Downton Abbey

I almost post Downton Abbey = best show ever, luckily I remember that I didn't want to flush Downton Abbey from the memory of the universe and replace it with the string "best show ever", but instead establish an equality.
 
I've enjoyed Downton Abbey, it's one of my faves. Same with Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire.
 
I don't have any television at home, I watch programs from library dvd seasons. It's less time wasting and really more enjoyable. Problem is though, I often miss things the rest of you may have caught. Doing a search on the series, found this, which gave me a few chuckles:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141231n
 
Annie said:
I don't have any television at home, I watch programs from library dvd seasons. It's less time wasting and really more enjoyable. Problem is though, I often miss things the rest of you may have caught. Doing a search on the series, found this, which gave me a few chuckles:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141231n
Click to expand...

That's how I grew up. My parents still don't have a hook-up of any kind for the TV. We fed so much off of the public library that I still have my mom's, dad's, and brother's barcode numbers memorized, plus corresponding pin numbers.
 
For one thing, nostalgia is a huge part of modern youth culture. The boomers (the parents of this generation) despised old people and desperately wanted to throw away the past and embrace the future. The millennials don't have that same snarky rejection of older people, and tend to look back at old things wistfully. However, both generations are very liberal politically; Generation X was really much more of a conservative generation.
 
I'd agree that it is a fantasy of people acting much more nobly in times past. I think they get a pass because, while they do bring up the negative aspects of the older society from time to time, it's sort of been pushed to the side. Really, in the first season it started out kind of throwing the misogyny and bigotry of those times in your face (for instance, the first shows plot largely revolves around two of the servants trying to get an invalid, Mr. Bates, fired, and everyone, especially the head butler Mr. Carson, constantly questions whether he can do his job as a Valet), but as the show progressed they watered down the negative aspects more and more in order to maintain the likability of the characters. The conservative, Tory aristocrats on the show are all remarkably tolerant and remarkably adaptable to change, more than I think it would be reasonable to expect of people living in that time. Now, of course, progressives always do have Tom Branson, the Irish Socialist radical chaufer who runs off with the Lords daughter. But Branson actually wasn't the well liked among the fan base, although maybe that's changed with the events in the third season, which result in him being aritocratized.
 
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