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Another Perspective
Upstairs/Downton Revisited
Something to get you through next Sunday night.
(Page 3 of 3)
Margaret (hesitantly): Well, then, it’s probably time I told you all. I am pregnant.
Lord Brideshead: I suspected as much. I’m not a bit surprised. You’ll be disinherited, of course, and banished from the house at once. Please get your things and go!
Julia: Ooh, goody! Then I shall inherit Margaret’s share of the family fortune.
Lord Brideshead: I’m afraid there is no more fortune. I was at my club yesterday and learned from our solicitor, Sir Humphrey, that our estate is bankrupt.
Julia: But I was counting on marrying the Earl of Marmalade. I do so adore Earls!
Lady Brideshead: He’s two notches beneath our social class, my child. If you marry him, the Brideshead name shall be tarnished forever and the scandal would ruin us.
Lord Brideshead: I fear we’re ruined already, my dear.
Margaret: It serves you both right. You’re all an insufferable lot of snobs!
Lord Brideshead: I had better tell Manfred that there will only be three for lunch now that Margaret has been banished from the Brideshead manor.
Margaret: You mean I can’t even stay for lunch and bid farewell to the downstairs staff that raised me from an infant? (stamps her foot) How frightfully beastly!
Lord Brideshead: I’m afraid not, my dear. You must leave at once, and you too Julia.
Julia (weeping): Maybe I acted too hastily, papa. I’ll renounce the Earl of Marmalade and cancel my engagement if only I can stay for lunch.
Lady Brideshead: Very well, child. Do as you please. This is all so tiresome.
Margaret: After thinking it over, I’ve decided that I won’t have the baby, after all, but I will have lunch. I’m dreadfully sorry to have caused such confusion.
Lord Brideshead: So that will now be two or three for lunch? Oh, dear, I fear Mrs. Ramekin will be beside herself. This means she will have to reset the table.
Lady Brideshead: I’m really quite exhausted by all of these changes of plans before lunch. Kindly make up your mind, girls. The future of the Brideshead name may depend upon it! (theme music swells and scene fades).
(Laura Linney: Next week on Upstairs/Downton Revisited: Lord Brideshead: “Good God, Manfred — my cufflinks are nowhere to be found and the king is due here for dinner in 15 minutes!”…”I’ve looked everywhere, m’lord. I fear they’ve gone missing!”)
About the Author
Gerald Nachman is a writer in San Francisco and most recently the author of Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan’s America (University of California Press).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Gerald Nachman
More Articles From Another Perspective
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.9.12 @ 6:21AM
I've always wondered why shows like this make me want to puke.
Betina| 3.9.12 @ 7:48AM
Because you feel uncomfortable in the presence of your betters?
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.9.12 @ 8:03AM
The liberal is strong within you.
Claude| 3.9.12 @ 8:09AM
Not funny. To my utter surprise, I enjoyed Downton, and it is because the characters (even the rich ones) were NOT stereotypes but fully convincing human beings with both strengths and weaknesses. That is what makes good literature, not facile snarkiness.
Fred C. Dobbs| 3.9.12 @ 12:41PM
Personally, I LIKE a bit of snarkiness in the morning; it smells like napalm.
dudette| 3.11.12 @ 8:20PM
I LOVE Downton--that period was elegant and beautiful--God knows I appreciate that in these times.
THKrupp| 3.9.12 @ 9:07AM
Downton Abbey is one of my favorite shows. Its very well written and the characters are fully developed. The plots are much deeper than what the article writer has shown here.
LarryK| 3.9.12 @ 9:23AM
Don't leave your day job.
Petronius| 3.9.12 @ 10:23AM
Too much of what never would have happened and attempting to reconcile the reality of the period with contemporary idealism made this series a down market cheesy version of The Pallisers going Dutch. The success of Downton can more be attributed to a thirst for anything which would reflect our better nature in this age of assault on everything once considered decent and laudable.
Television and me grew together in some respects and apart in the now. As a child I saw The Voice of Firestone, not American Idol with all the howling, screeching, and moaning which people believe to be singing. And we had Arthur Murray's Dance Party not Dancing with the Stars. As the 50's waned, so did taste and content. When Lucy became entrenched and the add men made the medium what it is, the good stuff got shown the door. No more Playhouse 90. No more Bell Telephone Hour or Live from Studio 8H. NBC and CBS folded their orchestras with the passing of Toscanini and Bruno Walter. Most of today's audience has never seen that show or will get a chance because it was live broadcast and there was no tape. This rather begs the question. Is Downton so ersatz because the producers think people would view it as dry and stuffy if the scripts were as authentic to the age as the surroundings? I think it's because too many PBS viewers have been taught to despise our history and take it as a thing to be lived down with all its "injustice". We were given what they believe we wanted to see along with the bittersweet to even out the happy endings. And a show like this could not be made here today. Those who might be considered aristocrats are and will remain an unknown few. Most Americans abhor Class. They want to belong to the herd. Cheer up you plebes. Lucy is in reruns on MeTV.
