in regard to WHA-TV.

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Labels: Downton Abbey, Executive Producer, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Masterpiece, Masterpiece Theatre, Middlemarch, Mobil, PBS, Rebecca Eaton, The Buccaneers, The Foryste Saga, The Jewel in the Crown, Upstairs Downstairs, WGBH

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.

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Labels: Alistair Cooke, Bernie Fuchs, Eileen Atkins, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Harold Pinter, IMDb, Jean Marsh, John Hawkesworth, Masterpiece Theatre, Mobil, Posters, Symor Chwast, The First Churchills, Upstairs Downstairs

Upstairs Downstairs by John Hawkesworth
Published by: Nelson Doubleday
Publication Date: 1971
Format: Hardcover, 243 Pages
Rating: ★★★
Out of Print

165 Eaton Place sits on the North side of the street in Belgravia. Above stairs there's Richard Bellamy, a conservative MP, and his wife Lady Marjorie. There two children are no longer at home with James in the Life Guards and Elizabeth at a finishing school in Dresden, Germany. Below stairs there's the butler, Hudson, and the cook, Mrs. Bridges. Under them are Alfred the footman, Rose the houseparlourmaid, and Emily the kitchen maid. The downstairs staff is completed by Miss Roberts, Lady Marjorie's Lady's Maid, and Mr. Pearce the chauffeur. The household are in need of an under houseparlourmaid after the last one came to a bad end. Lady Marjorie is interviewing one Clemence Dumas whom most of the staff are rooting against. Except Emily, but she's a romantic, and the tall tales Clemence spins have already won over the kitchen maid. Against all expectations Lady Marjorie takes on Clemence, rechristened Sarah, for a trial period. Almost at once she's causing a scandal by sitting for a portrait for the same artist that is painting Lady Marjorie. The painting of "the maids" is so salacious juxtaposed with the more traditional portrait of Lady Marjorie that the news is actually picked up by the local papers. Though it wouldn't be proper to send Sarah packing because of her naivete for trusting a painter the Bellamys themselves shouldn't have trusted. Thankfully they luck out soon enough when they are away for the summer and the servants play at masters and James Bellamy arrives home. A charged moment between him and Sarah makes her realize that she doesn't want to exist to prop up the lives of others, she wants to live her own life. A desire that may come back to haunt her. But for the Bellamys life goes on, Elizabeth returns from abroad, nowhere near as finished as they'd hoped and wanting to talk about German philosophers with everyone. A lady should only talk about the weather and never about politics, especially to politicians. Her behavior soon has her banished by her family from London. And despite their actions their dearest wish is that Elizabeth would be happy, so she comes and goes, trying to make a place for herself in society. But when the first man she falls for was using her as a pawn to get to her father and then runs off with the footman, she thinks that her love life is doomed. All is not lost. Not for her parents or for Elizabeth herself when she falls in with revolutionaries and meets the poet Lawrence Kirbridge. After much trial and tribulation, both for the masters and the servants, maybe an approximation of a happy ending is on the horizon. Though with Sarah back on the scene and stepping out with James the happy ending depends on your point of view.

If you're a fan of the original Upstairs, Downstairs I know the question on the tip of your tongue, and it's who the hell are these people on the cover of this book!?! It's like someone asked AI what the cast of Upstairs, Downstairs looked liked and this weird amalgamation of seventies business suits and mobcaps was churned out. But I can assure you, this is the real cover because I actually scanned it into the computer myself from my copy. My guess is that they were trying to lure in readers who weren't aware of the television show and therefore have these generic models because Richard Bellamy sure as hell wouldn't show that much ankle. Yet the selling point in the United States should have been that you could read the first season as it was meant to air, minus episode six, "A Cry for Help," and episode eleven, "The Swedish Tiger." Because when Upstairs, Downstairs first aired in the United States in 1973 what was shown was a weird hybrid of season one and season two where the twenty-six episodes where reduced down to thirteen. Obviously some of this had to do with the fact that the first six episodes were in black and white because of the Colour Strike with only the pilot being reshot for color. But still, that is A LOT of story to omit. So American audiences could have turned to this book written by John Hawkesworth, who turned Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins's idea into the beloved show and produced the series and wrote twelve episodes of it as well. But the thing is, John Hawkesworth wasn't an author he was a screenwriter, so this book comes across more like a script treatment, where the dialogue is bulked out with minimal descriptors. So there's no insight and without the actors imbuing their characters with life they come across as flat and unlikable. In fact the omission of "A Cry for Help" in particular was detrimental to the understanding of Richard Bellamy's character. This lack of insight made the book feel more antagonistic, more us versus them instead of one household working together. What did work was the added history. Upstairs, Downstairs was known for it's incorporation of historical events, which occasionally verged on the preachy side with their teachable moments. I know everyone seems to love the episode "A Patriotic Offering" about Belgian refugees, but I've never liked it, mainly because of Hudson's racism. Though overall the extra bit of background, especially about the dreadnoughts, was welcomed. This is just such an odd book because it flattens some aspects and invigorates others, especially when the characters are away from the house. But in the end the problem is there is no arc to the book because there was no arc to the show. This book makes me simultaneously want to binge the show once more but also to never watch it again. It shows the ups and downs of the series rather well and, well, by the end of the book you could see even John Hawkesworth wanted it to come to an end as the episode dramatizations got shorter and brusquer. He just wanted it over with and regrettably so did I.

