Downton Abbey: What is a weekend?

Was there any doubt that I would love this? Another year of Masterpiece starts off extremely strong with Downton Abbey, a British costume drama from Julian Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park. It's not based on any novel but has all the classic components: a great English estate, daughters needing husbands, a formidable matriarch, distant cousins, eavesdropping servants...you'd think that the viewing public would be tired of this kind of stuff by now but for me at least, when it's done well (which this certainly is) I can't get enough! And others definitely agreed with me because a second series has already been ordered!

The great estate here is of course, Downton Abbey. Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham (played by Hugh Bonneville, a regular in these period dramas and always fantastic), inherited both his title and the house but not enough money to run it. So he married for money: Cora, an American heiress (played by Elizabeth McGovern, herself an American married to a Brit and living in England). Fortunately, they do eventually fall in love, but unfortunately, produce only daughters: Mary, Edith, and Sybill. To make things worse, as a condition of the marriage, Lord Grantham's father tied Cora's money to the estate, all of which can only be passed to a male heir.

The problem, though, was thought to have been solved: Mary was to marry Patrick, the son of Lord Grantham's cousin and heir James Crawley. But then tragedy strikes. The series begins with the news that the Titanic has sunk...with both James and Patrick aboard. While it turns out that Mary (kind of an ice queen) didn't really want to marry Patrick to begin with, everyone else begins to fret about the entail. Lord Grantham's heir is now distant cousin Matthew Crawley, a lawyer whose father was a doctor (horrors) living in Manchester (double horrors). Lord Grantham seems resigned to this turn of events but his mother, Violet (Maggie Smith, doing her thing well as always) is determined to find a way to break the entail.

Matthew and his mother Isobel are invited to move to Downton, where they're instantly out of place. Having only had a maid and cook previously (I know, what modest living conditions), Matthew is flabbergasted at being given a personal valet and insists on continuing to dress himself, serve his own tea, and hang his own coat. And to the shock of everyone at the Abbey, he takes a job nearby, ensuring them that he'd have time on the weekend to learn the matters of the estate. To which Violet asks, horrified, "What is a weekend?"

Observing and discussing all this are, of course, the servants, who have their own little dramas. There's Mr. Carson, the butler, who in a way considers the Crawleys to be his own family; rather nasty O'Brien, Lady Grantham's lady's maid; Thomas, a scheming footman who aspires to be a valet and has a little dalliance going with a duke; Daisy, a young kitchen maid easily picked on but eager to learn; and the newest addition, Mr. Bates, Lord Grantham's valet. Mr. Bates served in the Boer War with Lord Grantham, and has a limp and walks with a cane as a result. This makes him unpopular with the rest of the staff, who believe he is unsuitable for the job, excepting Anna, the kind-hearted head housemaid.

The first episode aired this past Sunday and there are three more installments to come. If you miss any, you'll be able to watch it online for a couple of weeks. Very highly recommended, especially if you're a fan of period drama!

Masterpiece Classic: Emma

I say this as a Janeite but sometimes I wonder, there have to be other novels out there worth adapting into movies/miniseries instead of always coming back to Jane Austen. I found the timing of this adaptation to be a little strange too because just 2 years ago Masterpiece had "The Complete Jane Austen" with new adaptations of 4 of the 6 novels (see my reviews of Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park) but not Emma.

I mean, I'm not really complaining, Austen is Austen, and I actually really enjoyed this new version. I thought Romola Garai was a very good Emma--I liked her much more than both Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale. She had just the right combination of clever and spoiled but also good intentioned. Jonny Lee Miller was surprisingly wonderful as Mr. Knightley. Even though I've loved him in other things, I wasn't sure if he would be right for the part but I'm glad he proved me wrong. I loved the scene where Emma and Mr. Knightley dance. Great acting, because not a word was said! Michael Gambon as Emma's father didn't have much to do but was a nice presence and I was happy to see Jodhi May as Mrs. Weston. She's a regular in these period dramas and is always excellent.

One funny thing to note was that there were two former Edmund Bertrams (Mansfield Park) in the cast. Jonny Lee Miller played him in the 1999 film version, and Blake Ritson (Mr. Elton here) played him in the awful Billie Piper version from 2008.

