Rest in Peace Downton Abbey

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:28pm

Series to end after season 6.

Updated On: 3/26/15 at 12:28 PM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:34pm

Personally, I think it is a good time. Go out on a high note before Maggie leaves. I don't think the show ever fully recovered from Matthew's departure. I enjoy it, but I haven't found it as riveting as those first two seasons.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:38pm

Mrs R will miss it. I will not as I never watched it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:56pm

I guess they ran out of ways to make Edith more pathetic or pathetic ways to make Barrow...anything. The show has been been in a rut for a long time. I think it's early fans are going to ride it out to the end, but I don't know anyone to show any enthusiasm for the show any more except notorious closeted Republicans.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 1:19pm

"I don't think the show ever fully recovered from Matthew's departure."

I would counter that it never fully recovered from the departure of Siobahn Finneran as O'Brien. Matthew's character was always boring, never well written.

O'Brien was scheming and sly. Her character's behavior had to change when she moved between upstairs with Cora and downstairs with Thomas. The show never recovered and wasn't able to replace O'Brien as they easily replaced Matthew.

Note to Julian: I would love if next season the reveal was that O'Brien killed Anna's rapist. That would put this show back on fire!

Unfortunately, Siobahn Finneran has committed to Season 2 of Happy Valley. Not sure yet whether she's going back to Benidorm. So Downton is probably not in her future.

Updated On: 3/26/15 at 01:19 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 1:49pm

I love Dan Stevens but really, as any good soap writer knows, a happy couple is a boring couple. There really wasn't much they could have done with him and Mary past maybe one more season, IMHO unless ig was soap melodramatics like cheating or boring business stories. Yawn. I agree, O'Brien is more missed (I still think they were going to reveal that... whathisname was her son--the servant she was mysteriously protective over.)

Felowes originally said he only had a three year plan and would end there--but I had a feeling he was now gonna go on endlessly. Shows nearly always are better when they have a fixed end point, so this seems a good idea. Is he still planning his prequel? :S

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 2:13pm

There really wasn't much they could have done with him and Mary past maybe one more season

But they completely missed out on the wealth of material from his time at war. I can just see Mary uttering the Jodie Foster line from Somersby: "He's not the man I married" or whatever it was. They could have broken up Matthew's boring persona by giving him post-traumatic stress disorder.

The sticking point with the upstairs men is that they were all perfect gentlemen and that gets boring. At least with Sybil's husband, the chauffer turned gentleman story, they had some conflict, but even that got boring as they turned him into a gentleman. They needed a scoundrel in the upstairs cast.

Is he still planning his prequel?

Isn't his next project to do a series about The Gilded Age in America? I see this as a one season, quickly cancelled show.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 3:00pm

The dissolution of the monastery - Fellowes succeeds where Cromwell and Henry VIII failed.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 3:08pm

RIP DOWNTON ABBEY. Let's just make double sure, and drive a stake through its black black heart just to make sure it never ever rises again to defile the screens of the world.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 3:35pm

During an outdoor party, Bates will slap Mary's son. It will be the catalyst for a whole new series as each week focuses on how the slap affects a different character.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 4:34pm

Ah, but now there's talk of a movie.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 4:42pm

Undoubted Oscar material, even before a word of the script has been typed.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 4:54pm

But what could they do in a movie that they can't do on tv? The story has been told. Time for new material.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 5:00pm

Jump 80 years into the future and show the Downton Descendants!!!

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 5:17pm

Gosford Abbey

Downton Park

Fellows already did the "film version" of this, with an Agatha Christie twist.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 5:18pm

"Gosford Park in Outer Space!"

[Wildcard]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 5:48pm

Mr. Bates and Anna are suspected of murdering kindly old Mrs. Patmore. Was it a baking accident or is something more sinister afoot?

[Miranda3]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 5:53pm

Planet of the Abbots! Or, maybe better, Planet of the Bates!

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 6:55pm

This show's been a guilty pleasure of mine. Even when it's gotten terrible - which, let's face it, it has at times - I've still enjoyed my weekly dose. I have to say, I feel like the recently ended season was a vast improvement over the prior two.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 7:16pm

"Unfortunately, Siobhan Finneran has committed to Season 2 of Happy Valley. Not sure yet whether she's going back to Benidorm."

Probably. There are flights to Alicante from Leeds/Bradford Airport.

[PB ENT.]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 7:24pm

Guilty pleasure for me as well. Largely due to my obsession with The Dowager and her coolness. Adding her romantic past fling was laughable in a good kinda way. I was fairly bored and wondered what plot possibilities could move this any further. Carson's proposal? Edith's whining? Mary's dull cat and mouse game with suitors? Maybe they'll bring back Shirley McLain for a duel with Maggie. It was fun, but it's had it's time.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 7:33pm

I'm okay with no more Shirley. She was a surprisingly ill fit. I guess she hasn't done many period pieces and it showed. She looked and sounded exactly as she is - a woman from 2013/14, speaking like a modern woman who happens to be dressed in some nice period costumes. I know she was supposed to be the progressive American in law, but I didn't for one second believe she was a woman who lived in that time.

[degrassifan]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 8:29pm

I'm a fan of the show and I even forgot about Mrs. O'Brien until this thread. I wasn't watching for her to be honest. I wasn't watching for Matthew either. Haha.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 8:55pm

And yet they are remaking Upstairs, Downstairs. Must be an inexhaustable market for this tosh.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/26/15 at 9:39pm

"Probably. There are flights to Alicante from Leeds/Bradford Airport."

Who could resist an all-inclusive in sunny Spain?

I don't understand why Finneran took Happy Valley. It's a good show, but her role as the sister is very underwritten, she doesn't get a lot of choice moments. I still think O'Brien was one of her best characters and totally understand why she would want to show her comic versatility by playing loud, lower-middle-class Janice in Benidorm. Just don't understand the Happy Valley choice.