Llywela

I've got one for this thread, although this may be a UK thing, but it occurred to me recently just how often the British soaps do a variant of the 'who's the daddy?' trope in which a couple have a baby, the father names the baby after some beloved dead relative of his, only to later learn that the baby isn't his after all. Bonus points if the child ends up being raised by its real father, merrily going through life named in honour of someone they aren't related to by someone they have little to do with. I can think of so many examples of this happening in the various soaps. Jack Webster in Corrie (named by Tyrone in honour of Jack Duckworth, then revealed to be Kevin Webster's son) Arthur Fowler in Eastenders (named by Martin Fowler in memory of his dad, then revealed to be Kush's son), Louise Mitchell in Eastenders (named by Mark Fowler in honour of his grandmother, then revealed to be Phil Mitchell's daughter)...and the list goes on and on. Yet I really don't think it is something that happens so frequently in real life!

I will expect the new season to air on ITV through the autumn, then, culminating in the Christmas special - which fits the pattern of previous seasons.

That tallies with the discussion up-thread about a new character coming in to take Tristan's place at the surgery. From the book character description you give, I can see plenty of potential for fish-out-of-water stories about the newbie without ever needing to touch on his love life. We'll have to wait and see how he plays on-screen, though.

How have you watched season 3 to the end? Only one episode has aired so far. Even ITV's online hub only has the one episode, they've not made the rest of the season available to online viewers. I just watched that first episode of S3 and my big question is: where did Job and Brad go? They spent two seasons building up this big mystery around Job and now he's suddenly not there anymore, no resolution and no explanation.

Yes, the new season begins on Sunday over here. I believe there was a bit of a lag before it reached America in the past - looking back at old posts (I was talking about the end of season 2 in October; then a flurry of new posts hit in April), I'd say it was a good six months. But maybe they won't delay so long this time?

Are you asking from the point of view of only having seen as far as this episode, or having seen the whole series? Because this is explained later.

That one made me gasp a bit when I saw the headline, although it shouldn't really, given her age. She came out of retirement a couple of years ago to make an absolutely beautiful TV Movie called 'Elizabeth is Missing', based on a book of the same name (which is well worth reading, btw) - the story is about a missing person (although not really the one in the title) but it is told from the point of view of an old woman with dementia, and it really packs a punch, all the more so because it is a perspective not often seen - she's so muddled and she knows she is muddled but can't do anything about it and no one will listen to her or take her seriously, she gets all the details wrong on one level yet completely right on another, she solves a 70-year-old mystery and it brings her no peace, because she can't retain new information. Really powerful. Jackson was wonderful in it.

I don't know about sisters. I can offer you father and son - Patrick Troughton played the Doctor in the late 1960s (and again in guest spots in the 70s and 80s) and his son David has had guest roles in both Classic and New Who. Plus another son, Michael, has also been in New Who. (A number of grandchildren are also actors and may well have been in the show as well, I don't have time just now to look it up). No sets of sisters are jumping at me off the top of my head, though.

Charlotte was there, but she was an external observer of events rather than an active participant. She knows that Violet managed to get two children married off in two years because she watched it happen but her observations did not tell her how it was achieved. Not all of Charlotte's children were unmarried going into this season; it wasn't 13 all unmarried (15 children in total but only 13 survived into adulthood). The Prince Regent had a wife and daughter - it was the daughter's death that triggered the race to create a new heir, because there was no spare. They'd all been satisfied that one heir was sufficient, Charlotte included, only to belatedly realise that they were wrong. At least one of the daughters was also married but had no children - we saw her telling Charlotte about her many miscarriages in one of the episodes. That they all, perhaps, should have paid more attention to the danger of having only one legitimate heir before that heir's premature death was the general thrust of Lady Whistledown's mockery all season. The whole family was too complacent. And Charlotte's interest in the Ton's marriage market as a distraction from her family problems then compounded the issue, making her too easy a target for Lady W's sharp pen.

Oh, I agree. Bonnie Langford is a wonderful actress who did not get to showcase her talent in her original run, and her character is full of unrealised potential. I'm really interested to see what they do with her. I wish RTD had been more open to revisiting the stories of former companions in his first run, when more of them were still with us. A great many of them have interesting stories still to be told.

Big Finish audio adventures have done wonderful things with some of the less-well-loved characters of the '80s. I was talking specifically about Mel's era of the TV show, which is what the vast majority of people will know her for, rather than the more niche audio adventures, which are great but have a much smaller audience.. Then again, we already know that characters from Big Finish are going to be drawn into the RTD2 era, so who knows how it is going to play out!

