Christine Baranski welcomes us to Old New York in The Gilded Age
The opening to The Gilded Age plays like Downton Abbey almost beat for beat.
TV Reviews The Gilded Age
Agnes van Rhijn: You are my niece, and you belong to old New York.
When Downton Abbey crossed the pond to PBS in 2011, the truncated form it arrived in—edited down from seven episodes to four—was a sign of how little Masterpiece expected of the winter-filler acquisition. Instead, it changed the entire PBS landscape. It also generated a spinoff announcement at its height. The Gilded Age, an 1880s New York set prequel from series creator Julian Fellowes, was set for NBC (producer Carnival Films is owned by NBCUniversal), telling the story of the wealthy Cora Levinson and her engagement to fortune-hunter Lord Grantham.
A Downton Abbey clone was never a good fit for NBC, though, and it sat for years in development hell before executive Bob Greenblatt left for HBO, taking the project with him. The pandemic then delayed the show again, making it an entire decade from that 2012 announcement to the final product. Meanwhile, Fellowes attempted two other projects, Belgravia and The English Game, neither of which came close to capturing the Downton magic.
Those failures may explain the opening to The Gilded Age, which plays like Downton almost beat for beat. Instead of a train across the English countryside, horse-drawn carriages speed across a sheep-infested Central Park, and the mail arrives bearing bad news, not a telegram. But the downstairs scene in the kitchen between cook and butler could be Lesley Nichols’ Mrs. Patmore and Jim Carter’s Carson instead of Kristine Nielsen’s Mrs. Bauer and Simon Jones’ Bannister, and it would not make a difference.
The Gilded Age’s premiere runs nearly as long as the 90-minute PBS-edited version of Downton’s opening episode, a full hour and twenty minutes, creating the same sense of elongated introduction to the ensemble. The initial Cora-centric idea was abandoned for a more Shakespearean one, two houses, both alike in dignity, etc. In short order, viewers are introduced to them, sitting across the street next to Central Park. One is the long-established home of old-money widow Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and her spinster sister, Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon). The other is a just-built mansion moved into by the new-money Russells, George (Morgan Spector) and Bertha (Carrie Coon).
The show also introduces Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson). Her father, Henry, just inconveniently died, leaving her all of $30 and no choice but to leave her Pennsylvania home and throw herself upon the mercy of Aunts Agnes and Ada in NYC. Her late father’s lawyer, Tom Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel), is a potential suitor. However, the Russells’ son Larry (Harry Richardson) is obviously love interest number two, despite his mother’s lofty ambitions to marry him to someone of higher stature like Caroline Astor (Amy Forsyth). Agnes’ son Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) also seemed smitten by Marian, but the Matthew-and-Mary vibes are a deliberate red herring, as he’s in love with John Adams IV (Claybourne Elder).
However, despite his mother’s instant hatred of the new neighbors, Oscar recognizes that Gladys Russell (Taissa Farmiga) is the monetarily smart match. His predatory eye suggests he’ll be over there like a shot as soon as she makes her debut into society.
Bertha says she’s holding out on Gladys’ debut because it should be part of the Russells’ first official ball. However, Gladys may be in her mid-20s before that happens; Bertha is in for a rough ride to break into society. When she and Gladys attend the charity fundraiser held by Mrs. Fane (Kelli O’Hara), the hostess is almost comically terrified that someone will notice. Bertha’s open house is a disaster as nearly the whole of society ignores the invitations she spent hours personally delivering. At least Marian sneaks over to see the inside of the Russell house in a Beauty and the Beast-like ballgown, officially befriending both Larry and Gladys along the way.
Marian also picked up a BFF on the way to New York, Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), who rescues Marian when her purse is stolen. There’s a (long needed) movement in period pieces to show the Black perspective. Peggy’s lead status puts The Gilded Age on the same footing as Sanditon, Grantchester, and others that have recognized these all-white worlds are historically false. Miss Scott’s role is also quickly upgraded from “random BFF people mistake for the maid” to “Agnes’ secretary” in less than 45 minutes, cementing the show’s plans to keep telling that story. It remains to be seen how comfortable the series is in going deep into this unexplored side of period dramas. However, the scene on the train and Peggy meeting her mother Dorothy (Audra McDonald) in an all-Black establishment gives hope The Gilded Age will screw its nerve to the sticking place and keep going.
