For the Maggie Smith fans: Downton Abbey

[Scripps2]

Or, with Julian Fellowes writing a country house located upstairs/downstairs drama for the Dame again, Gosford Park II.

It's just started being screened on UK television and so I guess it will make its way Stateside if it hasn't done so already.

I approached it with trepidation thinking you can have too much of a good thing and it is also one of commercial television's regular, and often unsuccesful, attempts to knock the BBC off its costume drama pedestal.

However Maggie gets to look down her nose like it was a ski-run and, playing against gender, Highclere Castle looks absolutely magnificent in the title role: the interiors were done on location and look as fresh as they must have done when the place was built. The plot isn't going to score for originality, but there is one delicious sub plot involving a Duke and his valet that would never have made into a novel of the time (unless it was an unpublished work by EM Forster).

Next week: the new aspirant middle classes move further up the drive towards the Abbey. Will they make it in time for WWI or will they be seen off with a volley of cucumber sandwiches?

[madbrian]

"For the Maggie Smith fans"

Isn't everyone?

[Reginald Tresilian]

You rang?

[PalJoey]

I'll take Maggie Smith and a volley of cucumber sandwiches, please.

[Borstalboy]

I still wish her best and most moving dramatic performance in THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE was on DVD. She's scary good in it.

[madbrian]

Although there is no need for the talked about remake of My Fair Lady, I'd go see it if Maggie Smith were cast as Mrs. Higgins, particularly if Hugh Laurie were Higgins.

[Roscoe]

My favorite Maggie Smith performance is in BED AMONG THE LENTILS. Love the dear lady, and all due respect to one of our greatest actresses, but she'd been coasting for a looooooooong time now, seldom as blatantly as in that tedious GOSFORD PARK.

[Weez]

"What is a weekend?"

I must say, I'm enjoying this a great deal so far. Always nice to see The Lovely Dan Stevens, and Charlie Cox... actually, I can't fairly comment on his performance, I was distracted. I love the Earl of Grantham's dog though. :3

[Reginald Tresilian]

Here's a wonderful promo (note the music; it took me a sec).

Can't wait to see this!
promo

[madbrian]

I take this as a sign that I am a good parent: my three kids all LOVE Maggie Smith. And I'm not talking (just) Harry Potter, I'm talking Jean Brodie, Gosford Park, etc.

[Scripps2]

I never thought I'd see a reference to Bed Among The Lentils on here! My own personal favourite from that series was Thora Hird's too-proud-to-cry-for-help performance in A Cream Cracker under the Settee.

And I must admit I too thought Gosford Park was over-rated. It was an enjoyable romp but I didn't understand why everyone else was raving about it as being insightful and original.

I'm beginning to hope Downton Abbey may deliver more: having now viewed the promo that Reggie links, we've seen about half of it in the first two episodes. There are loads of clues in the script about the way things may develop and there seems to be a strong undertone of unrest and unease. Even the score is both serene and forboding.

And the lovely Dan Stevens is no longer advertising instant coffee (as in my avatar). I hope that isn't him being injured in the promo.

[Scripps2]

It looks like you're getting this in January:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABo_u9P_3wQ&NR=1

I think the opening verbage in the next sequence may possibly be a double entendre, but it also contains Maggie Smith's eyes-out-on-sticks line:

What is a weekend?

[tommyboy]

I saw Maggie Smith in PRIVATE LIVES, what fun!

[Reginald Tresilian]

I can't wait!

[Scripps2]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey/index.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-04/downton-abbey-created-by-julian-fellowes-comes-to-masterpiece-on-pbs/

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/48776/

Most of the excerpts have been removed from Youtube prior to it's US premier but this has snuck through:


Someone should give this woman a Knickerbocker Glory.

[PalJoey]

It's tonight! Set your DVRs!

[JerseyGirl2]

Say what you will about Cher, but Tea With Mussolini is one of my favorites. What a spectacular cast!

[fflagg]

Give Maggie Smith the Emmy now. . .

[PalJoey]

Her befuddled look on "What is...a weekend?" is classic.

But in general, the writing and acting are on such a high level. Everyone is simultaneously charming and ruthless and no one is what they seem.

[NYadgal]

ADORE her.

Especially loved her in LETTICE AND LOVAGE.

Such brilliance.

[madbrian]

I've caught up on this miniseries, and what a delight it is. Maggie Smith is a joy, but the rest of the cast are also wonderful.

[Bluemoon]

I also caught up on my DVRed episodes this weekend and LOVE it. I wish it were a full season long, rather than the four episodes. However, I understand that a sequel is being filmed later on this year.

[PalJoey]

From this week's New York Magazine: Maggie Smith's best one-liners from the series.

A friend says: Missing from this list is "I feel as if I were onstage at the Gaiety!" as she recoils in horror from the electric chandelier
‘What Is a Weekend?’ and the Best Maggie Smith Quotes From Downton Abbey

[madbrian]

The magic of Smith is that those lines are not nearly as funny on paper as they are coming out of her mouth.

[Scripps2]

"I wish it were a full season long, rather than the four episodes."

It went out as seven hour long episodes in the UK.

I can't understand why they've truncated them to four, as each of the seven chunks felt an entity in its own right.

[PalJoey]

The 4 episodes are 90 minutes each here, and the breaks have been in odd places.