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Labels: 165 Eaton Place, A Patriotic Offering, AI, Belgian Refugees, Belgravia, Bellamy, Colour Strike, Eileen Atkins, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, History, Hudson, Jean Marsh, John Hawkesworth, Novelization, Upstairs Downstairs

I am perhaps not the best judge of this show. I might be a tad obsessed with the Mitfords. I have poured over everything these prolific sisters have written and therefore know their history. I know what came before and what came after so I don't know if someone who at the very least hasn't read Mary S. Lovell's biography from which this show is adapted would get it. Does Outrageous tell you enough that you understand the dynamic or are you like my Dad asking me questions every two seconds? But in fairness, my Dad asks me questions no matter what we're watching, I just knew all the answers this time around. On the other hand I might be the best judge of this show because I know they got it right. They chose the perfect inflection point in the lives of the Mitfords to show how this family fractured. How the fanaticism of fascism broke this family apart. And the thing is, you don't have to be a British family in the 1930s split by political ideology to understand this. Just look at America today, families are being torn apart, and not just because of evil policies by the government, but by political beliefs within families. This show isn't just relevant, it's so timely it's spooky. Bessie Carter is the perfect Nancy Mitford, she has her mom's hair, her Dad's nose, and the talent to match both. She's wry and exasperated, she is the voice of the audience wondering how her two beloved sisters, Diana and Unity, are drawn into Hitler's orbit. And, like a good sister, she tries to understand, she actually goes to one of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists rallies and she is horrified. How can people she love be drawn in by this hate. And I think the scene where Diana and Unity go to their first Nazi rally captures it all. It's terrifying. The fervor, the fanaticism, the fashionable branding. Really, the Nazis had the branding, which is why to this day the swastika brings such primal fear and hatred with it. But their expressions show how caught up these two siblings are in the Reich. Joanna Vanderham playing against type as Diana is luxuriously evil. She is genuinely shocked that people don't love what she stands for. As for Shannon Watson as Unity? She is sheer perfection. When reading about Unity it's hard to get a read on her because of what came after coloring her history. Unity was so split by her loyalties between her family in England and her love for Germany that she attempted to kill herself when war was officially declared. That hasn't happened here. Yet. God willing we get more seasons. But the enfeebled state in which her life continued after she put a bullet in her brain makes her be treated in a certain light by historians. She reads as developmentally disabled or autistic. She may very well have been autistic with her fanatical obsession with Hitler. She literally went to the same cafe Hitler went to day in and day out just for the chance of seeing him. And Shannon Watson plays this to Aryan superiority. She portrays that naivete combined with cruelty. A wide eyed innocence that publicly decries the Jews because it's what Hitler believes. She is someone you can totally see killing the family pet. Something this series totally baits you with. If this show has any faults it would be that, for the moment, they are downplaying how dangerous Mosley was, in particular the Battle of Cable Street which was handled so exquisitely in the reboot of Upstairs Downstairs, and there just aren't enough episodes. Six isn't nearly enough. More! 

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Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Bessie Carter, Blackshirts, Diana Mitford, Hitler, Joanna Vanderham, Mary S. Lovell, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, Nazis, Oswald Mosley, Outrageous, Politics, Shannon Watson, Unity Mitford, Upstairs Downstairs, WWII

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Published by: Doubleday
Publication Date: September 27th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Ma Coker is being released from prison. Detective Inspector John Frobisher sits in his car watching the spectacle of her release. Her children crowd around her for the camera. The notorious Queen of Clubs got locked up for a minor infraction, but Frobisher knows that she is rotten and he will make it his life's work to see her back behind bars for good. His job is to root out corruption and catch the bad guys, even if they're coppers. Because to have avoided prison for so long Ma Coker has to have someone on the inside and Frobisher is seconded to the Bow Street police station to find out just who that is. Which is how he met Gwendolyn Kelling. Miss Kelling is a mild mannered librarian from York. After the death of her mother she has surprisingly come into quite a bit of money. Two girls from York have gone missing; Freda Murgatroyd and Florence Ingram. Miss Kelling is friends with Freda's half-sister Cissy and Gwendolyn agrees to go to London to look for them. Freda is a silly girl with dreams of being an actress and she obviously just dragged Florence along for company. But these kind of girls can get chewed up and spit out by London and they often end up working in Ma Coker's clubs. So when Miss Kelling shows up at the police station asking for help Frobisher is entranced by the young woman. She's so forthright, so put together, unlike his wife, that he will think up any reason to see more of her. Therefore he says he'll get his men looking into the girls disappearance, but that she might want to check out the clubs, and if she's going to go there she could help him. Miss Kelling is up for the challenge. She walks into the Amethyst, the crown jewel of Ma Coker's clubs, on the arm of an undercover cop, and ends up helping out a gang member who's been shot. This brings Miss Kelling to the attention of Ma Coker. She could use someone like Gwendolyn. Someone able to stand her ground and have a cool head in a crisis. Therefore she asks the librarian from York if she wouldn't mind running a night club. It even comes with it's own apartment. Miss Kelling jumps at the opportunity. She claims for DI Frobisher it's so she can help him from the inside, but maybe, just maybe, it's because she's drawn to Ma's oldest son, Niven. There's something about him that is intriguing. With all the clubs and all the people and the seething vast metropolis, anything is possible, but one thing is certain, at this moment in time London revolves around Ma Coker. But with an enemy list as long as hers how long will this last?

