thy name is lewis
Oct. 3rd, 2010 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosa_cottonSo I've just discovered the great Inspector Lewis. I read reviews and recaps of the series on Masterpiece at austenprose.com, finding them interesting despite never having watched any of the series...until now. “Dark Matter” with its combination of a intrigue-sounding murder and Holst’s “The Planets” (one of my favorite compositions of classical music) finally lured me into checking out the Inspector, and I was not disappointed. A very good episode which kept me guessing until the end, with a wonderful cast — loved Robert Hardy (Sir John from the Emma Thompson S&S) and Sophie Ward. And I heart the duo Lewis and Hathaway make. Now I must make time to watch the rest of previous episodes. Wahoo!
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Date: 2010-10-04 11:15 pm (UTC)It's set in Edwardian England and basically, Lord Robert Grantham has three daughters, Mary, Edith and Sybill and then then his brother James and James' son Patrick die on the Titanic which means there's no longer a direct male heir and the estate is entailed to a middle-class third cousin called Matthew Crawley.
Robert's wife Cora, an American heiresss whose fortune was tied to the Downton estate upon marriage, is deeply unhappy with this as Patrick was supposed to marry Mary so that Cora's grandchildren would inherit her money. Cora joins forces with Robert's mother, the Dowager Countess Violet Grantham (played by the imcomparable Maggie Smith), to plot to break the entail so that Matthew would get the title but Mary the money and estate.
Meanwhile, Matthew who is a lawyer from Manchester and very overwhelmed by all this, and his mother Isobel who is absolutely wonderful, have to deal with a household who don't particularly want them and a complete change in lifestyle.
The servants are also awesome; there's Daisy, the sweet but simple kitchen girl, Anna, the wise and good-natured head house-maid and Bates, who I adore but who keeps getting bullied by the other footmen because he needs a stick to walk. :( And Carson, the lovably pompous butler who is blatantly in love with Miss Hughes, the sensible and matronly Scottish housekeeper. Also, Thomas the footman and Miss O'Brian who is Cora's maid, both of whom are very unpleasant and scheming and create lots of drama.
So far, I'm shipping Robert/Cora (he married her her furtune but then fell in love with her anyway, and rightly so because Cora is kind of awesome), Bates/Anna, Carson/Mrs Hughes, AND my current OTP is Mary/Matthew. Because they are so utterly determined not to like each other because that would make it too easy for all the people tugging at their strings and Mary and Matthew do not do easy, damnit!
Plus, on a purely shallow level, they'd look so good together.
Two episodes in and I'm already in love. *Sighs*
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-20 01:10 pm (UTC)The three sisters are all quite different - Mary, the eldest, is like Elizabeth Bennet but more aloof and reserved, the middle sister Edith is like Mary Bennet but more bitter and (tbh) bitchy and Sybill is the Jane Bennet of the family, sweet and gentle, but the beloved baby rather than the first-born ... and more assertive than Jane. Whatever the Crawley girl's flaws, they all have their fair share of backbone.
In any case, dear Sybill is pretty much perfection - her latest projects include helping the housemaid Gwen with her dreams of leaving service to become a secretary, trying to convince her parents to send her to a real school instead of having a governess and shyly flirting with the Irish chauffeur Branson over political pamphlets and rallies - it's been pretty strongly implied that if she isn't a suffragette already, she'll be one by the end of the series.
Plus, Matthew and Mary held hands last week. It was very cute. *flails*
Also!
Date: 2010-10-20 01:13 pm (UTC)Epically lovely ad for it.