But Miss Scott’s story also highlights an issue all shows that followed in Downton’s wake have struggled with: How to make people care about downstairs. Downton’s downstairs crew introduced the household through their eyes, so fans cared about them before they cared about upstairs. But this was a rare feat since most plot drivers come from above. Though the racist microaggressions Peggy encounters are far from easy to watch (and they’re not supposed to be), the scenes help immediately define the van Rhijn downstairs set for viewers through a set of eyes not usually given a perspective in these series. In contrast, the Russells’ downstairs team is far less interesting, a major letdown since the upstairs story on that side of the street is, so far, the far superior one.
Stray Observations
- In most Fellowes’ stories, families like the Russells, the lot that buys it rather than inherits it, are the antagonists. But in American storytelling, especially in the post-Civil War period, it’s the capitalists who we revere. The tension between these competing dynamics is one of the things that makes this first episode tick.
- On that same note, Carrie Coons’ Bertha comes in like a Fellowes’ antagonist, but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for her as she runs into the societal brick wall by the end of the episode.
- You may or may not have picked up on the resemblance, but newcomer Louisa Jacobson is Meryl Streep’s daughter.
- I know I’m supposed to care about George’s train business, but currently, those scenes mainly exist so one can marvel about offices with six-foot-tall fireplaces.
- This show’s smart choice was to understand the character fans loved the most in Downton Abbey was the house itself. The swooping camera shots of the Russells’ wide curved staircases, gilt-edged paneled walls, massive crystal chandeliers, gorgeous stained glass windows, and the sumptuously upholstered furniture are *chef’s kiss*
- The van Rhijns’ house is less modernized and does not lend itself to quite the same period real estate porn. However, the camera takes every opportunity to frame the actors from a wider shot to afford viewers long looks at the bookcases, the well-turned furniture, and the portraiture that decorates the walls.
- My gods, these costumes. I would watch this for Bertha’s outfits alone.
- My sainted aunt, these HATS. I believe I may have died for the tall blue sail perched upon Carrie Coon’s updo.
- The show claims these houses are located at 5th Ave and 61st, but most street scenes were filmed upstate in Troy, NY, just outside Albany, and are CGI composites. Sorry, no Highclere Castle tours for this show.
91 Comments
Agnes, Bertha and Gladys—it all sounds like those odd British names they give for organ meat.
As someone who grew up around them , those are perfectly cromulent names.(seriously though I actually have an aunt Gladys , and know a few Agnes’s)
Don’t know an Agnes, but Gladys’s were common as muck when I was a kid.
For extra confusion, there was also a Welsh variant. Gwladys.
Those names were quite common in the U.S.
They’re not very common now, but also aren’t unheard of.Years ago, I worked for my university’s housing office, handling freshman housing placement among other things. Most of it was handled by an algorithm but we had to make some manual choices for reasons. This is how Agnes and Agnes became roommates.
Is this coming to HBO Max? I didn’t see it in the coming soon lineup.
Yes, today (Monday).
Thanks. Just checked it and it’s there now. Still weird that they wouldn’t list it in the coming soon tab though.
Stanford White as a supporting character hopefully means more architecture porn occasionally.
Speaking of Stanford White, Milos Forman’s “Ragtime” feature from 1981 was quite the movie.
It’s also the only film featuring both James Cagney and Samuel L. Jackson. (Seriously, check out the film’s cast. It’s wild).
And frequent actual porn of him giving various socialites vigourous dickings. And then getting shot at the theatre, Abe Lincoln-stylee. Oh, er, yeah, spoilers, I guess, for a century-old murder.
Note how he ogled the teenage daughter. Shades of scandal to come, for Mr. White.
Judging by the very long Cynthia Nixon monologue (and subsequent ferry scene) highlighting the difficulty of cross-Hudson river travel in INCREDIBLY specific detail, the fact that Russell is a railroad magnate, and some Very Fancy Blueprints getting unfurled in the “this season on” preview, one must conclude that we’re going to get plans for the McKim, Mead, and White-designed Penn Station, which would be the ultimate architecture porn. That station’s needless and foolish destruction in the 60s to make way for the rat’s nest that awkwardly squats in its place to this day basically gave birth to the entire preservationist movement.
Penn Station won’t get built until the early 1900s, but plans were in the works during this time and put off by a series of financial panics in the 1880s and 1890s, which will also likely be fodder for the show.
would really love to be out of the grays on this one, mods!