Over the past few years historical fiction set during the roaring twenties has undergone a seismic shift. Books about the "bright young things" are no longer the rage, instead the focus has shifted to those of a lower economic class. The shift started by first embracing an Upstairs, Downstairs vibe, the we're all in this together and together we can get through this. But the world has changed, a pandemic, poverty, and political upheaval has worn us all down. The best example to hand is Downton Abbey. When the first movie arrived on screens in 2019 I adored it, the cast of characters pulling together for King and Country. When Downton Abbey: A New Era arrived in 2022 with the characters flaunting their wealth and vacationing on the Riviera, I couldn't help thinking, perhaps Julian Fellowes should have read the room. This wasn't the escape I was personally looking for after two years of hell. In fact it made me hate all the Crawley family for their excesses. How dare they behave this way? And I wasn't the only one who felt this way, the fact the film made $100 million less kind of speaks for itself. Which is why readers are right pointing out that this is the book that speaks to us now, there's pain and suffering after the end of the first world war and we're focusing on the lower classes who are fleecing the parasitic bright young things. Criminals are the new heroes, I mean just look how many books have been written about Alice Diamond in the past few years and you can see the trend that Julian Fellowes was blind to. And Kate Atkinson has a way with creating memorable characters. This book might be said to have a somewhat bloated cast, one of my friends thinks there were twenty-six "main" characters, but when I started to add it up I think it was higher. Because there is no such thing as a minor character in this book. Everyone gets a backstory, everyone has their lives lovingly told in beautiful language right up until the moment Kate Atkinson got bored with them all. That is the only way I can explain how this book ended. She wrote these complex, if very self-centered characters and then just stopped. Did she hit her allotted word count? Because she kills off DI Frobisher in a death that is almost stupider than Dan Stevens's on Downton Abbey and it opened up of the floodgates; jumping all the over twentieth century clinically listing when and how the characters died, but stoutly refusing to solve Florence's disappearance or Vivian Quinn's murder. Though what made me furious with this book, beyond all the unresolved plotlines, is that Gwendolyn and Niven's future and romantic fate is "suspended between coming and going forever." That is where she left the main narrative? Now that is a hanging offense.

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Labels: DI John Frobisher, Downton Abbey, For the Love of Book Clubs, Gwendolyn Kelling, Julian Fellowes, Kate Atkinson, Ma Coker, Nightclubs, Niven Coker, Prison, Shrines of Gaiety, Soho, Unresolved, Upstairs Downstairs

After the deathly dull adaptation of The Golden Bowl I was hesitant to say the least about diving right into another Henry James miniseries. But thankfully The Spoils of Poynton is my kind of jam. Firstly, it is not at all what I assumed it was based on the title. I thought Poynton was a location in some far flung locale that was being sacked. Perhaps I'm forgetting here that Henry James wasn't British and therefore wasn't all about King and Country and conquering. Instead Poynton is a house. A house jammed to the rafters with a lifetime of collecting by Adela Gereth. Mrs. Gereth's collection and home are actually the rightful property of her son Owen now that her husband, Owen's father, has died. The problem that has arisen is that Owen has fallen for one Mona Brigstock. Mona is entirely unsuitable in Mrs. Gereth's mind to understand and revere the collection belonging to Poynton. Mona is the "sporting" type and has designs on putting a billiards table where the classical music instruments are. Into this contretemps walks Miss Fleda Vetch. Miss Vetch is exactly the kind of girl who would look after Poynton and Mrs. Gereth is going to try her best to see that Owen sees this as well. Mrs. Gereth bides her time by removing herself from Poynton, along with all the contents of the house, enraging Mona to no end. Which annoys Owen. Which means Miss Vetch must act as a go-between for Owen and his mother, all the while falling in love with Owen, as Mrs. Gereth had hoped. Fleda doesn't play her hand right and Mrs. Gereth reacts prematurely and no one lives happily ever after. And here's the thing, I so needed a happy ending right now. It's not that I thought the character of Fleda deserved it, but she was played so magnificently by Gemma Jones that I couldn't help but root for her. I mean how could I NOT root for her!?! It's Bridget Jones's mom! It's Louisa Trotter! It's the actress behind so many roles I have loved over the years! Sure she was nothing more here but the crown jewel in Mrs. Gereth's collection that turned out to be paste, but I SO wanted her to have a happily ever after! Even if Owen was a total loser and when he was Elizabeth's husband on Upstairs, Downstairs he was nothing but trouble. But I think Fleda could have succeeded where Elizabeth failed! And as for Mrs. Gereth... well, she's really just an older version of me I fear. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed this so darn much! OK, where's a Maltese cross I can run off to the country with?

