DianeDobbler

I think "My name is." and "where are/is" etc. come first, along with many many others.

absnow, exactly, if you're looking at Marnie/Ray conceptually, sure. If you watch them on screen, there is beyond a disconnect. They do not click even as actors; their scenes do NOT work at all. In the interview I saw where Alex Karpovsky (looked it up) briefly brought up Marnie/Ray and Shoshanna/Ray, Jenni Konner (the other showrunner) was there with Allison Williams. After Jenni Konner was like "You didn't buy it?" to Karpovsky, Allison Williams said, well, it's because we were betraying Shosh. There was zero even lip service connection between Williams and Karpovsky even on that, even in an "inside the show" video clip. Now, whenever I see Karpovsky and Zosia Mamet in a group interview I don't see things particularly clicking either, but it's not as bad as what I saw with Karpovsky/Williams, and Karpovsky/Mamet effortlessly click as their characters. I could see Ray/Marnie played for comedy, that somehow she represented the girl he couldn't get in high school, and he had to figure that out and get past it, because there's no there, there with her. However, instead, they moved onto from there to him seeing all kinds of depth, complexity, nuance in her, but IT AINT ON SCREEN. It's painful. I think Dunham has been more astute, generally, than I've anticipated, but here I think she is way too predetermined.

I care about Ray too, which is why I hate Lena Dunham for the Ray/Marnie thing. I saw a Lena commentary on this episode; she says Allison Williams is a kick-ass actress and deserved a capsule episode. I just see it as hierarchy. Allison is Lena's idea of the serious central character, Ray is the best actor (forgot the actor's actual name), so the hierarchy mandates they hook up. They have anti-chemistry. Not that chemistry is so important, but when it exists elsewhere for a character and they go against it because of what I consider a hierarchal vision by the writer, I get irritated. Anyway, probably some of that rant is misplaced because I'd never have expected Adam/Jessa to be put together as earnestly as Lena Dunham has been doing it, and they have much better chemistry than Hannah/Adam. For a long time Soshanna/Ray were the only "couple" with chemistry, but at least now there's Adam/Jessa. And, as bad as Allison Williams is as an actress, she and the actor playing Charlie do have chemistry. She walks, moves and breathes differently with him; she's very unselfconcious with that actor. Ray and Marnie though - I do not buy it for a single second. I saw an interview where the actor playing Ray said he bought Soshanna/Ray when it happened but Ray/Marnie he didn't. The other showrunner said "You didn't buy it." and he said he found a place where he finally could. I still don't think he does. It's a "rationalize it on paper" but it doesn't play. Something that seems a little forced to me as well is both Jessa and Marnie have had short-lived, ill-advised marriages to guys who, although on opposite sides of the cultural divide, were ridiculous in very similar ways. Used in similar ways in the story. Not even that dissimilar as physical types. Hecate, I must say my experience with men couldn't be more different than yours. MMV but I don't think that's how it usually plays. It may play like that sometimes. It happens. The standard playbook? No.

I don't care if an actor shows variety. I don't think that's a test of an actor. I think believability is, and emotional range, when called upon, not range of characterization. I can never read about the nobility, artistocracy, royalty and plain old rich of the Downton era without crashing up against this widower marrying his deceased wife's sister. All the time. And vice versa. Even over in America Elizabeth Morrow Morgan's widower married Elizabeth's sister, Constance, after Elizabeth's death (the Morrow sisters were the older and younger sister of Anne Morrow Lindbergh) That generation of Morrow's was fairly contemporaneous with the Downton girls'. I think it must have become scandalous in the second half of the 20th century, because it's all over the place in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th.