As mentioned, it’s a near complete clone of Downton Abbey, right down to the score. Ultra-wealthy, new money pained by not being accepted by ultra-wealthy old money (seriously—crying one’s self to sleep because the neighbors didn’t show up for your housewarming). Oh, and a Black woman as a secretary. Upstairs-downstairs. Secret gay lovers. It just lands as so tone deaf and dated in 2022 and I’m not at all surprised to learn that it was conceived a decade ago. Of course it’s got set and costume design but that’s about it. It was even worse than I feared and I definitely won’t go back. YMMV. I’m disappointed this is what’s getting a weekly recap in these times.
It’s a classic “We can’t show British stuff to Americans without Americanisin’ it first” scenario.I hope Matt LeBlanc shows up.
He’s the chaffeur.
“Heeeeeey how you doin’ ..maam” ?“IMPUDENCE!!!!”
Which, particularly when it comes to race, really really doesn’t work.
It works for 56% of voting Americans who hate masks and consent.
I mean, Downton Abbey was a huge success before this?
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Valet: “Gentleman, may I introduce Washington Roebling, engineer of the new Brooklyn Bridge.” Roebling: “Eh! How YOU doin’?
I was one of the few that hated Downton Abbey so good to know I should not give this a try. I could never have any sympathy for Mary and her absolute cruelty and the fact the show tried to convince that she deserved any made me give up fairly quickly.
That isn’t even the worst of this mess. The acting is wooden and the plotting predictable. Long spells of exposition left my attention wandering. If folks like this kind of thing they should just read some Edith Wharton or Henry James (or even E.M. Forster).
Agreed. I have seen three episodes now, and it is the acting that bothers me, especially the weak center (the poor relation whose big problem now consists of having to adapt to all that free money and snippy people, oh no). The problems of Peggy are much more interesting to build a show around.
In fairness, there’s a difference between “my neighbors didn’t show up for dinner” and “I invited 200 people and only 2 people came.”
I was never interested in Downton Abbey even a tiny little bit. But I would watch this for Carrie Coon alone, and now that I know Taissa Farmiga is the daughter, I am sold.
Carrie CoonOr, as she’s known in Australia, Carrie Cheer.
Julian Fellows is like the Wackowskis, he created something that one time that captured the zeitgeist and has never come close to repeating it, and is now literally trying to repeat what worked the first time. Downton was really only “good” season 1 and some of season 2 before it became overcome with ridiculous melodrama.
“Are you willing to pay premium streaming/cable prices for Masterpiece Theater-quality television? If so, The Gilded Age might be for you.”
I actually might be as I like a lot of those types of imports but not as one of a finite number of prestige HBO shows where it’s theoretically displacing something that I might like more and wouldn’t be done or done as well elsewhere. There are way too many decent-to-good series out there that I don’t mind just skipping things like this but it’s mostly the opportunity cost of this for me.
I’m ambivalent. I ended up really liking The Nevers , which I absolutely expected to hate.But I’ve been disappointed with The Gilded Age so far. It feels more like cosplay than a prestige historical drama—I studied 19th century American lit, and so far the series’ understanding of turn-of-the-century American history/culture is shaky at best.
The Circle, Brooklyn, N.Y. c1904. https://www.loc.gov/item/2008679667/
I have a little bit different take on this, and an admittedly myopic one.I have never seen Downton Abbey, so I lack that entire frame of reference.Maybe it’s because I suffer from PTSD, but I was very triggered by the Christine Baranski character. Her smug superiority reminded me of Fox News hostess Laura Ingraham. I am pretty sure that Laura Ingraham is the antichrist.I couldn’t get through the whole thing because I was so badly affected by the hateful, detestable Agnes.This is no reflection on the acting, the writing, the costumes, or the real estate porn.
Baranski is an explicit expy for Caroline Astor, with Carrie Coons’s family the stand-in for the Vanderbilts(for those who aren’t aware, Caroline Astor was a huge snob and represented old money NYC and ruled the social scene with an iron fist and blackballed new money families from the social scene of the elites. the Vanderbilts were her mortal enemy as they represented the new money entering the city and ultimately, the Vanderbilts managed by force of will made the Astors invite them into the fold of the elites and their social scene)Also, I don’t see the Downtown Abby vibe. The servants are basically ciphers and it’s clear that Peggy (who’s conversation with her mom makes me wonder if she’s going to be subjected to a “father is molesting her” storyline to explain why she’s estranged from her parents) is going to be the only real “poor person” POV. Also, it’s clear that the main characters are going to be the families of Coons and Baranski and the hanger on suitors. That said, it’s still better than 90% of the garbage that has graced HBO these last couple of years and hopefully we get multiple seasons of it.