I just saw the headline and came here to see if you'd posted it already! Interesting. Bonnie's time on the show coincided with a very difficult period, in terms of production, and is regarded by many as a low point in the show's history, for various reasons, but Mel's story was intriguing, in its way, and completely open-ended - her relationship with the Doctor was so...timey-wimey, long before River made an out-of-order relationship a whole big thing. I'm really curious to see if they pick up any of those loose threads that were left dangling, so long ago. Mel left the TARDIS to go travelling through space with Sabalom Glitz, and that was somewhere way in the future, but we know from her brief appearance in Jodie Whittaker's last episode that she is living on Earth in our current time. There's a massive gap in her story there. I wonder how much we'll learn about what she's been up to and how she got back here!

We have enough railway lines where I live that it is relatively normal for people to live near them. I grew up near a railway line. I live near another line today, and so do my parents. My office is close to the line, too. It can be loud, yes, but after a while you stop noticing it. Living near a railway line certainly does not equal 'bad apartment' here. It's just normal. I've never know anything to rattle as the trains go by, though.

I think the article words it a little confusingly, but I definitely read it as a replacement for Tristan at the vet practice, rather than a replacement for Callum as Tristan. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out!

I don't think Callum Woodhouse has been replaced as Tristan. The article speculates that the new cast member seen on site might be a new vet working at the practice to cover Tristan's absence, as he was called to active service at the end of the last season.

You aren't the only one, no. Others have commented on the resemblance in these threads. The funny part is that this series and The Great are roughly contemporaneous. Charlotte married George in 1761. Catherine the Great married Peter in 1762. Now there's a crossover to contemplate!

Bobye was 14 years old when someone set her up on a blind date with 19 year old Jim, they tell us in episode one of this docu-series - Jim hastily adds that he had no idea, he was told she was older, she looked mature. But finding out her real age didn't stop him continuing to date her and then marry her when she was of age. I've never watched any of the Duggar shows, but I have lurked in this forum for a few years - ever since the Josh scandal broke and I came here to find out more, since it was the first I'd ever heard of these people. I figured I would watch this docu-series. One episode down, three to go...

We don't know. We literally don't even know that a new series is actually happening. There are reports that the idea is being floated, and chances are that much is true, but it might not come to anything. If and when a new series does start filming, we'll probably learn more about the plans for its release then.

I've followed the story kind of, since it is all over the news here, inescapable. It's been a really big deal. Schofield has been the golden boy of British telly for most of my life - he was a hugely popular presenter of children's TV when I was young, and then made the move into hosting breakfast television, where he formed what has always been presented as a wonderful partnership with his co-star Holly Willoughby. I've never watched their show - I actually found their presenting style quite mean-spirited - but they have been hugely popular for two decades. Schofield has always had something of a boy-next-door appeal...but the cracks have been forming for some time now. His coming out came as quite a shock, given that his public image had always been that of the contented family man, happily married with two daughters. Well, he wouldn't be the first gay man to marry and have a family while in the closet, but the manner of his coming out drew a lot of side eyes. It wasn't kind to his family, shall we say. They deserved at least a head's up that their lives were about to be imploded on national telly. Then his brother was convicted of sexually abusing a teenage boy earlier this year. Schofield took time off during the trial, but public sympathy was largely still with him. After all, he isn't responsible for his brother's crimes. Rumours of the feud with Willoughby began around about the same time, though - and then exploded last month, culminating in his resignation. And then the revelations since. It's been quite startling to see how fast he went from golden boy to public whipping boy.

I agree. If they are going there again, I really hope there are some new ideas and a definite plan. The original series was so repetitive!

I mean, children grow. That's what they do. You would think that anyone hiring a child actor for a show they hope and expect to run for a number of years would be aware of that fact and factor it into their plans! I'm glad I never got into Lost. I caught a few episodes in the first season (I loved Sun and Jin) but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't the show I'd expected it to be, going in, so I lost interest. (The blurb I saw just said it was a show about survivors of a plane crash having to work together to survive on a remote island and I really liked the idea of that show - strangers thrown together, having to cooperate to survive. But it became clear that the show was going down a more mysterious, mystical route, and I wasn't getting attached to the lead characters or their problems at all, the characters I did like barely seemed to feature, so I bailed.)

