Thursday, December 12, 2013

not downton abbey


It's hardly worth pointing out the obvious: that the setting of PBS's SoCal studio is a remarkably incongruous place in which to be discussing Downton Abbey.  All the same ... they set up the studio to make us look as though we were sitting in some elegant drawing room with DA through the window behind us - as compellingly fake as my face with an extraordinary amount of studio make up on top of it.  

This was a very different experience from a BBC broadcast - to my dismay, there was nothing remotely that could be thought of as analytic or critical discussion - I felt slightly as though I was selling my soul to an extended PBS trailer, in which all we were invited to do was to say Yes!  Gosh!  It was just like that in 1919, or whenever.  So all my intended comments had no space to be uttered, with the exception of my eulogy to the episode with the electric toaster - a stand-alone moment that will be slotted in during the run of the series 4.  Indeed, I was as bland as a blancmange, and slunk away depressed that I'd said nothing remotely pithy or interesting.

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