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Labels: Collection, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Gemma Jones, Henry James, Miss Fleda Vetch, Mona Brigstock, Mr. Owen Gereth, Mrs. Adela Gereth, Poynton, The Golden Bowl, The Spoils of Poynton, Upstairs Downstairs

The Edwardians is an odd series because I don't think it was meant to be a series. It's just eight ninety minute long stories about prominent Edwardians. There is no cohesive theme, no cohesive style, more on that later, in fact some of the episodes are in black and white while others are in color and all have horrible sound. I'll note I have no idea if half the episodes being in black and white was due to a Colour Strike like with Upstairs, Downstairs, but my guess is that it wasn't. Also use the closed captioning, it will help with the sound. What the series did do well was highlight bizarre aspects of these seven peoples lives that might be common knowledge in England but which I personally didn't know too much about. And if you noticed that there are eight episodes but only seven eminent Edwardians profiled, it's because one of the episodes is just about Edwardian music halls and their performers unionizing leading to a very bleak ending when the days of the music hall died. You will learn lots of weird things about the Edwardians sex lives, Frederick Royce, of Rolls-Royce, had a sexless marriage, Edith Bland, the children's author known as E. Nesbit, was basically in a trupple and raising the other woman's child as her own, Conan Doyle was having an affair on his dying wife, and Lloyd George, well, he'd sleep with anything. As an interesting aside, the Conan Doyle episode does a better job with the George Edalji case than either the book by Julian Barnes or the miniseries adapted from that book. But my favorite episode by far is the one about Daisy, one of the MANY mistresses of Edward VII. This episode is black and white and all done on one set that looks like it was designed for a ballet. There's choreography and movement and it looks very much like it was shot in one take with little set pieces in different areas of the amorphous white womb that is the set. It's so surreal yet somehow that just makes it not only more memorable, but work in a way the other stories don't. It's taken out of time and turned into a parable or fairy tale about a woman with many loves who eventually embraced Socialism. Yes, it's odd. But it's so odd it's not to be missed.  

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Labels: Arthur Conan Doyle, Colour Strike, E. Nesbit, Edward VII, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, George Edalji, Julian Barnes, Lloyd George, Rolls-Royce, Sex Lives, Socialism, The Edwardians, Trupple, Upstairs Downstairs

Country Matters started with delight and surprise. So many favorite actors as fresh faced youths! There's Ian McKellen, Peter Firth, looking about twelve but actually nineteen, and yes, that is Isobel Crawley! It took me about fifteen minutes to confirm it was indeed Penelope Wilton in her second ever television appearance. I mention it to save you the fifteen minutes of confusion that I grappled with. But once you get past these revelations and the discordantly cheery theme music you come to the realization that this series is nothing but unrelenting pain and misery. The second episode almost did me in. I never give up on shows and "The Mill" made me want to throw in the towel. Every single episode just grinds you down with despair. Rape, unwanted pregnancies, prison, disfigurement, stillbirth, lies, affairs, suicide, unhappy marriages, on and on and on, grinding you down more and more. Many people complain that this DVD release contains only eight of the thirteen episodes produced, famously omitting episodes staring Upstairs, Downstairs favorites Pauline Collins and Meg Wynn Owen, as well as a second Peter Firth episode, but most importantly episodes starring Jeremy Brett and Michael Kitchen. All I can say is that if they are anywhere near as depressing as the eight episodes I slogged through we are all better off without them in our lives. Because I can tell you now, there is no way in hell I could have made it through five more episodes, I barely made it through these. Going back to the worst of the lot, "The Mill," it's about a poor girl no longer wanted under her parents feet so she's sent off into service where she dutifully attends to her bedridden mistress while being raped every night by her mistress's husband. She of course gets pregnant and is run off home. Why would ANYONE want to watch this? Episode after episode shows the perils of pregnancy for unwed women, but this was wantonly cruel. All these episodes are adapted from the works of A.E. Coppard and H.E. Bates, and after Bates's "The Mill" I came to dread his episodes, despite the fact he wrote the delightful The Darling Buds of May. Which makes it extra ironic that the ONLY story that could be said to have a semblance of a HEA was his "The Ring of Truth." So if you REALLY feel like after this last year you could do with a big old helping of despair, might I suggest Country Matters for your viewing masochism?

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Labels: A.E. Coppard, Country Matters, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, H.E. Bates, Ian McKellen, Jeremy Brett, Michael Kitchen, Pauline Collins, Penelope Wilton, Peter Firth, Rape, The Darling Buds of May, Upstairs Downstairs

