Two ecosystems exist in parallel at Downton. One is upstairs led by a bumbling patriarch Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, a benevolent aristocrat modern enough to use electricity and telephones and even sleep in the same bed with his respectably cunning American wife. He is prideful in his occupation, calling the management of the estate his “life’s work”. His dowager countess mother, played by Maggie Smith, is a nippy semblance of old money and British wit as to provide some remarkable one-liners. “What is a weekend?” she genuinely asks of an upper middle-class lawyer. His three daughters are worldly, eloquent and mostly beautiful. The dowry-bearing first-born, Mary, is most exquisite, at least until she gallivants (to put it cleanly) with a Turk who ends up dying in her bed. (Aside – I must squeeze in another stomach spluttering quotation by Maggie Smith: “No Englishman would *dream* of dying in someone else's house - especially somebody they didn't even know.”) The middle sister is a radical free spirit, interested in politics, fashion, feminism and anything modern and keeps out of the courting limelight, though she herself is quite sought after. The youngest is a green-eyed monster but takes what is coming to her, in both senses of the phrase.
Downstairs, the hierarchy is just as pronounced. Servants must stand when head Butler, a scrupulous and honour-driven Charlie Carson enters the room. They are mostly proud of their occupation but question whether their blind order-taking is fit for the ensuing era. One contemplates marrying a farmer; another applies to be a receptionist. There is quite a bit of politics and backstabbing not unlike the state upstairs. But I personally just don’t find the story downstairs as riveting.
This all happens on the dawn of World War I, not a hundred years from today. It is a turbulent time for aristocracy. Indeed, WWI was preluded with the death of King Edward and a funeral procession that included “five heirs apparent, forty or more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens-four dowager and three regnant.” It began with the assassination of an archduke and ended with dissolution of no less than four empires. With the industrial revolution closing the inequity gap and Marxist leanings taking over, it is hard not to sympathize with nobility.
And while this is not a show to scoff at the rich; it also does not look down on the poor. If anything it might suggest that as different as upstairs and downstairs might seem, they are remarkably similar. A classist Mary first speaks unkindly to her suitor for the sole reason that he must work for a living but besottedly receives a most romantic kiss. Yet only after he turns ridiculously wealthy does she accept his marriage proposal, one that he reneges in what must be the saddest scene in the first season. You might judge the well-to-do here but to the credit of the series, it is very believable and innocent. A similar love story develops between war-wounded valet Bates and head housemaid Anna, two genuinely selfless and uncalculating (unlike above) individuals but run into problems with some luggage from Bates’s past. And kudos to Emmy nominated Brendan Coyle, who plays this downtrodden character with no desire for pity but only an unequivocal sense of nobility.
This is the most successful British television to have ever aired, picking up the most number of Emmy nominations for a show in its category. It surely deserves them. It has an incongruent ensemble cast but manages to give each character a heart, a meaning in life, and a role in society (however unfair it may be). And the truly refreshing piece is that it doesn't make it seem all that unfair after all.