You don’t cast Michael Cerveris to play a dull cipher, so I imagine his valet character (too lazy to look up the name) will get some plot and backstory at some point.
I used to work in a pet store in Huntington, Long Island. It was there when I first got to see the Old Money/New Money dynamic play out. Old Money, usually an old, snooty woman, treated us like shit. New Money, usually younger people in their 30’s and 40’s were nice to us and didn’t act like their shit didn’t stink. I’ve had the priviledge of seeing both encounter each other at the checkout. The Old Money literally shrank away from the New Money like they were carrying the plague and would talk shit about them when they left.
My first real introduction was in college, and actually had the opposite experience. You could barely tell that the old money people had wealth, while those whose dads had made the family fortune (with “fortune” sometimes in air quotes) flaunted it every chance they got.
I think the Downton Abbey comparison is accurate in that all the same characters are represented. Hateful housemaid (Coon’s maid), closeted gay character, dowager type resisting change (Baranski), …. And i’m here for all of it. I also love the time period. The costumes and set designs are delightful. And given the Astor vs Vanderbilt story line, I expect to see Coon marrying her daughter off to a title english lord to move her up in social standing.
Vanderbilt University was founded in 1883, probably to shove it up the Astors’ asses.And today do the Astors have a top-20 university or an anchor on CNN? They do not.
I found it odd that those actual people are also depicted in the show (Caroline Astor already shows up and Ms. Vanderbilt is mentioned).
I was getting a strong “baby out of wedlock, boyfriend the parents didn’t approve of” vibe from Peggy’s conversation with her mother, actually.
OK, now I get it. The Vanderbilts and the Astors!
You were so “badly affected” by a fictional character who reminded you of a person in reality you feel is the “anti-Christ”?Get a grip.
Check out Anderson Cooper’s book “Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty” for an excellent deep dive about the Vanderbilts (his mom’s family) and the Astors. It’s fascinating.
So far so good, but it needs just that little bit more Age Of Innocence/Edith Wharton.
Some of the same filming locations: Cinema Sunday: Age Of Innocence | The New York State Museum (nysed.gov)
I’m not surprised they had to film elsewhere since, you know, those Central Park houses ceased to exist probably 100 years ago.
I really enjoyed this. Downton was one of my favorite shows so I’m here for another workout of that formula, in another interesting historical time and place, with a superior cast even. I don’t even mind the regressive elements of Fellowes’s sensibility, I just love the gentle, low-stakes nature of his shows, and how much they are devoted to people simply being kind to one another.I thought Jacobson was excellent. The downstairs is pretty undercooked so far but you have to figure Michael Cerveris will be given an interesting role at some point.
If only that can find an excuse to get him into a musical number with Audra McDonald, Donna Murphy and Christie Baransky.Seriously, with this cast is should just be Gilded Age: The Musical.
Don’t forget Tony winners Kelli O’Hara and Celia Keenan-Bolger, as well as Claybourne Elder who is currently starring in the Broadway revival of Company!
Cora Levinson (born 1868~)is the one marrying Lord Grantham. Her mother is Martha and she married Isidore a man from Cincinnati and a merchant (This from downtown abbey)Now, I don’t recognize a single name and i remember that the widowed Levinson goes to NY as a widow with 2 children.How is the Gilded Age going to link with Downtown Abbey?
It’s not. They tossed it being a Downton prequel early in development.
It’s only link is the Gilded Age is when the American heiresses went to Europe and rescued the impoverished nobles and their estates.
Any interesting sources where I can read more about this?
A great documentary on the Gilded Age is the PBS American Experience episode, The Gilded Age. You can watch the full episode on Youtube. Fwiw American Experience is just overall an excellent watch. Fair warning: there are 34 seasons of American Experience so you could go down a rabbit hole there and not surface for weeks.There’s lots of info out there about the “dollar princesses”. I’d just google dollar princesses and see what comes up. I know Smithsonian Channel has a whole series of docs narrated by Elizabeth McGovern, but I can’t vouch for how good it is. But it will probably be fairly accurate. Some of the most famous heiresses are Jennie Jerome Churchill (Mother of Winston), Consuelo Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill, who became the Duchess of Marlborough (a very big deal), and Mary Leiter Curzon (baroness) — her marriage became a true love match. There’s also Nancy Langhorne Astor, who married into the British branch of the Astor family and became a viscountess. She also became the first woman elected to the British parliament, and this was in an age before British women could vote. She and Winston Churchill famously traded insults for years, one being the “If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea. Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.” exchange.