You literally CAN NOT think or talk about Masterpiece Theatre without thinking or talking about Upstairs, Downstairs. They are inseparable. One can not mention Jean Marsh without thinking of Rose Buck. Or Gordon Jackson without actually believing that he might be Hudson, foibles, xenophobia, and all. Each season focused on the trials and tribulations of the Bellamy household and how they handled different crisis, from Elizabeth's imprudent marriage, to Lady Marjorie dying on the Titanic, to James's imprudent marriage, to World War I, to the roaring twenties and the bright young things, to that tragic ending! Oh James, how could you? The family had often faced financial ruin, but somehow there always was a way. There could have been a way if you had but tried! But I can see that the showrunners wanted to end on a dramatic note. What's interesting about the forth series is that we have perhaps the most sustained theme over any of the other series, that being World War I. Of course Upstairs, Downstairs handles even this most used of historical periods in their own unique way. This uniqueness is that we see how the war effects everyone at 165 Eaton Place. So yes, we get the tropes of the son being almost mortally wounded and nursed back to health by the woman he truly loves, who happens to not be his wife. As for the wife, she falls for someone else yet somehow they keep up the pretense of their marriage despite neither being happy. Yet what I'm drawn to is how the staff took part in the war. You rarely get to see how the everyday folk pitched in, other than knitting socks and balaclavas! Hudson becomes a Special Constable and helps police the streets because he is unable to serve, Rose works on an omnibus, Edward joins the Army, Ruby works in a munitions factory, everyone finds a way to help the war effort while also carrying out their regular duties, well, aside from Mrs. Bridges who just seems to be angry about the lack of produce and wants to hoard everything she can. Which seems very relevant today, as did the handling of the tricky topic of disinformation in the press with regards to the war. Upstairs, Downstairs was praised at the time for making history timely and relevant. And with season four ending with Hazel dying from the 1918 influenza pandemic, it's even more relevant today.

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Labels: 165 Eaton Place, Bellamy, Bright Young Things, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Hazel, Hudson, Knitting, Lady Marjorie, Marriage, Matserpiece Theatre, Mrs. Bridges, Pandemic, Rose Buck, Titanic, Upstairs Downstairs, WWI

So Nicola Pagett is a woman unhappy in her marriage and pregnant by a man other than her husband. And no, this isn't season two of Upstairs, Downstairs, this is Anna Karenina. Though you could be forgiven for mistaking one for the other if you took out the fact that I like Karenin far more than I ever liked Lawrence Kirbridge. Moving on, I should put in a train reference here but I'm just not that witty today... Anna Karenina is a classic that I have been meaning to read for forever, have not gotten around to, knew it ended with Anna's death under a train, and eventually just decided to watch the miniseries. Because if there's one thing you can be certain of, this is the definitive adaptation. Yes, there have been many movies, yes, there have been quite a few other television adaptations, but are any of them ten episodes long and bother to included the somnambulist psychic Landau? No they do not! And I'm sorry, but Landau became my favorite character with only a single scene. He's basically Rasputin if he was played by Seth Green. Seriously, one scene just wasn't enough! What I loved about this series is that it makes you believe at all times that it is a true epic, but with a very human element, which is what the best epics are. There's love and betrayal and wonderful snarky society snubs that surely had to inspire Edith Wharton when she sat down to write The Age of Innocence. There's all this great grandness, even the palace from Netflix's recent adaptation of Shadow and Bone gets a look in, but at the end it's about Anna. And my feelings about Anna are complicated. I get the whole, she is trapped by the strictures of society of how a woman should behave and therefore her only option is suicide. But on the other hand, time and time again she is given options, she is given other ways she could live, and she chooses that which will make everyone as miserable as her. She makes people suffer for loving her. She has a slightly justified persecution complex, but one wonders, as she herself does, even if she hadn't found Vronsky was it all just inevitable? Was her life destined for entropy? All I know is that unlike some of the series I've watched for the first time for Fifty Years a Masterpiece, this is one I want to watch again. I want to live in the epic sweep of Russia. I want to admire the sets and the costumes again. I want to watch the tragedy play out. I also want to take joy in that small bit of happiness that Levin, AKA Russian Jim Henson, ekes out for himself.

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Labels: Anna Karenina, Edith Wharton, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Jim Henson, Landau, Nicola Pagett, Psychic, Rasputin, Seth Green, Shadow and Bone, Suicide, The Age of Innocence, Trains, Upstairs Downstairs, Vronsky

When the first proposed spin-off from Upstairs, Downstairs set in a boarding house run by Hudson and Mrs. Bridges, now Mrs. Hudson, had to be scrapped due to Angela Baddeley's death, John Hawksworth was apparently so stuck on the idea of doing a period show set in a residential hotel that we got The Duchess of Duke Street. Considered by most to be the natural successor to Upstairs, Downstairs, and I will fight anyone who tries to say, "what about Thomas and Sarah?" Because that show was a piece of shit and you know it! Based on the life of the Duchess of Jermyn Street, Rosa Lewis, who rose from humble cook to hotel owner, The Duchess of Duke Street, while having a certain Upstairs, Downstairs vibe with the patrons and servants of the Bentinck Hotel has in my mind more humble heart than it's predecessor. Here everyone is a little mad, a little off kilter, a little rough around the edges, and that endeared me to each and every character. The elderly Merriman, who came with the property and is a house-elf in human form, the doorman Starr and his faithful pooch Fred, Mary, The Major, who while technically a guest is also technically staff, and Charlie, the young buck who was turned down only to become the money man and love interest of our erstwhile owner, Louisa Trotter! Louisa is rough and gruff and she knows what she wants and doesn't let anyone stand in her way, let alone an annoying husband. But while every episode is a wonderful little vignette of Louisa fighting against convention and making a place in the world for herself and her family series two has one of my favorite episodes of any show ever, "Winter Lament." By this point Charlie is married to the rather sweet but weak Margaret and is no longer living at the Bentinck. Instead he's taken up residence at the ancestral pile with his wife who is not well. He begs Louisa to come and help, but it's too late, Margaret is too far gone and this episode feels as if the Brontes came back to life to write a television show. It's just such a weird little bottle episode but it's perfect. In fact it's because of this that I ended up watching all of Dynasty because Christopher Cazenove who plays Charlie plays Ben on that eighties soap staple.

