Looking forward to the 2011 t.v. season, for one particular show, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that we here in America will get to watch "Downton Abbey", the wildly popular pre-World War I drama which rivited British audiences in 2010 and ended up as the U.K.'s number one show for the year. The bad news is that we're too dumb to understand it..
PBS will air the drama in January as a part of its "Masterpiece" series, but execs at PBS have stated in interviews that the British mini-series will be edited for time and content because "American audiences might find it too complicated to understand". Ouch. In other words, the show has to be dumb-downed for us. Now people, that hurts.
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The costume drama stars Oscar winner Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville and Oscar nominee Elizabeth McGovern. Elizabeth McGovern, wow. Remember her from "Ordinary People" and "Ragtime" thirty years ago? At 49, she looks like she hasn't aged a day. "Downton Abbey" was written by Oscar winner, ("Gosford Park"), Julian Fellowes, who was also the writer of the unfortunate recent disaster, "The Tourist", starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, which might just win the Razzie Award for the worst movie of 2010. When asked about the comments that American audiences were too dumb to understand "Downton Abbey", he refused to comment. Smart man.
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We can't imagine why anyone would think that we can't follow a long, slow, intricate drama. Just because as a nation we're obsessed with the Palin/Kardashian brain trust, doesn't mean that we can't simultaneously walk and chew gum, right? Squirrel!
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