If you're still down on Downton Abbey, how has it been for you lately?

I am getting frustrated with it although I am addicted. This was such a manipulative development although I know that the actor wanted out of the show. I also found it really odd in the previous episode that they kept Barrow on and promoted him. It seemed a very unlikely thing to happen. I did love the Mrs. Patmore subplot and I always love Bates and Anna but I do get mad at the plotting at times.

I pretend to hate it but cannot resist watching…if for nothing else than the clothes, hairdos and the concept of having someone else dress, groom and coif me three times a day. I shudder but remain fascinated.

The depiction of holiday in the castle in the Scottish moors was also absorbing. If a man, I would have been obliged to dress in more really uncomfortable but special clothes, slog up and down dale for 10 hours, and then have the ghillie do everything but pull the trigger for me so I could bring down a magnificent and noble buck. And imagine being piped into meals. Probably didn’t help the digestion.

The spoilers about Dan Stevens were everywhere…I expected to see them on a banner dragged by a plane in my “hood. He was clear and vocal about leaving the show…ditto for the young actress who played Sybil. Dame Maggie would also have left if she had been offered a more interesting part, which, sadly, she was not.

Lady Mary has such a perfect body for those marvelous clothes!!

@janbb: Annoying, isn’t it? I bet she never even leaked milk either over her crêpe de chine bed jackets, assuming that she even considered nursing.

Call me shallow and odd. But I fell in love with that magnificent huge carpet in green and yellow(?) in the main hall. : )

@janbb & yes, you too @gailcalled Do you get Mr.Selfridge yet over there & if so, what do you think of it?
I only ask because the wife loves it, not my thing at all.

@ucme. Not that I know of. It certainly doesn’t sound familiar.

There are now reruns of Doc Martin from 6:00 to 7:00PM on Saturdays, not a hot time to attract TV audiences. But that is a series that I loved.

i watched them all last year on DVDs. Now I am engrossed in MIdsomer Murders, also available on DVD’s from my interlibrary loan system

@gailcalled I really enjoyed Doc Martin too.

@janbb I’ll take that as a no then~
@gailcalled I just checked & apparently it’s on PBS, whatever that is.

@ucme You’re quick on the uptake for a Northerner. I’ll look out for it though.

I was not at all happy with the latest tragedies. This time, though, it almost seems like the show has jumped the shark which is too bad, because it was fantastic, while it was fantastic.

@ucme: PBS is Public Broadcasting System, a non-commercial, partially listener-supported TV network which gives us all the lovely stuff from the BBC. Ancient reruns of “Are You Being Served” to “Downton Abbey.”

Apparently, “Mr. Selfridge” is coming to our PBS in late March. I was just able to watch a preview. The production values look wonderful (albeit Downton leftovers) but I dislike Jeremy Piven as an actor.

Thanks for the heads-up however.

@gailcalled Yet the show I mentioned is on ITV, a channel funded entirely by commercial means…a change in output perhaps?
Yeah, no problem, although it’s courtesy of the wife really.

@gailcalled & @janbb I was so addicted to Doc Martin. They should be filming a sixth season soon.

I heartily recommend Call the Midwife to those in need of a British series to watch!

^^ I love Call the Midwife.

^^ Oh – me too!

^^^ And me.

@glacial: A Sixth season of Doc Martin? With the same cast? That would be wonderful. I thought that TPTB had declared final wrap?

@gailcalled No, they’ve been promising a sixth since the end of the fifth series. According to Wikipedia, they’re due to start shooting this spring, with all the regulars. My fingers are crossed, anyway!

Yes, I am. I was so mad on Sunday night. If our family were in a cartoon, all the birds in the neighborhood would have flown away when I screamed at the TV. The worst part of it was I saw it coming. They played up his happiness too much.

I still haven’t seen all of season 2, though, so I’m looking forward to finally getting it from Netflix.

@glacial: That’s is cheering news. NIce that Martin Clunes sitll has the energy to revisit the series. The young woman who plays Louisa (Caroline Catz) is now appearing on a detective series about DCI Alan Banks that is showing on PBS here on Thurs. nights.

@gailcalled Thanks, I’ll have to check that out!

I still love Downton Abbey, but the writing is totally off in la-la land. It’s like when you start eating a bag of chips, and then guiltily finish the whole thing and hate yourself. I’m not talking about little individual-sized chips bags, either.

It’s like Lost. I think the writers are completely winging it at this point, and there have been plenty of implausible, manipulative, over the top plot developments. But, fucking hell, I’m still watching it.

Oh fuck, Oh dear!

Just finished season 3 and I have only one person at work to talk to about it. I was so mad about redacted for spoilers… friend said “wait, wait… it gets better.”

LIAR!

So very wrong. I wanted to throw things (but it’s a new TV)

Wonderfully addictive show. Don’t fall in love with any characters, you’ll be crushed.
(metaphor for real life)

@Blueroses Having seen Season 3 some time ago, I wondered when the North American viewers would catch up! It was so hard to keep from giving spoilers in the moment!

@glacial: If I’ve got my seasons straight, we have already seen season 3, also some time ago.

There was a shocking spoiler in the last 40 seconds of the last episode, no?

I tried to watch “Mr.Selfridge” and found the writing banal and silly and the acting, particularly that of Jeremy Piven, so bad that my teeth ached.

@gailcalled Ah! I haven’t been keeping up with the US air dates. But yes, it looks like they finally aired it in January-February.

I was thinking of taking a look at Selfridge, after a few jellies recommended it, but I’ve never been a fan of Jeremy Piven… perhaps I should give it a miss!

@glacial “Mr Selfridge” was truly abominable. As @gailcalled says, banal and terribly acted: I only watched 15 minutes of the first episode. “Call the Midwife”, however, is very good.

Actually, the download was available before the entire season aired here.

I am distraught! Didn’t he go through enough??? Why, oh why?

I’m angry at the writers. And yet, I’m glad at least, that one story had a good resolution… and don’t get me started on how I feel about Ethel and Thomas and James… And sweet Daisy

@Blueroses I was upset and felt hard done by too!

@janbb I love Call the Midwife.

@Blueroses That’s how I saw it.

@glacial and @janbb I’m looking up Call the Midwife.

I need a great Britshow!

I loved Doc Martin and Kingdom which ended… well it just ended. I want closure there

@Blueroses Ah, you will love it! Doc Martin is a favourite, too.

Update: @glacial and @janbb

I’m hooked on Call the Midwife.

Excellent.

Cool!

Finished Call the Midwife and it is wonderful!

I’m hooked on a new Brit discovery, “Larks Rise to Candleford”. At least 3 seasons are available through Amazon streaming and it features a younger looking and magnetic Brendan Coyle (John Bates from Downton)

Thanks, @Blueroses – I’ll check that out.

I watched Kingdom this spring. I thought it was just ok. I love Stephen Fry dearly, but it seemed to be a bit of a copy of Doc Martin, and yet the stories were not as compelling.