Showing posts with label downton abbey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downton abbey. Show all posts

Monday, April 18, 2016

Downton AU fanfiction bunny, free for the taking (Salt of Sorrel is Eaten, Everyone Dies)

In the very first episode of Downton Abbey, there's a scene in which Daisy almost sends a dish of poisonous cleaning product (which the internet tells me is salt of sorrel) up to the dinner table instead of a dish of garnish (which the internet tells me is chopped egg).  Disaster is averted at the last minute ("I'll never do anything simple again, I swear it, not till I die!"), but what if it wasn't?

It would be interesting to see an AU where the salt of sorrel goes up onto the dining table, and some or all of the Crawleys are poisoned and die, depending on feasibility (How lethal is it? How fast-acting is it? Given that people are served food in a certain order, is it plausible for everyone to ingest the poison or would the last people to be served notice something is amiss?) and plot requirements.  (Yes, one or more of the servants would probably be charged with murder and sentenced to death and I don't mean to minimize the seriousness of that for them, but what happens afterwards is where the potential for an interesting story lies.)

For example, suppose all the Crawleys die. Matthew then inherits an empty manor house with a full complement of servants.  What does he do with it?  How does he do right by all the people who depend on the house for their livelihood?

Or suppose only Robert dies.  Matthew inherits a manor house that is currently home to four women he's never met.  He might be inclined to leave it alone and just let them live out their lives while he goes back to lawyering in Manchester. Is that feasible or would he have to be at Downton? Of course, Mary would probably still be highly incentivized to try to marry him. How would that play out? How would he feel about the attentions of a woman who's completely at his mercy for her livelihood?

Suppose only Robert lives. He's in mourning, of course. But he no longer has to worry about securing his daughters' future by marrying one of them to his heir. Would he be incentivized to remarry, even in his grief, so he could have a chance of having a son?  Until such time (if any) as he has a son, what would his relationship with Matthew be like? 

Suppose only Sybil lives. She's still a minor (i.e. not "out") at the beginning of the series. Can she stay at Downton? Would she have to go to America and live with her grandparents there? Or live in London with Lady Rosamund? (Or was Lady Rosamund at this dinner?) The internet suggests that during that era, someone her age could get married with parental consent. I don't know what happens if they don't have parents. I also don't know if Sybil would have it in her to try to win Matthew's affections just because he now owns her home, but desperation leads people to do strange things.  Or would she just run off with the chauffeur?

Suppose only Edith and Sybil live. Edith is a legal adult, she may well be able to have custody of Sybil. What kind of person will she grow into without her glorious war of sisterly rivalry?  She may want to try to marry Matthew to secure her and her sister's livelihood, or, if not, to marry someone else. One thing I noticed throughout the series is that, prior to being left at the altar by Sir Anthony, Edith was actually quite diligent at (what would have been in that setting and era) her job of finding a suitable husband. She took all the right steps, put herself out there, offered and accepted invitations to appropriate activities with appropriate people - she just never ended up getting married.  It would have been the Edwardian equivalent of a newly orphaned young adult diligently trying to find a job to support herself and her minor sibling so they don't have to be separated.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Downton Abbey thoughts (full spoilers)

- Much like I was disappointed about not seeing Tom and Sybil's life in Ireland, I was disapopinted about not seeing Tom and Sybbie's life in Boston.  Where did they live? What was the childcare situation? How did Sybbie adjust to living somewhere smaller? After growing up in a manor house, did she have any 5-year-old equivalents of a "What is a weekend?" moment?

- I'm glad they cast child actors who are capable of delivering the odd punchline!

- At one point, Mary tells the guy she ends up marrying that George inherits Robert's title "For reasons too complicated to bore you with."  That's 8 words and 12 syllables.  But "My late husband was my father's heir" is 7 words and 9 syllables!  It would be shorter to explain it!

- (Also the guy Mary ends up marrying and the guy Edith ends up marrying look too similar and I find their names psychologically interchangeable.  I kept getting them mixed up throughout the entire series. Couldn't they get more distinctive actors with more distinctive names?)