Thank you for sharing, I’m going to queue the PBS doc!
Can’t find the full ep on Youtube
It used to be there because that’s where I watched it. American Experience is also on Amazon Prime.
This was … not good. The whole thing felt very uncanny valley, with the terrible dialog, mediocre acting, and sterile backlot/CGI exteriors. Jacobsen and Benton seemed the most dialed in, really. I don’t know *what* Nixon is doing with her characterization.
Nixon is the best thing this show has going for it.
This outfit though. I’m all-in on what Oscar wears next.
I audibly laughed out loud when he walked up wearing that. MORE PLEASE
Since I’m a sucker for period pieces, I’ll 100% keep watching this, but the dialogue felt really choppy and for such a powerhouse cast, the acting was way too over-the-top. A reviewer with another publication pointed out that the cast is comprised of Broadway royalty, so I wonder if that explains the cartoonish portrayal of some of these characters. It doesn’t translate to television.Cynthia Nixon, you do have plenty of television experience and I expected more from you.
Cynthia Nixon, you do have plenty of television experience and I expected more from you. Have you caught any of And Just Like That?
I can’t blame her for AJLT. The writers have turned Miranda into an entirely different character.
You really think Cynthia Nixon had nothing to do with her terrible storyline going over at AJLT? Okay.
Oh I think she certainly had something to do with that since it seems to so closely mirror her own experience. But I don’t blame her for the way the writers have chosen to tell the story and do a 180 on the character overnight, rather than a gradual evolution/self-discovery.
The direction is the problem. It’s played straight and serious instead of campy.
The show also introduces Marian Brook (newcomer Louisa Jacobson, whose main credit is being Meryl Streep’s daughter).Ahhhh! I literally said to myself last night “I guess this girl went to the Mamie Gummer school of acting.” They both have that weird “I aM AcTIng!” kind of vocal quality. It only really worked for Mamie in The Good Wife, where her character was supposed to be fake and smarmy.Must be tough to be an actress when Meryl is your mom.
The writing is stilted and the scenes abrupt. This really wasn’t a great start, folks.
By now I should know that whenever a young actor or actress who seems to appear out of nowhere in a starring role, they will turn out to be someone’s kid. But I’m still always disgusted.
lifted from elsewhere: The Real Housewives of Old New Yorkmy takeGenerally the clipped dialogue was distractingThe lighting was way off in some scenes, like harsh on one actor and then soft on the other. The outdoor sets were ridiculously fake. Horses crap on the streets and the footman were responsible for keeping the street clean in front of wealthy homes (in other neighborhoods it literally just piled up… Google George Waring)Interior sets and costumes were great, some Emmy noms there.
“Filmed in Troy, NY”, eh? I’ll bet that’s a first for a major TV or movie production.
Never seen Downton Abbey, and this was very very predictable, but also very very watchable.
Downton Abbey but all the characters are Skyrim NPCs idle chatting for dialogue.
I (hand clap emoji) Am (hand clap emoji) Obsessed (hand clap emoji)
Great another show that tries to get us to care about rich people and there problems. At least it is interesting to see another time period and it is not another cop/lawyer/doctor show.
When i saw the 80-minute running time i thought “oh god, how am i gonna sit through this”, but it was so extremely watchable that by the end of the episode i wished it didn’t end. It’s just so sumptous to look at. Just a feast for the eyes. The writing wasn’t anything special and will probably be all too predictable, but the art direction, set design, costumes and Baranski is enough to keep me glued for at least until the end of the season.