So sorry to hear about Wayne Rogers! I looked up the obit and was actually shocked to read he was 82. I thought he'd be at least ten years younger, and, pushing it, mid-ish 70s. Not 82. Sorry about it. I think he was pretty successful outside of acting. Wow, Trapper John - 82! I disliked Henry and Mary too, didn't believe them, but became resigned after the episode prior to the xmas special. I agree with Andorra that the "type" of guy that worked with Mary was the utterly nice guy. Not the nice Mosley type guy, but the nice, smart, quick-witted guy, with warmth, insight, compassion, and strength of character. It's actually kudos to Fellowes that he wrote two of those - Dan Stevens' Matthew, and Allen Leech's Tom. It suggests that instead of deciding Mary's next love interest should be a male Mary (although he never followed through there and ended up writing a "dark, arch" sort of dude with Matthew's dialogue when Mary married Henry), he should have straight up cast/written a nice guy. If he was against having Tom be the obvious Mr. Right as Mary flitted among aristocrats, well fine. Maybe Fellowes couldn't get past Tom being Sybil's widower, although good lord, when I read up on the aristocracy, royalty, nobility in Europe and the upper society of the US, nothing is more common than someone's widow or widower marrying a sibling of the departed. But there could have been another nice guy introduced into the picture.

I am saying exactly the opposite about Thomas. Of course the old traditional butler situation is on its way out. But simply having butler experience (with a driver's license), meant that the butler role could evolve, and the person holding the job could evolve with it. Whereas a footman and a personal ladies maid were both out of luck.

I think people did have butlers. In fact, butlers were the one household staff position that lasted. It was the entire set-up that the butler was meant to supervise - footmen, housemaids, kitchen maids, personal maids, valets, under-butlers, cook, assistant cooks, cooking staff - that went down the drain. Roles were consolidated in the butler. I think Jeeves even did the occasional bit of vacuuming for Bertie Wooster in his flat in PJ Wodehouse's books. The Butler became a valet/personal assistant as well as a butler. A basic set-up for a reduced well-to do household was a butler, a housekeeper and a cook. Perhaps a gardner if there were gardens. There are butlers today. Butlers have married/had affairs with/been the heir of their mistresses's estates. People continued and some continue to have butlers. They discontinued having the maid that brushed one's hair and actually put on the accessories. That ritual with Mary and Anna became absolutely ludicrous and pathetic - particularly the hair brushing. Mary had a damn bob, not a long mass of hair. There were no more corsets. She could dress herself with no trouble. I think if Thomas Barrow had landed in a household where the husband and wife still had a pulse, where there were social visits in and among the neighborhood, where there was extended family and pets and maybe the husband and wife had LIVES, instead of living in what amounted to a tomb for the living, his new position might have suited him very well. A butler and a staff of two who have to put together maybe a twice monthly dinner party, make accomodations for visitors, arrange for improvements to the home, work for people who are actually living, wouldn't be falling comatose as Barrow was while attending his new employers. Anyway, look at the Dowager's home. She had a butler and a maid. I believe if she were not so advanced in years and still wearing some clothes she couldn't get into and out of herself, she'd have had a butler in Spratt, and Danker would have been a housekeeper/light cook, and essentially Spratt and Danker would have functioned in the role that became common much later - the "couple" hired to live in and handle the home front, sometimes combining responsibilities.

Lily James has a lot of charm, energy, is always committed in the scene even when she has no lines, and she's got a very unpretentious, accessible quality that's endearing. Even when Rose was in her "rebellious" phase. Not just you. My first reaction was, "hey, Mary's lines sound like they could easily be said TO Matthew" - and figured that was how Fellowes wrote "Married Mary". And right after I thought "And he's writing Henry like Matthew!" down to Henry's chummy conversation with Edith telling her that her Mary isn't his Mary. Daisy, I like the idea of Mary being the one with influenza, but then we wouldn't have had half a season of Matthew moping about Lavinia's grave until even his mother wanted to slap him silly. I always felt Matthew knew he loved Mary; was never in denial about it, but he also felt he could have no confidence in her fundamental love for him if she waited to see if her mother would have a boy or not before accepting Matthew. He got over that; I think a lot of that was Mary's behavior towards him (and towards Lavinia) while he was in a wheelchair, pledged to another woman, and adamantly romantically unavailable to Mary. She still loved him in a disinterested way, respected and understood him. THAT worked for me, and surprised me, how much she loved him for long stretches without pining or fantasizing - she simply loved him in his own right whether he was hers or not. If Mary had been the one with influenza, Matthew could have confessed his love and regrets to her at her presumed deathbed, Lavinia could have overheard and ended things, and there you are. Both scenarios - the one that happened and the one imagined, were pretty solid soap opera.