Other than that I don't know that there's really much else to say about this. The production values on Masterpiece productions are always great, and I appreciated the length of the series (split into 4 episodes in the UK, 3 parts in the US) but it got me thinking that my favorite adaptation of Emma is actually...Clueless. I know, that movie is 15 years old now and I'm not discovering anything new but the more I think about it, the more I realize how inspired the way they moved the story to a 90s high school was. The sister's husband's brother becomes the ex-stepbrother, the secretly engaged suitor becomes the gay boyfriend, the farmer becomes the skateboarding slacker...even the title of the movie is perfect!

Anyway, Masterpiece is re-airing Northanger Abbey and Persuasion over the next two weeks, but after that there look to be some interesting programs coming up, including one co-starring Padma Lakshmi (of Top Chef, how random) and an Anne Frank adaptation. Lots to look forward to!

Masterpiece Classic: The Season of...Misery?

I'd never read Tess of the d'Urbervilles before it aired on Masterpiece Classic early this month, although I had a vague idea of its storyline. I'm planning on reading it now but reading the book after seeing an adaptation generally isn't that ideal. Regardless, I did really enjoy this production...well, as much as one can enjoy something that's this relentlessly depressing.

Of course, this isn't the fault of the adaptation. It all starts all happy enough, with a teenaged Tess dancing in the fields and glimpsing a handsome young man. But it really all goes to shit pretty fast. The "villain" in the story is manipulative, obsessive, and stalker-ish Alec d'Urberville, played pretty creepily by Hans Matheson, who the New York Times (of all publications) called an "19th century Chuck Bass." (More like pilot Chuck Bass though, not Blair-and-Chuck Chuck.)

But the supposed good guy, Angel Clare (ok, did clergymen back then really give their sons ridiculous names like Angel??), isn't all that wonderful either, as he's obsessed with the idea of Tess being "pure" despite the fact that he had a premarital affair too. Angel is played by Eddie Redmayne, who's not really all that conventionally good-looking but he was alright. Tess is played by Gemma Arterton, and I was pretty impressed by her for the most part. At the end though, when Angel returns, she was a little less convincing and I'm not sure I really bought her rage, but the story is just so devastating at that point anyway. Depressing!

Moving on to another destructive love story, a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights aired for the past two weeks. I actually read this book for the first time last year without ever having seen any movie versions of it. The book was actually pretty surprising to me, especially knowing that it was written by a young single woman in the 1800s. The characters are just all so passionate and wild and living by their own rules, it's kind of jarring.

I thought this adaptation brought the story a little more down to earth, which was both good and bad. The supernatural stuff was nearly all cut out, but the characters were slightly more likable. In the book, I found Catherine to be really willful and a little crazed, Heathcliff vengeful and bitter to the max, Edgar kind of a wimp, and Isabella very naiive. But this adaptation tempered all that a little. It also changed around the narrative structure a bit, starting with the second generation's part of story before flashing back to the "main" love story.

Tom Hardy, who's apparently something of a heartthrob in Britain, plays Heathcliff, and I thought he was very good, though I don't have other portrayals to compare him to. He was best in the scenes that take place after he returns to Wuthering Heights after a 3 year absence during which he somehow made a fortune and became a "gentleman." His wildness is sort of converted to something more sinister and sadistic and it's definitely creepy. Charlotte Riley does an ok job as Catherine...she didn't play her as as crazy as I thought she would be and the famous "I am Heathcliff" speech was kind of underwhelming. But Andrew Lincoln (from Love Actually!) makes Edgar more of a man, and the younger generation makes their story worth paying attention to. And I loved the visuals of the two houses standing isolated out on the moors, though they too, were kind of depressing...

To end with a bit of humor, here's a hilarious post comparing the older generation in Wuthering Heights to the Dwight-Angela-Andy situation on the Office. In a bizarre way it's actually kind of accurate.

Also, there was someone on TWOP who said that she always thought of the younger generation in Wuthering Heights as the older, more damaged versions of the trio from the Secret Garden. I'd definitely never thought of it that way but that's a pretty apt comparison too, espeically if you've seen any film adaptation of the Secret Garden, where people seem to invariably imagine a future love triangle for Mary, Colin, and Dickon. Mary is the orphan (young Cathy), Colin is the spoiled, sickly cousin (Linton), and Dickon is the hardier, less refined neighbor (Hareton). I mean, there's no mention of romance or anything in the book (it's a children's book after all) but I've always been on Team Dickon myself, since I had a little crush on him in my favorite movie adaptation (the 1993 one) where there was this cute little scene with Mary and Dickon making eyes at eachother on a swing in the garden while a jealous Colin is like, "Hey! HEY!" And I mean, Cathy and Hareton end up being soulmates and getting married, so there's precedent, right??