Test Ride

The second episode of 'Downton Abbey,' Season 5, moves along the freight yard tracks with more cuteness than anything else. It is almost a lovable 'Leave It to Beaver' episode. Lessons are learned, and the older folk seem so wise.

Perhaps the main theme that gets some play is Lady Mary's prescient analysis of the coming housing shortage, when people like herself will be made, through necessity, to live in rooms far smaller than those of her grandparents. This of course is her rationalization for giving Bachelor Number Two a test ride through the twists and turns of pre-marital sex.  We're all going to follow this one closely.

Lady Mary expresses her theory to her maid Anna, that if in the future married people are going to have to live closer to each other, then they better be sure they pick the right spouse, because divorce is way too messy and not for her. Works for the scriptwriters, and gives us a chance to see if Lady Mary can actually raise the temperature in a room, rather than have everyone move closer to the fireplace as she enters.

Lady Mary is certainly not Lauren Bacall. Lauren Bacall's audition criteria for a man, as explained to Humphrey Bogart in 'The Big Sleep,' is hot enough to turn in a fire alarm. But, of course they're Americans. And they smoke.

Then there's His Lordship's dog. I watch 'Downton Abbey' with closed captioning turned on even when Laura Linney is speaking. I can understand the English I hear through the British accents pretty well, but there are the odd phrases, or pronunciations that leave me wondering "what the hell did they just say?"

Thank goodness for closed captioning. Not only does it get me past the words that are not clear to me, it also provides spelling of the words that I might not be familiar with. By keeping a pad and pen nearby I am able to write these words down for later look up in my shorter OED.

The dog is not a big part of the show, but their name carries the potential to wipe out all involved with the show in a terrorist attack. You hear his Lordship refer to the dog as 'Eyesis.' How a dog comes to be named 'Eyesis' is not known. In one brief scene Lord Grantham tells Lady Grantham that the current houseguest should stop flirting with his dog.

This seems odd, since it seems to all who watched the scene (with His Lordship just on the other side of the door) that the guest was flirting with Lady G., Cora, while discussing art. So, perhaps without knowing it, His Lordship has gotten his wife and the dog mixed up. This is knee-slapping stuff coming from the British aristocracy.

But, here's the danger. When you use closed captioning, you hear 'Eyesis' pronounced, but see it spelled Isis. Or, if you're stuck on caps lock, 'ISIS.'

A British costume drama set in 1924, broadcast in 2015, with a dog named Isis (Islamic State in Syria) might not escape everyone's attention.

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