Personally, I was hoping with it being an HBO show now, this would be a lot more Succession, and a lot less Downton (US), in terms of how it portrayed the uber-elite Americans of the relevant age.Instead, I find myself actually liking even Agnes, which I assume is by design (sure she is an old money snob, but she is also progressive about ambitious black women!). Same with George (sure he is a robber baron, but he is also progressive about ambitious white women!). And so on.I mean, I think we were actually supposed to admire and cheer on George when he used his apparently overwhelming supply of liquid capital to ruin a smaller rival railroad company and monopolize the route between New York and Chicago—and do it in such an intentionally punitive and wasteful form that others will in the future quickly sell out to him. That sort of unrestrained anti-competitive capitalism was terrible, of course.And specifically terrible for ordinary workers (how many people working for the existing Toledo to Cleveland company are about to lose their jobs? and how many will accept lower wages and worse working conditions from the new company for lack of alternatives?), ordinary consumers (who will pay higher prices for fewer and lower-quality goods and services thanks to monopolization), and so on. Even as it allowed the few successful monopolists at the top to accumulate vast, self-perpetuating fortunes. Which they could then valiantly use for such important tasks as leveraging their way into the BEST New York social circles . . . .But so far, I don’t get the sense any of the ruinous consequences of these schemes for ordinary people are going to be a significant part of this show. Instead, the only apparent victim of George’s monopolization scheme is the completely unsympathetic Mr. Thorburn. And again I think we are supposed to take delight when George says things like, “I may be a bastard, Mr. Thorburn, but you are a fool — and of the two, I think I know which I prefer.” And all the harm to ordinary people that will flow downward from George being this type of bastard may simply never be seen.And I may still watch and enjoy it. But it does feel like a missed opportunity to do something a bit less confectionary, but much more relevant.
Thank you for this. It sums up how I feel about the show.
It was the real life Georges who earned the trust busting shellacking they got from Teddy Roosevelt when he, to the shock of the rest of the Republican Party, became president. The GOP shunted Teddy into the vice presidency to neutralize him. They never dreamed they’d just handed him the presidency.
Indeed, and in fact when you think about both Presidents Roosevelt (and one First Lady Roosevelt), and the roles they played in the economic history of the United States, that was quite a lot of collective revenge by “old” New York against “new” New York!Of course there are also those who will argue they were just saving capitalism from itself (and even possibly that it should not have been saved!), and in that sense were just faithfully serving the economic elites of America. To the ultimate detriment of non-elites, but in a more sustainable way.
Well there’s no arguing that TR was instrumental in ending the Gilded Age. He and FDR helped level the playing field, and Eleanor’s contributions cannot be under estimated. She pushed her husband to be more liberal and was very public about her support for the disenfranchised.Interestingly TR’s family did not support FDR (he committed the sin of becoming a Democrat), and, when he decided to run against Hoover, TR Jr publicly criticized him. Like his father, TR Jr did not lack courage. On D Day he was the only general to land ashore with his troops and he landed with the first wave on Utah beach. There are numerous eye witness accounts of him walking up and down the beach commanding his troops and getting them across the beach. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions that day. He died in France a month later from a heart attack. He was only 57.
FYI (because I had to look it up): Miss Astor’s friend “Rosey” is James Roosevelt Roosevelt, FDR’s older half brother.
Less confectionary would sour Fellowes constant theme though. That the ruling classes are ultimately benevolent overlords who deserve their place.
Christine Baranski and Carrie Coon in the same show? They’re spoiling us!The blue outfit that Carrie Coon wore when she arrived was stunning. I’m looking forward to seeing more gorgeous dresses.If anything, I hope that this show will help to dull the memory of the truly awful pile of poo that is Bridgerton.
I love Downton and easily recognized the beats that they’re going for here in this show but it just…doesn’t work. I spent a bit thinking about it and I feel like it’s the lack of Britishness that is the downfall so far. The hereditary class system, and the weirdly unique and VERY British sense of pride in a lack of social mobility is so much of the structure and catalyst for the story in “Downton” that I fail to see how this show will do very well. There’s no rigid purpose to the “old money” rich in America the way there is with Lord Grantham. Grantham is trying to keep a massive estate with all the servants and farmers therein and to preserve a strictly structured way of life for the next generation.
The American Dream is one of social mobility. It’s exactly the freedom to be someone else to DO better that brought so many immigrants during the period in which this show is set. And while that dream turned out to be a false one for MANY Americans and immigrants alike, the IDEA was still the prevailing winds at the time. They’ve basically set their backdrop in the antithesis of Downton’s society. I just don’t see it working if they try to keep that sensibility about it. HBO has money to throw at it. It may last a while. But it won’t capture whatever it is Downton had.
Every time I’m tempted to watch something that Julian Fellowes was involved in, I watch Gosford Park, and miss Robert Altman.