Does anybody know what prevented Michelle Dockery from co-starring with Elisabeth Moss in Queen of Earth? If it was scheduling, what was the conflict? Moss has received excellent reviews, but from the bits I've seen of it, I think it was a real loss not to have Dockery as the sister. I think they would have played off each other very well. Dockery may not have Moss's range, but she has a natural intelligence and real strength that is necessary vis a vis Moss. I saw a bit of Turn of the Screw with Dockery on youtube, and there was Danker playing some role as well. I haven't followed much of the Fellowes/Stevens brouhaha on the web, but from watching Downton I'd never have gotten the impression Matthew's name was verboten, or his memory resented. One of the smaller things I liked about Downton was how regularly the names of Sybil and Matthew would come up. That's natural, and it happens in real life. Not every episode, but where appropriate.

I think casting is very important, and the animus against Sarah Bunting was not because she wasn't Sybil. I also believe it's completely possible to cast four and even five potential love interests and have them all be wrong. It's happened plenty of times in plenty of projects. I, personally, don't believe Sarah was intended to be a real love interest, but more to get Tom back in the swim, but he never did. For good or bad, and for reasons that I've written about in other threads, I think Season 4 and the debacle of Mary's Three Suitors (even though they weren't REALLY three), and whatever plans Fellowes had to remarry her then, had the collateral effect of scuppering everybody else's romantic life.

I always felt that what happened with Brendan Coyle was the Bates thing went on SO long, Coyle was so absolutely correct about it being boring, and Bates was so freaking insufferable, that the audience would have revolted if there were another Bates storyline. I also think Fellowes has no imagination at all. The category in which he pegs an actor or character is the category in which that person stays. I thought Coyle was a whole lot better working with Anna how to get Barrow out of the fix he was in with O'Brian than he was with the murder mysteries and glowering vengeful husband schtick. You know, the guy who'd been around, knew how to say a word to the wise to Robert at the right time, almost a bit like Tom was inititally, in that his worldview was a bit more than that of someone in "service." He had more sophistication. Anyhow, I just assumed, maybe wrongly, that the audience would have stormed the studios if Fellowes kept nailing Bates to the cross, and Fellowes had no other stories in mind, cause that's Fellowes. I'll disagree. I didn't think Brown-Findley was anything special. She was very pretty in a contemporary way, and sounded very different from her sisters, but to me she was sort of a sex symbol type (to me, anyway) and perhaps more plausible as a downstairs sort than an upstairs sort. I could never work out who she was supposed to look like. I figured Mary took after her mother (the bone structure and the thin frame), and Edith took after the Crawley side (lighter hair, softer face). I definitely believe Lily James, as Rose, has it all over Brown-Findley as far as personality, charm, charisma, and communicating that this is a young woman who is truly sweet-tempered, energetic, passionate, kind-hearted and democratic at her core. It was disappointing to me that Rose was only this sidelight and then rushed off the show. I thought the Tom/Sybil romance was somewhat badly done, because it used that bit Fellowes has used with Mary, where the guy insists the girl loves him while the girl's doubts don't impress him at all. I remember thinking, are you SURE she's in love with you Tom? They didn't really bother using Allen Leech's humor and showing much of a playful side, or how they were together as people and personalities, versus a duo with shared beliefs. The only time I recall using Leech's humor and energy back then was when the house got a telephone and he was one of the few who could manage it.

I think a lot of the characters didn't get a lot to do. Robert was the head of the household, but did he get a lot to do? Cora had as much material as anyone, I guess. I originally watched the series out of order, and when I first saw Season 1, she had a lot more authority over Mary than did Robert. She could order Mary to get into that riding habit, and she let Mary know in no uncertain terms how she felt about the Pamuk episode. It also seemed to me they were thinking of making her sort of a younger counterpart of the Dutchess, more of an edge, more shallow, less compassionate, but that part pretty much fell away after early Season 1. She never had a huge story arc, but who got those, except Mary. She had her opportunities.