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Labels: Angela Baddeley, Brontes, Christopher Cazenove, Dynasty, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Hudson, Louisa Trotter, Mrs. Bridges, The Bentinck Hotel, The Duchess of Duke Street, Thomas and Sarah, Upstairs Downstairs

My parents made it a habit that for the holidays they'd give me box sets of their favorite Masterpiece Theatre shows so that when I wanted to watch something they'd get to watch something they wanted to as well. One Christmas I got a gift "From Your Irish Friends." After me trying to guess what the present was and failing, it turned out to be season one of The Irish R.M. staring Peter Bowles. I feel bad that it's taken me about twenty years to finally get to this show, but it really needs to be taken into account how many shows are out there and how many shows Masterpiece Theatre did that I'm trying to catch up on. That is a hella big backlog people! On the scene we have a lot of my favorite actors, or I should say, Peter Bowles, but behind the scenes we have the whole crew from Upstairs, Downstairs, a classic if there ever was one! So I knew the show had rightly gained it's status as a classic in it's own right. Yet it did take me awhile to get into. The show deals with the clash of the very British Resident Magistrate with his very Irish neighbors who come before him in court and seek to manipulate him outside of it. My problem was that I felt the show's humor was at the expense of the Irish, and that made me feel a bit dirty. The Irish have always been the oppressed in any relationship with the British and the way jokes were set up to have the Irish use their humor and wiles to try to outwit their enemy felt too much like it was written by British writers to make fun of and further demean the Irish. Eventually they found the right balance where everyone was the butt of the joke, British and Irish alike, and with this the show found it's footing. It could also be that as time went on I started to love the characters and saw them less as the initial stereotypes they were set out to be and more as the individuals they were. But this has to do with the actors more than the writing in my opinion. In the end the show is a marvelous amalgam of All Creatures Great and Small and Father Ted. I defy anyone to argue that the R.M.'s housekeeper Mrs. Cadogan (which she insists is pronounced Mrs. Cadergorn) isn't the inspiration for Mrs. Doyle on Father Ted. They both so enjoy their misery.

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Labels: All Creatures Great and Small, British, Father Ted, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Irish, Masterpiece Theartre, Mrs. Cadogan, Mrs. Doyle, Peter Bowles, Resident Magistrate, The Irish R.M., Upstairs Downstairs

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are gateway drugs to the best of British comedy. For me it all started with Peter's Friends, which is technically not a comedy, but Fry and Laurie also go beyond the bounds of the comedic label, so I think that's a good starting off point. From there I found The Young Ones, Filthy Rich and Catflap, Blackadder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and, of course, Jeeves and Wooster. To this day they are to me everything that is great and good about British acting and television. I will listen to or watch anything that they are in, but it's when they are working together that they reach new heights. Jeeves and Wooster was actually made concurrently with A Bit of Fry and Laurie and I think that them working together at all times made the relationship between Bertie and Jeeves that much more real. What's more, their personalities kind of fit their characters so much so that at times I might wonder if Stephen Fry is wandering around Hugh Laurie's house tidying it up and putting things to rights. Stephen Fry's fussy side comes out while Hugh Laurie's goofy side with a large dollop of musicality come to the fore. Jeeves and Wooster is pure fun comfort viewing, it has the beautiful country houses, troubles that aren't too troubling, and there's the fact that you'll see all your favorite British actors playing minor rolls which were constantly being recast, usually to delightful results. I mean four different actresses playing Aunt Dahlia kind of lends itself to the idea that Bertie has a never-ending stream of interfering aunts. But series two was when the show found it's stride. Series one they rouged Laurie's checks so much he looked like a comical vaudeville drunk. But in series two Simon Langton took over as director! Not only did he direct the seminal Pride and Prejudice adaptation, the one with Colin Firth, but episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street, Love for Lydia, Rebecca with Jeremy Brett, Poirot, Rosemary and Thyme, Foyle's War, and Midsomer Murders! Plus series two happens to have my most watched episode of Jeeves and Wooster. How is it I've seen "Chuffy" what seems like a million times? Perhaps because it's the episode where Jeeves quits... Heaven forfend! Don't worry, it all works out! It always does in the England that never was of P.G. Wodehouse.

