Can "Downton" Return to its Former Glory?

[jordanpond]

Although during seasons one and two, “Downton Abbey” was one of my favorite shows of all time, I’ve found that the quality has gone down dramatically since then. There are some problems that I started to notice in a small way in season two, and these problems are becoming quite major in later seasons.

 

Fortunately, the costumes and scenery are as beautiful as ever, and in every episode I do find a few scenes that are truly heart-warming or surprising, or humorous. I hold out hope that “Downton Abbey” will return to its former glory. I think it’s quite possible. But in order to do so, I think it must overcome some major problems:

 

First, too many repetitive story lines! Many of you have already pointed this out (most humorously by Constantinople in page three of the “season five episode one” thread), so I’ll move onto the next problem:

 

Second, contradictory story lines. The show does still come up with new stories. The problem is, they don’t necessarily match up with old story lines, so they just flat-out contradict a prior fact: Cora tells Michael that she started reading “The Sketch” because of Edith’s column, but back in the pilot, reading “The Sketch” was how she learned about the Titanic; Alfred has such ability and sophisticated taste that he earned a position to study at the prestigious Ritz, yet earlier he was portrayed with  such completely unsophisticated taste that he turned up every food item offered to the servants from Edith’s cancelled wedding and chose instead to just eat cheese. Mr. Carson has shared stories with Mrs. Hughes about things that happened at Downton “before she arrived”, but according to Mrs. Hughes’ own storyline, she was already at Downton when these things occurred. 

 

Third, to advance new storylines, characters act out of character or in extremely contrived ways. The normally honorable Mrs. Hughes invades Mr. Carson’s privacy by picking his trash in order to read a letter he discarded; Mr. Bates, who as a valet, rarely even encounters Violet, feels comfortable enough to go to Violet’s house uninvited to ask Violet to anonymously give cash to Mr. Molesley (this particular plot was ludicrous for about 5 reasons); on the day that the family is hosting a party, not one but three (!) employees are permitted to go out for a few hours, all so that Mr. Mason can convince Daisy not to stop studying.

 

And finally, while early seasons were notable – and enjoyable, for me – for their variety of opinions about aristocracy and social hierarchy, the show has moved in a decidedly pro-aristocracy and pro-social hierarchy direction. Some of the biggest social changers, Sybil and Matthew, have died, others, like Tom and Isobel, have become a lot less vocal. In early seasons, although Isobel could get quite annoying during the war, we sometimes cheered her progressive ways, such as persuading Violet about the flower show, and saving the farmer’s life. Sybil was quite gentle with her politics and Matthew was rather fun. Now the most vocal “reformers,” Daisy and Miss Bunting, have been presented as so utterly obnoxious and annoying, that even viewers who share the political opinions of these characters can’t wait for them to get the heck off the screen! The balance and complexity of the earlier seasons is gone, and for me, it has been sadly missed.

 

During season four, there were so many of the above problems, that I started to get the vague impression that the writer was frantically creating story lines without thinking them through (hence repeating stories or being unable to create many new stories without contradicting prior stories). By the end of season four, I suspected that the reason we had not been told Miss Baxter’s secret, or what really happened with Mr. Greene, or who Mary would choose, was because at that time, even the writer didn’t even know!

 

Now, unfortunately, I think the problem’s gotten even worse: perhaps the writer isn’t just temporarily scrambling for ideas following the loss of 3 major characters as it seemed to me in season four, I fear he is permanently out of enough ideas to fill each season. Sure, there were some scenes this season that I thought were new and interesting, or romantic or funny or surprising or sad. The problem is, that after the 7 episodes shown so far, if you removed all the repetitive or contradictory story lines, there were only about enough real quality scenes to fill about 3 episodes.

 

There are some things that I still love about this show, and I hold out hope that it returns to its former glory. But if we are going to have a season six – and if we want an entire season full of the quality we enjoyed in season one -  I think we need some new writers to be added to the staff. I want to totally fall in love with "Downton" again, but I fear that with the present writing staff, it will never happen.

Edited February 19, 2015 by jordanpond

[Andorra]

There are some things that I still love about this show, and I hold out hope that it returns to its former glory. But if we are going to have a season six – and if we want an entire season full of the quality we enjoyed in season one -  I think we need some new writers to be added to the staff. I want to totally fall in love with "Downton" again, but I fear that with the present writing staff, it will never happen.

 

You hit the head of the nail here. The problem is: There IS no writing STAFF. The whole show is written by one single person, Julian Fellows and although I think he does a remarkable job for one single person, it has also become very clear during the last seasons, that he's running out of new ideas and would certainly profit from help. But he will NEVER accept it, I'm sure. It's his show and he has also said a lot of times that he can't imagine writing in a team.

