Downton Abbey's Success

It's easy to recognize 'Downton Abbey's' success by its Nielsen ratings. They're high, and apparently rival other very successful PBS presentations.  But before the ratings story came out, what I think is a truer measurement of success is that at least one American newspaper is printing the sniveling of some of those in England over the series. Imagine what that means. There is so much American interest in Downton Abbey that it is felt there are those of us who are interested in what the British think of it!

There's probably an equation that can be derived that the higher the British education that's been attained, coupled with command of words, spoken and written, the less comprehensible will be the sniveling.

When Stanley Kowalski, wearing a worn and torn T-shirt yells up the stairs for Stella, you understand he's not liking something about Stella. When an erudite Brit gets their nose out of joint there's no telling what they mean.

A British historian, Simon Schama, tells the world that 'Downton Abbey' is an exercise in "cultural necrophilia," There are some other well-worded observations that give them themselves to terrific alliterative prose, but little comprehension.

In the same space, a British poet is given even more room to complain. James Fenton has the show guilty of buried gay subplots and the promotion of the snobbery of the producer Julian Fellowes. Unless you're really a scholar of some kind, my guess is you'll need to look up what the hell Mr. Fenton means when he seems to thank the anomaly of the laws of "primogeniture" that prevent Ol' Julian from getting a place setting at Buckingham Palace for something to eat.

This makes the introduction of the American mom Ol' Shirl in Season Three even more enticing. If she doesn't like something she's likely to settle the score the American way: take an Army Colt out of the drawer and start blasting.

That should give the Brits something to complain about that we can all understand.

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