USSAlabama| 3.9.12 @ 5:28PM
Petronius, whom were given? The Brits are all in love with this and they got it before Masterpiece.
You are right that such could not be made here in America today.
Could you imagine a film crew at Mt. Vernon making a series on the life of George Washington!?
Masterpiece wouldn't show it.
dudette| 3.11.12 @ 8:22PM
good comments i agree -- however--Downton with its setting so different from ours is an escape, and that's entertainment!
Paul from SA| 3.9.12 @ 10:46AM
I got so sick of watching politics and sports that for the first time in my life, I watched Masterpiece Theater 3 weeks ago. Yes, it was Downton Abbey, the aristocrats and the staff, all treated equally, all interesting characters.
It was the episode where the flu killed a bunch of people. I was hooked. I set my DVR to record the series. Then I watched the Christmas episide only to discover the season is over.
USSAlabama| 3.9.12 @ 5:23PM
Paul, go back and watch from the first season! You'll love it.
Tell me if Mrs.Patmore is not one of your most favorite characters.
fmm| 3.9.12 @ 11:12AM
sounds like morning at the White House
KyMouse| 3.9.12 @ 12:12PM
I enjoyed watching Julian Fellowes in "Monarch of the Glen," a series that took place in Scotland, long before I knew that he was a screenwriter as well. Good stuff.
However, I wonder why he had two of his Downton Abbey characters talk briefly (one line apiece) about sucking up to one's grandmother. That sounds very anachronistic to me -- common in our vulgar age, but not back then, I believe.
Finzi Holst| 3.9.12 @ 1:03PM
Perhaps you will permit me to recommend some writers with whom you may not be familiar: Dickens, Thackery, Trollope, Austen, etc. Or if you are, you have not paid attention: loads of sucking up to all sorts for inheritance, favor, that type of thing.
Finzi Holst| 3.9.12 @ 12:53PM
Mr. nachman-
Not to be a snob, but it is Lord and Lady Marchmain, not Brideshead.
He is Alexander Flyte, Marquess of Marchmain. And his wife is Teresa Flyte, Marchioness of Marchmain.
Brideshead is the elder son of Lord and Lady Marchmain who (as the Marquess's heir) holds the courtesy title "Earl of Brideshead."
You obviously aren't really familiar with the work.
THKrupp| 3.9.12 @ 2:05PM
I think that what makes Downton so popular is that it is a idealistic view of what life was like 100 years ago.
There is an obvious social contract between the haves and the have nots. There are strict rules that while confining, would have made life someone easier to figure out. A person had his or her place in society with the responsibilities and benefits that went along with that place. We will probably never know if this series is completely accurate. How people behaved becomes distorted by even a few years worth of time.
To many people Im sure it holds some attraction when compared to modern society where there are no clear rules for anything. That doesnt mean that people want to go back to that. Its just a nice diversion from our current issues.
Dipesto| 3.9.12 @ 5:18PM
An interesting episode of one of these series would be to have King George V and Queen Mary, and possibly their troubled children, come to dine with the family. King George could behave like a bore all through dinner, and Queen Mary could all but demand that the family give her all their furniture, and she might leave with the silverware.
Dipesto| 3.10.12 @ 1:27AM
:bore" should be "boor."
DavidG| 3.10.12 @ 11:40AM
I enjoyed this bit of spoof. It's too bad some of the 'reviewers' take it and themselves too seriously.
Now write a similar version of "Doc Martin" for us who have Saturday night withdrawal symptoms for that show.
Finzi Holst| 3.10.12 @ 12:04PM
You seem to be the one devoid of any humour. And if you want to watch Doc Martin, buy the DVDs (you can get Series 5 from the UK) or watch the episodes online for free or a nominal fee or get them from a DVD rental shop or your library. Wow, I hope you don't approach all things so myopically.
albert constantine jr.| 3.10.12 @ 2:33PM
Is Doc Martin the one who makes the boots the skinheads used to favor?
Dipesto| 3.10.12 @ 10:21PM
Someone creating one of these Edwardian-GeorgeandMaryian series might sometime tackle the angle stated by Virginia Woolfe that in December of 1910 'human nature changed." Social historians have been trying for close to a century to discover if that really happened and what VW meant by her statement. Did Lord and Lady Somebody and all their servants wake up one morning in Dec. '10 and start behaving the opposite of how they did the night before?
ds80| 3.11.12 @ 9:12AM
There's a mistake in the article ... it says "Gerald Nachman is a writer".
Gr0w1er601| 3.11.12 @ 9:19AM
This show is akin to watching a train wreck: even though it's set during horrific times you just can't look away (or change the channel)!
Bill| 3.12.12 @ 9:23AM
Surely that's not Bill Murray in the photograph...
bsg| 3.15.12 @ 1:12PM
This series is used as a tutorial by Michelle O. so she'll know how to treat the unwashed masses when she has to mingle with them.