Sybil? - OMG!

[bsteadman]

Downton Abbey, Season 3, Episode 4, 1/27/2013, PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/...n-3-episode-4/

[bsteadman]

Shark?

Up till now, I had not seen anything too blatantly 'fishy' about the Downton Abbey plot. However, 'Sybil's' current dilemma revealed in Episode 4 was, indeed, a big surprise and quite puzzling to me!

If these kind of strange plot twists start happening more frequently, I may have to join Mr Adams in his assessment of this previously wonderful show!

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7 Times Downton Abbey Has Jumped the Shark

Bankrupt?! We are to believe this aristocrat had never heard of diversification.

PJ Media
J. Christian Adams
1/29/2013

Excerpt:

Downton Abbey has jumped the shark, over and over and over again. Either writer Julian Fellowes is toying with viewers by presenting an undercover farce, or “Julian Fellowes” is really a 15-year-old girl using devices common to her age, such as sudden plot lurches, melodrama, tortured simplicity, and outlandish improbability. What started in Season One as a measured, engrossing, and beautiful series has become a weekly, preposterous chore.

Is Laura Linney in on the gag? Has she seen the episodes she is introducing?

Fonzie only jumped the shark once. Here are seven times Downtown Abbey has jumped the shark.

1. Downton Becomes a Hospital

Downtown’s grandest shark jump took place when the estate was turned into a hospital for World War I wounded in Season Two, Episode 3. The subtleties and grandeur of the drama were replaced by noise, racket, bandages, beds, and scores of visitors. To believe this disruption, one must believe that the village is an efficient destination for the war wounded. One must also assume there aren’t other barns, churches, banquet halls, or any other building closer to a railhead capable of handling the casualties. The Downton-becomes-a-hospital frolic and detour sucked the life out of the series and led to even more absurd, improbable plot twists such as the return of Thomas to Downton, the liaison of the maid Ethel and Major Bryant under Lord Grantham’s roof, and the patently impossible return of the terminal William to both die and marry Daisy. Downton as hospital also produced a plot twist so ridiculous it deserves its own shark-jumping moment.

2. Patrick Crawley, Bandaged Imposter

The entire Downton Abbey series starts with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. This event breaks up the line of succession to the estate because the heir, Patrick Crawley, went down with the ship. The uncertainty fuels the perfect pacing of Season One. Seemingly desperate for copy, the 15-year-old girl version of Julian Fellowes wrote into Season Two the arrival of a strange, mysterious soldier to the hospital. (See #1 above; shark jumps beget more shark jumps). He claims to be Patrick Crawley, the cousin whose death was the genesis of the entire series. Nobody knows if it is really him, of course, because his face is bandaged from war wounds. His mummy-like presence, sulking around the estate for weeks courting Lady Edith, was as silly as Pam’s “it was all a dream” moment in Dallas. Ultimately, we learn that the wounded man was a fraud, sort of like the whole diversion.

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View the complete article at:

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/01...inglepage=true