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Labels: A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder, Colin Firth, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Hugh Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, P.G. Wodehouse, Peter's Friends, Pride and Prejudice, Simon Langton, Stephen Fry, Upstairs Downstairs

The old saying is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and that is exactly what Julian Fellowes did with Downton Abbey. He took the classic premise of Upstairs, Downstairs and basically remade it to laudatory reviews. Yes, there are changes here and there, but seeing as I just did a rewatch of Upstairs, Downstairs, literally starting it about thirty days after seeing the Downton Abbey movie, I could see how eerily similar they are. Fortunes changed because of the sinking of the Titanic, check, daughters up to no good, check, rape, check, conception issues, check, closeted gay staff, check, concern over a royal visit, check, integration of families, check, bright young things, check, the list goes on and on and on, all just slight variations on a theme. And I really think that's why Downton Abbey became such a worldwide phenomenon. It tapped into the nostalgia that everyone felt not just for bygone days but also for Upstairs, Downstairs. The irony being that Downton Abbey's success scuppered the Upstairs, Downstairs reboot. But how could 165 Eaton Place compete with a house the likes of Highclere Castle? And the truth is, I fell right in love with this show like everyone else. I didn't care that I'd seen it all before, the truth is no one can deliver a line like Maggie Smith and that alone made this show perfection. I remember watching the premiere up in my library all by myself and about half way through I realized that everyone in my family wouldn't just want to watch the show, they would love it. So I literally dragged everyone who was still awake into the TV room and put the show on. I knew I had everyone hooked, especially my dad, when Robert runs out onto the drive to stop Bates from leaving and my dad was sobbing. Yes Julian Fellowes, you hooked us with one episode and thankfully after all that twisting on the hook you gave us not just one happily ever after, but you came back and did a movie which at the time I felt unnecessary, but once I saw it I knew how much I needed the Crawleys in my life. 

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Labels: 165 Eaton Place, Bates, Crawleys, Downton Abbey, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Highclere Castle, Julian Fellowes, Maggie Smith, Reboot, Remake, Robert Crawley, Titanic, Upstairs Downstairs

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!  

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Labels: 165 Eaton Place, Affair, Claire Foy, Downton Abbey, Eileen Atkins, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Jean Marsh, Kelley Hawes, Lady Agnes, Lady Persie, Rose Buck, The Bellamys, Upstairs Downstairs, WWII

Two series about the advent of department stories debuted within six months of each other and if I had to pick one I would not have picked Mr Selfridge, Jeremy Piven and Andrew Davies must accept my apologizes, because I would have picked The Paradise. Created by the team behind Lark Rise to Candleford with many of the same actors, this was another loose adaptation of a classic that captured my heart and swiftly became one of my most favorite series ever. There was just such heart and romance and, unlike Mr Selfridge, there was more than a little of the Upstairs, Downstairs dynamic. Here we really got stuck into the lives of those working at The Paradise as well as those running and funding the roadshow. We saw the haves versus the have nots and how a major department store economically impacted it's small business competitors, a concern that is even more relevant today. When Denise Lovett arrives on the scene she becomes the focal point of all that is happening. She straddles both worlds, he uncle having a business that is struggling because of The Paradise, while she herself takes a job at The Paradise, and is soon seen by the owner, John Moray, as a girl after his own heart. She's smart and a self-starter and soon steals his heart. Of course there's a love triangle and many complications. This wouldn't be a show worthy of Masterpiece if there wasn't. But what I really liked most about this series is it wasn't afraid to go dark. As in, there's a murder! Arthur Darvill of Doctor Who fame gets involved in The Paradise when his storefront is bought by the expanding store. His style doesn't mesh well with the glamour Moray sells and, well, one thing leads to another, and his body is found in the river. The culprit is of course revealed, which goes into the ties that bind us as a community and as a company and as a people together. Just writing this makes me sad all over again that such a lovely show was cancelled too soon. But I'd rather have it cancelled too soon than have it overstay it's welcome, which is sadly what happened to Lark Rise to Candleford.

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Labels: Andrew Davies, Arthur Darvill, Denise Lovett, Department Store, Doctor Who, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Jeremy Piven, John Moray, Lark Rise to Candleford, Mr Selfridge, Murder, The Paradise, Upstairs Downstairs

January tenth of this year marked the fiftieth anniversary of Masterpiece, no longer Theatre, but still Theatre in my heart. If you watched the "special" hosted by Alan Cumming you were probably just as baffled as I was that it was nothing more than an infomercial for their most recent seasons without touching on the glorious history and the wonderful shows they have aired over the past fifty years. Let's just do a really fast montage of the hosts to prove that it wasn't the biggest mistake of our lives firing Russell Baker, OK? Sigh. In fact the very touching tribute to Diana Rigg at the end of the second episode of All Creatures Great and Small this season was longer than the tribute to past hosts in a special about the show's history! My quibbles aside, Masterpiece didn't just change television, it changed me. It informed everything about me growing up. It was a touchstone, there every Sunday night, where I could get respite from the world and escape into a show before the onslaught of Monday morning. The theme music was used as the processional music for my eighth grade graduation. I have spent more hours than you can count going through shelves at used bookstores to find the old tie-in editions with the beautiful poster art that Mobil produced for each show. I learned about new shows wandering bookstores and seeing the newly released tie-ins for the upcoming season. I have found more favorite authors than I can count because of this show!  