 

To the other points: I don't mind little plot holes or illogical things. What I DO mind is that the show has become so repetitive and that nothing new happens. My favourite character is Tom Branson and his storyline for series 4 AND 5 was completely boring. He did nothing but staying around and saying "I don't belong here" and his other line for 2 years was "I think I will leave". I really love to see Tom on my screen, but even I got annoyed and hoped episode for episode for 2 years that it would change and that SOMETHING would happen. But it didn't.

He seemingly left without any change in the CS. And we know now he didn't really left, because there wer pics of him at the set of series 6. So what will come now? "I don't belong here" and "I think I should have left"??.

 

In series 1 there were always little storylines among the big ones that only lasted one episode. Now I feel as if we have only storylines that dragg on forever and ever and then they get dropped in a very anticlimatic way. The Mary/Tony/Charles storyline for example. The Bunting storyline. Thomas hold over Baxter. Waste of time really. Not interesting to watch in the first place and then the solution is even more boring then the storyline itself. I bet it will be the same with the Green storyline.

[alias1]

Downton has run it's course.  Another example of something going on too long because it became so extremely popular.

Edited February 19, 2015 by SierraMist

[ShadowFacts]

I may have to reluctantly agree with SierraMist.  Even if Fellowes allowed co-writers, it may be too late.  But his ego is too tied up in his show to be able to see the problems or if he does, he doesn't care enough to try to turn it around.  There is not a resolution to the Greene murder or Mary's "love" life that I give a hoot about.  The only things that seem to light up this forum are Edith's bad choices and Isis' departure.  The investment and retirement plans of the servants have been addressed enough.  The whole thing has just lost steam.

[jordanpond]

You hit the head of the nail here. The problem is: There IS no writing STAFF. The whole show is written by one single person, Julian Fellows and although I think he does a remarkable job for one single person, it has also become very clear during the last seasons, that he's running out of new ideas and would certainly profit from help. But he will NEVER accept it, I'm sure. It's his show and he has also said a lot of times that he can't imagine writing in a team.

 

To the other points: I don't mind little plot holes or illogical things. What I DO mind is that the show has become so repetitive and that nothing new happens. My favourite character is Tom Branson and his storyline for series 4 AND 5 was completely boring. He did nothing but staying around and saying "I don't belong here" and his other line for 2 years was "I think I will leave". I really love to see Tom on my screen, but even I got annoyed and hoped episode for episode for 2 years that it would change and that SOMETHING would happen. But it didn't.

He seemingly left without any change in the CS. And we know now he didn't really left, because there wer pics of him at the set of series 6. So what will come now? "I don't belong here" and "I think I should have left"??.

 

In series 1 there were always little storylines among the big ones that only lasted one episode. Now I feel as if we have only storylines that dragg on forever and ever and then they get dropped in a very anticlimatic way. The Mary/Tony/Charles storyline for example. The Bunting storyline. Thomas hold over Baxter. Waste of time really. Not interesting to watch in the first place and then the solution is even more boring then the storyline itself. I bet it will be the same with the Green storyline.

Interesting post, Andorra. I have a few thoughts about what I've bolded. I'm wondering where his pride is: he knows that he's repeating everything from major plots to some of Violet's one liners: he knows he can't figure out a way to introduce some new stories without contradicting some old ones. I don't know how he can be satisfied in letting these things go. Clearly, he can be, because he continues to do these things, I just don't understand why he seems so willing to let the quality slip rather than do whatever necessary to address it.

 

And if he won't fix things, I don't understand why whoever is paying his salary doesn't insist that the various problems be fixed. I, for one, never watch a show looking for inconsistencies. So if I (along with other posters) are seeing them over and over and over again, why aren't "the powers that be" seeing them and insisting that they be corrected?  

 

Also, so true about the one-episode stories of old, like the "Cheerful Charlies" and Mrs. Hughes' old beau at the county fair. They were really enjoyable.

Edited February 22, 2015 by jordanpond

[Eolivet]

But has the show suffered for it much, ratings-wise? It's not like there have been steep declines from season 1 to season 5 -- if anything, I feel like the show's viewers were relatively stable these past couple, somewhat critically-maligned years. Sure, it's repetitive and nothing happens, but that appears to be what viewers like. The network has no motivation to put pressure on Fellowes to change it if it's working for the majority of viewers (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). I believe it's ITV's number 1 drama by a large margin (correct me if I'm wrong). The network doesn't care about creative recycling as long as the viewers keep tuning in.

 

Networks don't like creative changes, in my opinion, unless there's a ratings reason for it. Viewers are the tail that wags the creative dog, at least on TV these days.