"Downton Abbey" PBS Masterpiece Classic UK edition Series 1 was recommended to me by a friend and I was totally unprepared for what a treat it was going to be. The series is set in the time of the sinking of the Titanic and the dawn of World War I. Downton Abbey's Earl of Grantham has three daughters but no male heir to pass his family estate to. Although the family and staff alike feel that the eldest daughter, Lady Mary, should inherit, it must be a male heir. The solution would be for Lady Mary to marry the male heir but solutions and what really is seldom turn out to be one and the same. Lady Mary's American mother, Cora, brought a huge fortune to the marriage but her deceased father-in-law legally entailed it as part of the estate so there is no way for the family to get their hands on the inheritance -- It goes with the estate and the Earl knows that it is also needed to maintain the estate. However his mother, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (played by Maggie Smith) conspires with her daughter-in-law, Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) to find a way to separate the inheritance from the estate. However, the Earl (played by Hugh Bonneville) refuses to budge on this.
There's plenty of drama upstairs with the aristocratic family -- especially between Lady Mary and her next youngest sister, Lady Edith. They may not literally kill each other but the relationship is a poisonous one with consequences beyond just the two of them.
Downstairs there's drama with the household staff -- love, hate, jealousy, and manipulation -- making for great story lines upstairs and downstairs aided by marvelous casting.
Don't miss the special features either -- "The Making of Downtown Abbey" and "A House in History."
The series is incredibly expensive so we're waiting for Series Two from the library and the waiting list is long!
pazt
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