I don't think knowing the other actor or being good friends means chemistry. I've seen married duos fall flat on screen -presumably happily married people. Or people who had mad love affairs off camera be a dud on camera. There's lots that go into it. The combined energies, for one, of both the actors and the characters. There are times a couple of actors have fail-proof chemistry no matter what the material. Other times if the script sets up the dynamic a certain way, it takes off. If not, it won't. I've seen bits of Turn of the Screw and felt that while Stevens and Dockery were perfectly fine together and it wasn't intended to be a flaming romance, her energy in that was softer than in Downton, so it lacked the same ying and yang. I thought Dockery had hit the limit of her resources vis a vis the script at times during the past few post-Matthew series, particularly when I'd look back at her early work in the role. There's a great moment of her coming in from riding after getting an eyeful of Pamuk, and the excitement in such a normally composed young woman is a lot of fun. And times Matthew completely unbalanced her, which played wonderfully against the froideur and hauteur. Just little things, such as what should have been the unplayable "If you were the only boy in the world" sequence, when she is talking as she walks to the front about the "Crawley sisters" in her customary upper-upper drawl, and then when Matthew walks in, the expression on her face and how her hands are moving in excitement. I never ever believed her and Henry, not the "I love yous", not the encouragement. It was all very professional, rote. But she rebounded in the scene at Matthew's grave, which was very touching. I loved how she told him she would be happy for him if it were he - it was so sincere, and reminded that she REALLY loved him, hadn't just been IN love with him. That point had been made when he was in the wheelchair and engaged, and came back again in that graveside scene. There was also a great moment when she's with her grandmother and spills out that she didn't mean to wreck Edith's relationship, it's just that Edith was "SO..." and Dockery does this absolutely helpless gaping expression - it's not really an imitation of Edith, just a frustrated attempt to communicate how something about Edith just sets her off. Very well done. And going back to the day of Mary's wedding to Henry, when Edith walked in and said something like "I assumed you'd be a LITTLE sorry" - I thought it played very well between them, a sort of sister shorthand.

Agreed. As I recall, Matthew made a point of not giving up his job as solicitor. I've always been curious as to from whence Matthew's status as heir derived. His father, I presume, but Matthew arrived in Downton and neither he nor his mother, his father's widow, were titled. Isobel presumably has and had an income apart from what her son earned as a solicitor - enough to live very comfortably, and neither were inclined towards grandeur. I felt Mary had no romantic chemistry with Blake at all, and when he morphed into bff and started gabbing with her at fashion shows, they fell into a far more natural chemistry as an Her Ladyship and her vibrant best male friend sort of thing, and the actor came across as if he felt a gazillion times more relaxed. There was also something about him being SO freaking short that just didn't work. I feel weird about it because Allen Leech isn't a tall man, and there are a number of not tall men who've appeared on Downton, but I was so distracted by Blake's lack of height. I guess because a verging-on-burly, Spencer-Tracy type Irish dude isn't someone you'd expect to have a lot of height, but a guy with a basic leading man face who is under-served in the height department, absent tremendous talent or authority, just doesn't scan, for me, as the leading man. It's true though, that of all the men tried with Mary after Matthew died (save Tom), Blake at least mustered a few fans rooting in his favor. I'm not sure any of the others managed that much. P.S. - I never felt/suspected that anything personal between Dockery and Goode accounted for the chemistry lack. But I can imagine Goode joining Downton, encountering the cursory, to say the least, writing, and the strategems that dodged the lack of chemistry, and making a comment or two. I definitely don't believe that writing alone accounted for the instant Dan Stevens/Dockery chemistry. It was a perfect match of character/actor separately, and a perfect character pairing as far as sparks. I think among other things it was that he was emotional, smart, warm and funny, she was smart, easily affronted and quick, and they were both so perfectly cast to play such characters, that it was instant positive synestry. Also, as hideous as the writing was for Matthew in much of Seasons 2-3, the underlying scenario (particularly in Season 2) was strong enough to carry it, and there WAS writing, even if it was hideous. There's a difference between that and NO writing, which is what Goode got. I don't think Goode would have cut it even absent the writing, but were I, he, I would definitely be rolling my eyes at being brought on for Lady Mary, and having Allen Leech shoved in as a quasi-Cyrano in my stead, because Fellowes didn't have the time.

