Masterpiece (formerly and more affectionately known as Masterpiece Theatre) must be applauded for its long-lived and tenacious hold in the television network industry.
Though the series brings to mind fainting Victorian ladies and ominously brooding heroes, a far cry from the wave of Jersey Shore “reality” TV story lines that haunt current network time spots, the program has somehow managed to retain its place while other, more modern series have come and gone.
Masterpiece has long retained the tradition of quality, family-friendly television. Hosted on PBS, the drama anthology series has played home to such miniseries as Upstairs, Downstairs, Wives & Daughters and Jeeves & Wooster.
What Masterpiece does best is describe the complications inherent in human relationships.
Though the central romantic characters may never make out, hook up or engage in explicitly scandalous behavior (à la Persuasion), Masterpiece does carve out the nuances of human interactions, albeit in lace petticoats and dance halls.
The latest addition to the family, Downton Abbey, premiered on Jan. 9th in honor of the show’s 40th anniversary.
Downton Abbey follows the lives of the Crawley family and their servants as they navigate the political and social unrest prior to World War I. Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for his screenplay Gosford Park, created and wrote the screenplay for Downton Abbey.
The series begins with the arrival of a telegraph, the contents of which inform the titled family that the heir to their large and lavish home, fittingly called Downton Abbey, has died whilst aboard the H.M.S. Titanic.
The succession, once so assured, has now been compromised, and the next living male relative is one that the family has never met.
The news throws the family and their opinionated servants into a flurry, as the women in the household, the grandmother Violet, the American wife Cora, and the eldest daughter Mary, all scheme to keep the Abbey and its fortune from the self-made and unknown cousin, Matthew Crawley, portrayed by Dan Stevens.
The series brilliantly captures the intricacies of twentieth century social negotiation in Britain. Earl Robert Crawley, played by Masterpiece veteran Hugh Bonneville, must maintain tenuous control over his unruly family as well as his household servants.
With the arrival of cousin Matthew, the challenges of running the Abbey increase.
His engaging, beautiful, but catty eldest daughter, Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery) would have inherited the Abbey in an ideal world, and so it falls to the Earl to curb her furious temper when she learns that she must now depend on a total stranger.
Rather predictably, Mary begins to fall in love with Matthew Crawley, though Mary struggles to maintain her independence from him.
The young heiress, who is rather an accomplished flirt, scorns the fiercely self-sufficient, but well-meaning usurper at first, but finds herself drawn to the easy nature of their interactions together.
Ultimately, she fails to change the laws of succession, and ruins her relationship with Matthew in the process.
Mary’s mother and grandmother, played by Elizabeth McGovern and Maggie Smith (better known as Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter) respectively, attempt to guard the family fortune and ancestral home.
Though their relationship is strained at the beginning of the series, the two eventually develop a far more genial one in which they are united against a common enemy – the outsider.
Other meticulously developed relationships abound as well, and not just among the wealthy. The servants, too, have their own story arcs.
Jim Carter plays the fastidiously correct Mr. Carson, the Earl’s right hand man. Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle) aids Robert Crawley in the more day-to-day tasks, though he faces much animosity from the staff at first, due to an old war injury that prevents him from completing all of his assigned tasks.
The running of the household is far from smooth, as the series examines closely the hierarchy even among domestics.
Thomas, the young and ambitious footman, epitomizes this desire for upward mobility. Rob James-Collier shines in this role, imbuing his character with a coldness and a cruelty that is strangely compelling to see.
Thomas lacks human sympathy, but instead possesses an unchecked drive that manifests itself in schemes with his cohort, Mrs. O’Brien (played by Siobhan Finnegan).
Overturning popular misconceptions about the stodginess of Masterpiece, Downton Abbey brims with scandal and surprising twists and turns.
Audiences learn that devilishly good-looking Thomas is gay in the first episode.
Indeed, the entire kitchen staff knows of his proclivities, though in keeping with early twentieth century sensibilities, his colleagues merely mention that he is a “troubled” man.
Mary, too, rejects the strict rules of British society and takes a Turkish lover, a wealthy son of an ambassador by the name of Kemal Pamouk. Though her lust for him is certainly understandable (the actor Theo James is unbelievably pretty and certainly exotic amongst the otherwise pasty aristocrats), her nascent sexuality causes a stir amongst the stodgy London socialites and leads to the deteriorating relationship with her middle sister Edith (Laura Carmichael).
These complex interactions, especially among the women, do much to showcase the deft touch director Julian uses to illustrate this period of time.
The tension between mother and mother-in-law, the sisterly rivalry between Mary and her sisters, and the negotiations between the family all resonate today.
Furthermore, the distinctions between the classes, while perhaps not as dramatic as they were 100 years ago, make for an interesting comparison to today’s society.
Despite the historical trappings, Fellowes offers the viewers a mirror into which the modern audience may re-examine their own lives.
Season 2 of Downton Abbey starts filming in March 2011, and will air in Britain fall of 2011.
