Downton Abbey

I've been watching Downton Abbey, the recent BBC miniseries that's now showing on PBS. We've had two episodes so far, out of four, and I'm quite enjoying the show.

In 1913, Hugh Bonneville is Lord Grantham, and when his two his two nearest heirs die, he's left when the question of whether to fight the entail of his estate. He has three daughters, but the estate is entailed on the male line, and the next male heir is a Manchester solicitor, resolutely middle class. The wonderful Maggie Smith is the dowager Lady Grantham, who, when someone mentions having to wait until the weekend, asks, "What is a weekend?" with perfect seriousness.

Like all the best stories about English country estates, there's as much drama downstairs as up. Mr. Bates is Lord Grantham's new valet, but he has a war injury which makes him unable to do some of the duties expected of him.

Period drama is nothing new for the BBC, but they do it so well we keep watching it. This is a great show no matter how many times this sort of story has been done, and I'm excited to see the second half.

Sherlock

When Sherlock first aired on the BBC last August, there was a lot of talk about it. I started the first episode, and didn't even get as far as meeting Sherlock before I decided I wasn't in the mood. I definitely stopped too soon. The show is created and written by Steven Moffat, the writer of Doctor Who, and Mark Gatiss, who also sometimes writes (and acts) for Doctor Who.

Sherlock is a modernized Sherlock Holmes. I've never read Sherlock Holmes, so I can't judge how it relates to the canon, but on it's own merit it's a fabulous show. There were only three 90-minute episodes, three more to come next fall. I'm super impatient.

The acting is lovely. Sherlock is mesmerizing. With the exceptions of the unfortunate Asian stereotyping in the second episode, the stories are great.

Some shows are sort of... impregnable. You can't take them and play with them, because they don't leave room for that. Sherlock, on the other hand, almost seems like it's written with fans in mind. Everyone takes a show or a book and contemplates how it might have gone differently, or what might have happened in between scenes. Sherlock both leaves this open and makes suggestions. For example, people assume Sherlock and Watson (we call him John, here) are gay hilariously often. The two have a great dynamic, whether or not you want to form theories about them.

So that's my latest television obsession.