Matthew was meant to marry Sybil? I wonder if the look Sybil and Matthew exchanged that one time, with Mary noticing, had originally been placed to set up Mary scheming to keep the would-be lovebirds apart. To my mind, the absolute second Mary entered the room just as Matthew whinged that they'd be pushing one of the daughter's off on him was immediate chemistry. Maybe that's why the Sybil moment later on was just a way for Mary to recognize she didn't want anyone else to have him.

I can't believe that I cared for Daisy in the early series, hoped she'd get on in the world, find a beau, and by the end of the whole thing she worked my last nerve. It really seems almost silly that they left Mosley/Baxter only implied. They've had more of a sincere courtship, development than 90% of the wedded couples on Downton, and all they got was a promise that they wouldn't lose touch when Mosley moved into the cottage. Looked up the hierarchy of titles in the British nobility - Robert was right - Marquess is right there one down from a duke, in second place, quite thoroughly above an earl. It IS funny that Edith ends up with the very high rank and her own estate, and Mary has to wait on papa's death, which should make her as old as her father is now before her son inherits, rear her son to take his place in a set-up so anachronistic that by the time young George presides over Downton he'll be bargaining to sell it to a rock star or dot.com mogul, or giving tours and promoting it as an event venue. At least his stepfather and his uncle will be the notable founders of Talbot & Branson, the gilded automotive concern. Where are Rose and her husband living now?

I always get the feeling that Elizabeth McGovern thinks the tedium of Cora is the fault of the writers and not her own. But you can't have great stuff handed to you on a platter all the time. All of the other actors were given deadly stuff to do - thinking Allen Leech in particular. Some of Maggie Smith's supposed "witticisms" were dire - just churned out by some "Duchess bon mot" generator that was often set on "falls flat", but she delivered with energy and intent. Penelope Wilton as well. Hugh Bonneville. I can see a Downton movie where Robert is a widower. That could prompt some fun shenanigans.

I did think it was quite funny how the lack of chemistry between Dockery and Goode was finessed. She kisses him and the camera immediately swings away and out of the room. Their physical relationship appears to be mostly her leaning forward and putting a hand over his. I don't know if the actors don't connect or if it's simply there was no chemistry, Fellowes recognized it, and continued to finesse the issue even after he had them married. I think the reasons will probably come out, tactfully, a little bit down the road, in an interview or remarks from Goode. She had more passion with Matthew's headstone.

Me too. I thought Lily James exuded those qualities far more naturally and with more energy than I ever felt from Jessica Brown Finley, and she had more chemistry with everybody. So naturally, she never got a good romance and was hastily rushed off the show after several set pieces showing us her supposed "wild side."

Boy, Tom was totally left stuck in no man's land. If he's going to be partnered up with Mary's husband in business while managing the estate, he ought to have been hooked up with Rose, who, btw, made an absolutely lovely young matron and completely plausible settled-yet-charmingly joyous young mother. What a weird slot he's in. There was less to this than I expected. Mary's mending fences with Edith involved an unseen tip to Rosemund and Bertie that Edith would be at the Ritz. Then there was her insisting her baby news be kept low key lest it steal Edith's thunder (thankfully not too overstated, as let's be real, it would have been silly - nothing could have overshadowed that wedding). Bertie's mother was easily won over. And old Henry (how easily he can be called old Henry) has slotted into Matthew's spot as Tom's bff and also the odd stint as a confidente to Edith (agreed they had good chemistry - Laura Carmichael just has chemistry with most people). And I guess Mary made an ambiguous statement or two that she and Edith would in future be better sisters, as when she said some things are just for sisters (or secrets) it harked to Edith telling her. As to me, there has always been something sweet about Barrow, I was happy he ended up butler at Downton, if only because he'd be among his friends. I think that's what he actually missed, his below stairs community. I loved how the Dowager is quite aware that Danker has it in for Spratt. I'm curious though, what with Spratt being a hit at the paper, why he'd need to continue as butler. Amazing Edith ends up presiding over an estate that is larger and more ostentatiously grand than Downton, although it was SO grandiose, not to mention all that interior red and gold, it was nearly too much. Quite a nefarious plot Amelia had going, keeping Lord Merton from Isobel so that he wouldn't marry and dilute the estate before he died. .

