Downton Abbey

UPDATE: Five episodes in, it occurs to me that this is just a really well written, well acted soap opera. And to my dismay, I'm hooked.

***

Recently I read a news story about some new agreement in the United Kingdom, whereby somebody's video catalog would be streamed on somebody's service. Only the good citizens of the U.K. were all upset because Downton Abbey wasn't to be included. 

That's everything I knew about Downton Abbey, but of course it sounded much higher class than, say, Real Housewives of New Jersey, if you were going to be fanatical about a TV show. So the next time I played with my Roku, I decided to watch Downton Abbey. 

Aside: Lady Mary is Susan Sto Helit! I can't help liking her!

Of course I love the show. I was hooked when I saw Elizabeth McGovern and Maggie Smith in the opening credits. So here I am, posting about a damn TV show. 

Two of them, actually: I think I should start watching Dr. Who. But the Classic Season 1 starts with Episode 27, which seems ... random, but maybe that's a good thing. I've never been big on reading books in order, so why should I watch a show (about TIME TRAVEL) in any particular order? 

Anyway, do you recommend the Classic or the 2005 series for a beginner? 

And if I start watching Dr. Who and going to game nights, will I become fluent in Nerdish? 

Also ... I've been sucked into the world of audiobooks by my scheming niece, who asked to listen to C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair on a long drive a couple of weeks ago. By the end of the trip, I wanted to continue listening to the story as read by Jeremy Northam. I was pretty sure I could find the Chronicles of Narnia, even at the Staunton Library of Romance and Westerns, but I didn't want to read it, I wanted to hear it. (Santa obliged, and I did get to hear the end of the story.) 

More Nerdishness, I guess. <refuses to resist>. Jeremy Northam has quite a list of audiobook credits, including some Henry James. Another new path beckons. 

Comments

[BigBrother]

Well done audio books are compelling, even if you've read the books. I once visited a friend whose rommates had acquired a full set of the Lord of The Rings on open-reel tapes. Part of the regular evening entertainment was to listen to a chapter each night. Wow! They had no TV and didn't want one. I think it was even better since we weren't driving anywhere, and had no distractions or interruptions.
We have Winnie the Pooh on cassette tapes, read by Lionel Jeffries. He was a master of mimicing accents, so Kanga and Roo sound Australian (mature woman, young boy) and Tigger has an Indian accent (as in Bengal).
Reading requires a part of the brain to convert squiggles on paper to words and sentences. Video leaves little to one's own imagination. Audio presents the story, but requires that the listener's imagination fill in the details. No graphic artist is likely to create anything as scary as the listener's imagination does when hearing how the Lady in Green turns into an enormous snake.