I can't believe that I neglected my blog and just about everything else so I could sit in front of the TV eating potato chips and watching discs of "Downton Abbey." Man, that show's dangerous! It's the most addictive miniseries I've seen since "Fargo" which, come to think of it, is the most addictive miniseries I've seen since "Sherlock."
Good Lord! What's happened to me? I used to be better at resisting things like this.
The really frustrating thing is that I can't figure out why the show works so well. The premise doesn't sound impressive at all. It's about an English manor house and its struggle to stay relevant in the modern world. I mean, it's not like it hasn't been done before.
There must be a lot about writing stories that I don't understand. How does a writer keep our interest in characters when the story outline is something we've already seen? Why do I still end up in tears over this stuff?
Maybe it's because the ostensible premise isn't really what the series is about. All that about the collision with the modern world is just an excuse to have a show. The real story is more subtle and more difficult to summarize in a few words.
For me this story exists to celebrate the English character. The master of the house struggles to keep the house "alive" because it's a cultural symbol, something that unites the present with the mythic past, that defines what it is to be English.
It's horrible to think that one day we could all wake up and decide that our country is just a random spot on the map, that our neighbors are just unrelated individuals, and that we have no common aspiration or ideal to bind us together. My gut tells me that a country so constituted would lapse into stagnation and decay.
Most of us know what England contributed to the world in the fields of law and liberty, literature and education, and of knightly behavior even if it's observed more in the breach. Maybe it's less well known how the national character made those advances possible. For me that's at least part of what Downton Abbey is all about.