I wouldn't know. Downton Abbey was originally commissioned by and for ITV, that's why they are involved again here. The original series was sold internationally and the films were released internationally, so if a new series is made, I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be sold internationally again.

A free-to-air public broadcast television network, second largest broadcaster in the UK, second only to the BBC. ITV is commercial, BBC is non-commercial.

This was a lovely little series. Full of inaccuracies and anachronisms, but lovely to watch. The young Charlotte and Agatha were an absolute delight. So was the young Brimsley. And George. Wonderfully drawn characters played by fantastic young actors. That actually really bugged me. I can see why Shonda went with it as a plot point, but it was an anachronism too far for me - it just isn't possible to create a new peerage title without settling the issue of succession up-front, succession is inextricably linked to the act of creation. Creation of a new title requires Letters Patent, and succession forms an integral part of the Letters Patent proforma, decided and laid out anew for each individual case. I could live with all the other anachronisms, and I understand why the plot wanted this one to be part of the story, but it was an anachronism too far for me and broke my suspension of disbelief. Plus, you know, wealth and property laws in the 18th century weren't so far removed from ours - once land and property were legally bestowed upon someone, they belonged to them and would pass to the next in line upon that person's death, the land and property wouldn't 'revert to the crown' even if the title did, not unless there was no legitimate heir. And the show covered over a year, in the earlier timeline. The legalities would very definitely have been worked out in that time. I guess I just know too much about how these things work to be able to suspend my disbelief in this regard! Did not spoil the show, though. I found the overall story really moving and far more engaging than the fluffiness of regular Bridgerton. Well, the Prince Regent was married and had a daughter (who died in ep1) so they weren't all 'virgins and whores'. Not all of the daughters were unmarried, either. Just most of them! I can forgive the court ladies being ignorant of Mozart, since he was still just a recently discovered child prodigy at the time, rather than the world-famous classical musician we remember him as today! Charlotte refusing alcohol due to her pregnancy was a definite anachronism, but it made for a good shorthand to convey her second pregnancy. Although of course it would have been just as easy for her to simply say it. And yes, George attending her during the birth was another anachronism, but a great character moment. Well, historically speaking, it was more down to George than Charlotte that most of their daughters never married. Also, it's Brimsley, not Billsbury. I think it very unlikely that Lady Danbury had a fifth child by Lord Ledger - and if she had, I think enough time had passed by the time she actually slept with him that she'd have found it hard to pass the child off as her late husband's. Danbury. Her name is Lady Danbury. Not Danforth.

I'm torn on this subject. Because on the one hand, yes, it was a spur of the moment thing on Augusta's part and it does make for good storytelling to show the new integrated society as precarious in these early stages. But on the other hand...that just isn't how the peerage works. And I can't suspend my disbelief enough to believe that in the months that have passed, in-show, the legal details wouldn't have been thrashed out already. Because succession is an integral part of the creation of any peerage. The creation of a new peerage requires Letters Patent, which spells out in black and white exactly how the succession is going to work (lifetime peerage, inheritance by legitimate male heirs of the body, special remainder to legitimate siblings or legitimate heirs thereof, or whatever). You simply cannot get one without the other. If Augusta's spur-of-the-moment decision to bestow new peerages was followed through on with the legalities necessary to make those peerages real - which we know it was, because it has been established that the new peerages are real - then we can be damn sure that proper Letters Patent were issued, because that is how a new peerage is created, legally. The Letters Patent is what makes the new peerage real. And if there are Letters Patent, then the issue of succession is already settled up-front, because it forms an integral part of the Letters Patent, that detail is always included, it is part of the basic proforma, because succession is very important to the aristocracy. There is no plausible way for that discussion not to have already happened and been settled. So that broke my suspension of disbelief quite a bit, no matter how much I told myself that this is a fantasy alternate universe where the timeline doesn't even work, so what am I worried about? But I just couldn't bring myself to suspend reality for that detail. Also, all that agonising over whether Agatha's solicitor would talk to a woman and over how strange it was for her to go out for a walk. Both were completely normal at the time. Wealthy widows have been taking over the running of their husbands' estate since long, long before the time this show is set, and that generally involved conversing with solicitors. And noblefolk rambling around their estates - visiting other peoples' estates and rambling around those too - was also a common practice at this time. We're in the era where tourism (for the upper classes) really started to take off. Visiting country estates and going on picturesque walks (they even used the word picturesque in this episode) was fashionable at this time. Agatha taking a turn around her own estate should not have been seen as anything out of the ordinary, except inasmuch as it was not her usual habit.