Down A Ton

Oh boy.

What's that I see over there? Teams of rowboats from the Metropolitan Police trolling over the Thames flinging grappling hooks into water, slowly retrieving them, looking for the Season 5 'Downton Abbey' ratings?'

I don't know if the ratings are really down, or maybe even up, but the approval rating is waaaay down in my house. If Julian Fellowes thinks he's going to succeed with a New York Gilded Age version of 'Downton' in a year or so, I'll save him the trouble. Fuhgetaboutit!! It's one thing for Americans to observe the British, but it is an entirely other thing for Americans to observe Americans acting like the British.

My feeling is if Bates gets arrested and sent to the hoosegow it will because his agent asked for him to be written out of the script so that the actor can pursue "other interests."

Lots of hooks in the water in Episode 4, but no fish coming up. It has really gotten tedious. Except for the hats. I would have never known there were so many styles of hats for women to wear. Is there a 'Downton Abbey' website for hats? That might be where the real money is. And Miss Bunting, with her ever-present Blossom chapeau is a positive scene stealer. Or, is she Napoleon? A tart-tongued social upheaval radical who is there to keep letting the air out of Lord Grantham's stuffed shirt. Deflagateship.

We do get a bit of a history lesson if we bother to lookup who Keir Hardie was as Anna refers to him in Mrs. Hughes's room as being a favorite subject of Branson when he was a "downstairs" person and more of an outgoing socialist. Certainly, Miss Bunting is a bird of the same feather.

Does Thomas have the earliest form of AIDS? Is Edith's estranged beau a Nazi? Will Lady Mary get slandered by Lord Gillingham at the club when he chuckles to the boys that Lady Mary Crawley is easier to get into than community college? Does England of 1924 even have community college? Oh dear.

'Grantchester,' immediately following 'Downton Abbey,' does, like the A-Team that once immediately followed a Super Bowl, and 'Blacklist,' which this year immediately follows the Super Bowl, continues to delight.

Everyone smokes so many short unfiltered cigarettes I've taken to opening a window in the house. Even the women, who of course leave red lipstick tipped butts in the ash trays, contribute to what everyone will later learn is a major cause of lung cancer and heart disease.

No matter right now. Sidney, the vicar, continues to drink all kinds of alcohol and solve crimes. This one in Episode 2 is a heist and another murder. He does it all in an hour, and when you see him zipping through the village on his bike you know he's gotten to the bottom of things. Just like following Lonnie Quinn the weatherman, who when his sleeves are rolled up, pay attention. Even when he misses the projected snow accumulation by over two feet.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com