386 replies to this topic

[George Armstrong Custer]

This is what happened to George Harrison with 'My Sweet Lord'! Actually I'm flattered to have been thinking along similar lines to the talented Mr Hill. Perhaps a career as a TV comedy writer beckons - after all, my stuff on Haig has always elicited a disbelieving guffaw in response from the dull and ignorant....

George Cryer

[Steven Broomfield]

Are you referring to that nice Mr Haig, the Downton Estate butcher?

[George Armstrong Custer]

The very same - the man at the centre of the donkey meat rumours.

George

[Le_Treport]

It ISN'T just us! This from today's Tottygraph...

Dressing to kill
SIR – Why is driven game shooting in television dramas always full of errors? The Downton Abbey Christmas special apparently includes a pheasant shoot, and publicity shots have depicted the guns, presumably on their way to a drive.
The episode is set in 1919-20, but the guns are dressed in the garb of the 1890s. No driven game shot in the Twenties would have been seen wearing leather gaiters. All would have worn plus fours, stockings, leather boots and, possibly, light-coloured spats. This was even the dress in the early 1900s. Only loaders wore gaiters.
Matthew Crawley (photo, December 14) offers the appearance of a groom rather than a shooting man on a formal shoot.
Tony Jackson
Former editor, Shooting Times
Tatworth, Somerset

[Moonraker]

Well, I'm not going to be bothered by any of that and it's not going to affect my enjoyment or whatever of the Christmas special or the next series. And I don't suppose non-WWI enthusiasts were that bothered by some of the infelicities that we spotted.

There seems to be a general feeling at large that the second series was poorly composed. I'm still wondering about the disfigured Canadian officer, who came, made his case to be the rightful heir and then conveniently disappeared.

(Thought: perhaps the family conspired to dispose of him? Will all be revealed in the next series? Did they get Bates to do it, as he's already in the frame for knocking off his missus? Or was it the butler?)

Somewhere in the articles on TV viewing over the next fortnight there's a reference to a documentary about the making of "Downton Abbey", with a somewhat dismissive reference to the trenches that were used for the combat scenes.


Moonraker

Afterthought: the dismissive reference was not actually to the trenches but to the scenes portrayed there. I think that several of us agreed that the patrol scene (away from the trenches) was a bit naff.

[anneca]

Moonraker, on 18 December 2011 - 07:48 PM, said:

There seems to be a general feeling at large that the second series was poorly composed. I'm still wondering about the disfigured Canadian officer, who came, made his case to be the rightful heir and then conveniently disappeared.

(Thought: perhaps the family conspired to dispose of him? Will all be revealed in the next series? Did they get Bates to do it, as he's already in the frame for knocking off his missus? Or was it the butler?)



Moonraker

Yes, I too  wondered about the Canadian Officer, there one minute and gone the next, just as I was waiting for him to be 'crowned' the rightful heir!

[Moonraker]

[quote name='Moonraker' timestamp='1324237738' post='1682886']
... Somewhere in the articles on TV viewing over the next fortnight there's a reference to a documentary about the making of "Downton Abbey"...

Moonraker

The documentary is on ITV1 at 1930, tomorrow, Wednesday the 21st.


Moonraker

[Moonraker]

It was not so much "behind the scenes" as billed, but a "collection of scenes" from the previous series. It was quite interesting to see some of the actors as they really are, notably the cook.


Moonraker

[MartinBennitt]

Big wig wading in

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-16609589


cheers Martin B

[BottsGreys]

I'm no authority by any stretch, but I thought the influenza storyline in this week's episode very weak historically.  It is 1919, and a number of people in the household are stricken with the flu.  Now, by this point, the influenza pandemic had been raging, with ebbs and flows, for many months if not a full year.  While medical authorities did not necessarily totally understand the illness or how to effectively treat it, it had been long recognized that it was a contagion spread through contact between people.  However, when it strikes Downton, they don't quarantine the house--workmen and other outsiders come and go as they decorate for a wedding, no one puts on a mask which, although ineffective against a virus, were still all the rage at the time, members of the household who have undoubtedly been exposed to the virus make their usual trips into the local village--all this and the physician on hand is the former head of the local army hospital who presumably would by this point have had experience or training with methods of combating an outbreak and preventing its spread.

Chris

[Sue Light]

Deleted Downton - in which Edith finds true love

Sue

[Andy Wade]

Sue Light, on 17 February 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Deleted Downton - in which Edith finds true love

Sue

You naughty person Sue...