My mind was expanded by the informed introductions and the wonderful presentations that made me want to go out and learn more. To read, to absorb, to understand, and thus did I become an Anglophile... And this might have always been my destiny, because despite never coming clean I still think there's a good chance my parents named me after the Bellamy's daughter Elizabeth on Upstairs, Downstairs, that's how deep my connection to this show is. I was born to it! Which is why I can not, no I will not let this opportunity to celebrate Masterpiece pass! I am dedicating the next few months of my blog to Masterpiece, and seeing as I've basically dedicated a lot of my life to it this isn't that big a change or surprise. But there's some gaps in my viewing, you know from before I was born or shows I couldn't find and my library didn't have when I first went looking. So I'm going to take a little peak at each season of Masterpiece, including the current fifty-first season! There are several shows that were revolutionary and way before their time. And then there are other shows that are like coming home. And very famous shows that just took old stories and made them new again. I hope you'll join me in this trip down memory lane. Feel free to share your memories of your favorite shows, you can be sure I won't hold back on mine!

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Labels: Alan Cumming, All Creatures Great and Small, Anglophile, Bellamy, Diana Rigg, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Masterpiece, Masterpiece No Longer Theatre, Masterpiece Theatre, Mobil, Russell Baker, Upstairs Downstairs

Ah Belgravia, Julian Fellowes's followup to Downton Abbey. So it's a neighborhood and not a house, that didn't make me any less interested. In fact, because of being exposed to Upstairs Downstairs at a young age I think setting the series in the newly built neighborhood of Belgravia made me even more excited to watch it, for years it was my dream address after all. What really struck me about this series is it was what Fellowes is known for but on a condensed scale. Six episodes for all the ups and downs, all the betrayals and misunderstandings. Only six episodes to make you fall for characters you were indifferent to in the first episode and make you pity those you despised at the start when the end credits rolled. And he did it all! All the beats, all the ups and downs, this is Regency and Early Victorian Downton Abbey! I think what really made it work was perfect casting. Philip Glenister, Tamsin Greig, Saskia Reeves, Bronagh Gallagher, Harriet Walter, Tom Wilkinson, James Fleet, Tara Fitzgerald, and Nicholas Rowe! What a cast! But there were two standouts, Tamsin Greig as Anne Trenchard and Alice Eve as Anne's daughter-in-law Susan. Alice Eve surprised me because I really have never thought she could act until now. Tamsin Greig surprised me because I know her as a comedic actress and here she brought the drama! As a mother who lost her daughter and gave up her daughter's child to be raised by someone else, her pain is palpable. Then when she decides to bare her soul to that child's other grandparent, Harriet Walter as Caroline Bellasis, Countess of Brockenhurst, because she knows the pain of losing a child, well, so many tears. But there was also so much humor arising out of gamesmanship and one-upping in social circles. Seriously, this series has it all, heart and humor. I think it got overshadowed by Fellowes's previous fame and the chaotic state of the world, but if you need a good period drama that will make you feel all warm and cozy inside, look no further than Belgravia.

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Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Belgravia, Downton Abbey, Harriet Walter, James Fleet, Julian Fellowes, Miniseries, Nicholas Rowe, Philip Glenister, Regency, Tamsin Greig, Tara Fitzgerald, Upstairs Downstairs, Victorian

There's nothing nicer than a pleasant surprise and that's exactly what Stargirl turned out to be. Ever since the end of Smallville I haven't been a fan of the direction all the DC series have taken on the CW. I swear I tried to like them, but after I think only three episodes of Arrow I was done. That was it with me and DC. I declared myself a Marvel girl and moved on. That is until this most recent "Crisis on Infinite Earths." Yes, they lured me back in with bringing back Tom Welling! Damn you CW! But add to that Brandon Routh returning as Superman, Wil Wheaton as a doomsday protestor, Russell Tovey, Kevin Conroy as the bleakest Batman you could imagine, Ezra Miller, and Lucifer Morningstar himself, Tom Ellis, and I couldn't NOT watch! While the cameos were fantastic, the episodes were lackluster, reinforcing my opinion of the DC universe on the CW. Yet the Crisis Aftermath show hosted by Kevin Smith dissecting the episodes and seriously geeking out were wonderful. It was during this that I first heard of Stargirl. Geoff Johns, the creator of Stargirl, was on discussing his work on everything DC from Smallville to Doom Patrol. I was interested because he talked about how he turned a personal tragedy, the death of his sister Courtney on TWA Flight 800, into creating a new brand of superhero with Courtney Whitmore, AKA Stargirl. Now this could be something I could get into I said to myself. He might have also mentioned Luke Wilson... I'm hazy on that part. Mmm, Luke Wilson. Anyway when the show came around my DVR was ready and yet it took me a few weeks to finally bite the bullet. What if the CW let me down, again? Then oddly my rewatching of Upstairs, Downstairs forced my hand, how could I resist the chauffeur becoming the villain? I was delightfully surprised. This show reminds me of Smallville at it's best. It's earnest without being cloying. It's dark without being bleak. It's a light in the darkness that we're all facing right now. Even if I'm a little shaken that I'm now the age of the parents on this type of show, Stargirl is a show I'm very glad will be coming back to the small screen with a second season and MORE Joel McHale! Joel's the original Starman, FYI.        

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Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Courtney Whitmore, CW, DC, Geoff Johns, Joel McHale, Kevin Conroy, Kevin Smith, Luke Wilson, Marvel, Russell Tovey, Smallville, Stargirl, Tom Ellis, Tom Welling, Upstairs Downstairs, Wil Wheaton