FEATURE FRIDAY | DOWNTON ABBEY

FEATURE FRIDAY | DOWNTON ABBEY

Welcome to another installment of Feature Friday, in which we share with you some of our favorite Movies & TV shows!  The week, Downton Abbey. When we first were dating one of the things we bonded over was chatting about some of our favorite shows.  We’ve found that is the same for a lot of our couples too!  So, every now and then, we will showcase a different movie or show and share some of the reasons why we recommend it and the things that we really like about it.  So be sure to tune in, check out some of our favorites, and maybe even turn it into a date night with your fiance!  Make dinner or order in and tune in to watch one of our favorites.

This week: Downton Abbey.

One of our great guilty pleasures is British TV.  Or, it would be if we felt guilty about it.  We don’t know whether to blame or thank our friends Jennifer and Nina for getting us into Doctor Who, but since then we’ve been hooked. Downton Abbey is just about the most British show there is.  Taking place in early 20th-Century England, it’s the story of the Grantham family and their staff.  It would be impossible to try and explain all of the characters and how they’re all interrelated, but it’s that tangled web that made the show so compelling for six seasons.

One of the show’s strong suits is how it can take relatively recent history and make it feel simultaneously relatable and utterly foreign.  Modern Americans have no frame of reference for what it’s like to be members of the ruling family in a feudal society that is rapidly moving away from the idea of lords and ladies and into a future of radio and automobiles.  But we can understand what it’s like to disappoint a parent, to fall in love with someone we shouldn’t, or to lose someone.  Setting those relatable stories against such an extravagant backdrop is just part of what makes Downton great. Downton is one of those shows where it can feel like, episode-to-episode, not a lot is happening.  But at the end of a story arc, you realize how much these characters have grown and how nothing can ever be the same for the.