Good to hear from you, Don. For a couple
of days there I was afraid the weather had taken you “off planet.”
Sorry to hear about the dishwasher and
the plumbing. Interestingly enough, our dishwasher shorted out in the “on”
position this week and filled the house with the smell of burning plastic, insulation,
and wiring. I now know what a house fire would smell like. Happily my husband
was able to disable the run away before it flooded the kitchen. We were really
lucky that it happened at night before we went to bed. Sorry yours leaked into
the basement.
You didn’t give me the answer to your
last riddle… yes, Tea is my answer.
Okay, onto the title of today’s blog. This
is not a “spoiler”, Fellowes already did that.
We (my husband and I and friends) “were”
ardent watchers of Downton Abby. And we’ve patiently waited for season 4 to
start. We thrilled that Mary finally came to her senses and that Mary and Tom joined
forces and were going to move Downton forward into the 1920s and 1930s. Second
episode of the season, The Rape. It was not only the Rape of Anna, a much loved
by many character, but it was also the rape of Tom by the new house maid and the
rape of the audience by the writer and director.
Kurt Vonnegut laid out the
responsibility of the writer: be a good date, take the reader someplace
interesting, maybe unexpected, but treat the reader with respect. We have
endured much with this show – good villains that you love to hate, the death of
two popular characters, the jailing of Bates, Edith left at the alter now
involved with a married man, World War I… The second episode of the 4th
season did not treat the audience with respect.
The brutal attack of Anna smacked of
sensationalism, a move toward “shock drama”. Fellowes and the director were
able to put into application one of Hitchcock’s finest methods of suspense –
show as much as is necessary and then let the audience’s imagination take over
and fill in the missing pieces. The imagination will produce something that is
far scarier than anything that can be shown on film.
At first I wondered if it was because I’m
American and have a culturally built in aversion to anything that doesn’t have
a somewhat happy ending (the Disney effect). It
appears, through other blogs and comments by audience members worldwide, that
we cared more for the characters than Fellowes does.
Writers in the past have grown to hate
the characters that feed them: Nevada Barr and her character Ann Pigeon for example.
Pigeon, in the last couple of books, ended up so beaten up, mauled, that we
could no longer read the series. Agatha Christy admitted to disliking Hercule
Poirot and in the later stories, Poirot was sent off on travels that he
absolutely hated. But Christy at least continued to give Poirot the ability to
stand up for himself and solve the crime. Fellowes denied Anna that. 
Has Fellowes grown so tired of the
popular couple (Bates and Anna) that he feels compelled to not only test them
to the extreme, but he also has to test the audience’s love for them? Or was
Fellowes making an assumption that because we hear about stuff like this on the
news and we watch horror films we could take it? Is it just a comment that says
that sort of thing happened a lot back then – and still does?
There is an issue with “group think” –
where one strong personality in the group can get everyone else in the group to
go along with what they have intended. We see it a lot with experienced skiers
in the back country crossing avalanche runs or in the board room of companies
embarking on a new campaign. There might be someone in the group who disagrees,
but the leaders of the group are strong enough that pressure is applied and all
group members comply – whether or not the action is right or wrong, good or
bad. Is this what happened with the producers of Downton? Didn’t anyone object
to this turn into base soap opera for the sake of drama?
So while we as an audience get to
question the length and breadth of Bate’s love for Anna, I trust that Fellowes is
now questioning whether the audience’s love for Downton will be enough to put up
with trash. I pre-ordered the UK dvd version and am now seeking to find a way to
cancel it. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
So the new chant I’m opting for [instead
of “Free Bates”] should be “Jail the writer and the producers!” Fellowes is a
lousy date!
The riddle cave!
Multiple uses
Pictures, stories, taxes
Letters to be remembered
Music to be played
Fits on a keychain
Is small enough for a pocket
Large enough to
Save your life
Plug it in
Sigh with relief
It is all still there
Just a reminder! Wormhole Electric Transport 27 is
available! Check out Ariel’s newest, and I think her best, story about the
airlands; Jack and Lisa are putting the final screws to their characters!
Have a great week, everyone. And Don, good luck with the plumbing!
Images imported from Google Images
Fig 1 – Crazy Dishwasher retrieved from
meanderingsooziii.blogspot.com
Fig 2 – Kathryn Rathe: Kurt Vonnegut
retrieved from www.theispot.com
Fig 3 – Hitchcock quotes retrieved from www.famousquotes.com/alfred-hitchcock.html
Fig 4 – Nevada Barr retrieved from www.goodreads.com
Fig 5 – Downton Abby Season 4 episode 2
retrieved from blog.zap2it.com
T27 cover by Larry Varvel
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