There was a rash of interviews and articles dug up with and about people who'd been in service (or whose parents had) at the time of Downton Abbey and it sounds just godawful. Maybe not enough butlers were interviewed/wrote their tales, but nobody I recall had nostalgia for their time in service, and as soon as other economic models took over they couldn't wait to get out of there. Jimmy Breslin wrote a bit about it from the US perspective - kids who worked for the so-called U.S. aristocracy (similar to Cora's mom in America) and that sounds miserable too. Of course it was a wonderful model for the actual landed gentry.

Probably not, although he was in hospice. I assumed Allen and Michelle were good friends (along with Laura Carmichael) from being the same generation that stuck with the show so long, but if he introduced her to his good friend who became her significant other, that's even more of bond. She has always struck me as a lovely woman.

I've heard the "life is soapy" excuse from every show runner. It's disingenuous, because yes, things happen to people, but in real life, all the things don't happen to the same person or people. I remember Matthew Weiner saying that the story where Joan slept with the Jaguar guy to get a partnership happens in real life. Well yes, I believe women of that time (and men) and even now had sex with clients or for business reasons, or were expected to deliver in order to sure up job security or something. I DON'T believe it was really common for women in administration to sleep with a client and be awarded a partnership by her bosses in return. Anyway, Downton probably could have used with being more soapy. It's as if Fellowes used up all his soap in S2 what with Richard Carlisle, Lavinia, the war, the wheelchair, the Pamuk secret, Robert's financial disasters, Thomas having the screws put to him by O'Brien, not to mention Bates, and after that Fellowes was done and just kept the messy stuff off camera. My measure of character growth is to have the character recognize something in themselves. The series finale, where Fellowes tried a sort of familiar show runner sleight of hand - using an event that interests the audience (in this case Edith/Bertie, and Mary destroying Edith's chances for happiness) and then at the peak moment, switch focus to the thing that interests only HIM (in this case, Mary's supposed self-torture about Henry) - was ineptly done and very very forced, irritating, but I think we did see that recognition happen. Mary called herself out in front of Anna. She sent everyone away when Edith showed up, and treated Edith with respect. The first conversation of equals - maybe Edith being superior even - they've ever had. Edith IS superior at this stage - her life isn't completely derailed by romantic disappointment. So in any event, I think we were meant to see that Mary knew she was wrong, knew she had acted horribly, and instead of dismissing it, truly expected Edith to hate her forever, and deserve it. Of course all of that stuff was garbled up with the Henry nonsense.

They didn't think she'd ever marry, and predicted she'd be stuck nursing them when they were old. Then along comes Strallan, and they decide she can't marry him. It certainly wasn't because they'd changed their minds about her marriageability. That's exactly what was so rotten about it. It played as if they didn't even expect her to get someone like Strallan, then when there's a Strallan, they chase him off with no hope of her ever getting someone else.

Yeah, Edith and Mary never talk together about those they've lost NOW. Why would they when they're old? Tom remembers Matthew and of course, Sybil, and he's their age, so presumably will be around to share the stories. Hells bells, I just thought of that. Fellowes takes Tom so much for granted, he's forgotten that Tom knows all the cast of characters same as Edith/Mary. Tom knew Matthew from the start. Even knew Gregson. Obviously, Sybil. Obviously knows Carson, Granny, Papa and Mama. Was there from day one of the babyhood of all the grandkids, including his own. God, I wish I hadn't remembered Tom will be around to chit chat about the days of yore with ALL the people Edith mentioned. Makes the writing even worse.