- At another point Robert bemoans the fact that Mary decides not to marry Tony on the grounds that "she isn't thinking about her future" or something similar (I can't find the exact quote). But she is exactly thinking about her future, and, more importantly, her son's future.  If she married Tony, she'd be mistress of his estate and wouldn't be able to care for Downton for George.  And if she has a son with Tony, she'd have another heir of another estate who also needs her attention just as much. To do right by George, she needed to marry someone who doesn't have an estate.

- At one point, it's mentioned that Edith doesn't use a lady's maid. I really want to know how she does her awesome hair without a maid's help! They could totally have showed it in passing in a dressing scene that serves as a background for plot-forwarding dialogue.

- Since Mary cut her hair, I thought the scenes of Anna brushing Mary's hair looked ridiculous. The brush was too big and Anna's brush strokes looked too gentle and ineffective.  But I later realized that this was a demonstration of the statement often repeated throughout the season that lady's maids were less necessary in these modern times! Anna's not doing anything with Mary's hair that Mary couldn't do herself just as easily (if not more so). 

- You know how there are political astroturfers who make twitter accounts with egg avatars, follow hashtags, and chime into other people's conversations hurling abuse against their employer's opponent? (Ubhmeathán!) Turns out they have those in the Downton Abbey twitter community! There are random eggs spreading anti-Edith and pro-Mary propaganda!

- But it does occur to me that Lady Mary wouldn't be above hiring an astroturfer. So that's an excellent role-play by that random twitter egg!

- This series jossed parts of my WWII Downton sequel idea, but I think we're still ripe for a WWII sequel:
  •  The kids will all be an appropriate age for military service or nursing or war work or whatever the plot needs them to do.
  •  Marigold could learn that her biological father was killed by Nazis and join some elite intelligence unit to help avenge his death.
  • George's military service (when he's probably too young to have married or produced a heir of his own) could create another succession crisis if they want to mirror that plotline.  
  • I was hoping the Bates baby could be a girl so George could marry her or want to marry her or cause a scandal about marrying her, but since he's a boy he could be George's batman, mirroring the relationship between Robert and Bates.
  • (Sybbie will marry that random little boy who wandered into Robert's room during the open house, because of course she will.) 
  • I had the idea of Lady Rose reuniting with her jazz singer in WWII London, but now that she's in the US she could reunite with him whenever the plot requires. Surely having a Jewish husband could inspire her into some social justice cause during WWII, and then this could be leveraged to make her eventuallybecome a US Civil Rights activist!
  • I'm glad that Thomas is now the butler, because I always liked the idea of the next generation of Downton having this scheming evil butler who's completely loyal to the new heir.  That would certainly be an interesting dynamic to play with.  Thomas may have had a last-minute heel-face turn, but I'm sure he's still capable of a good scheme, and we know he's loyal to George and to Sybbie, so the plot potential is there. Thomas was also a medic and helped run the convalescent home in WWI so an excuse could be found to drop him into any war-related plotline.
  • I also recently read that the real house used to film Downton was used to house evacuee children during WWII, which would be an interesting plotline!

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Downton needs to explain why Tom thinks they'll have a better life in America

This post contains spoilers up to and including Season 5, Episode 7 of Downton Abbey (the one that includes a cute scene of Tom and little Sybbie dropping sticks off a bridge into the creek below).  Please do not include spoilers beyond that point.

In last week's Downton, Tom mentions to little Sybbie that he thinks they might be able to have a better life in America.

The show really needs to elaborate on why he thinks it would be better.

At Downton, Sybbie enjoys a much higher baseline level of security than she would living with Tom alone.  Even if we take luxury out of the equation and don't consider it a contributor to quality of life, the fact remains that at Downton she will have a roof over her head and food in her belly.  She will have new shoes whenever she needs them and a warm winter coat and a fire in her fireplace.

In America, Tom would need to find work and remain steadily employed to provide these things, but Downton has enough resources to provide these things regardless of what happens, and Sybbie will always be able to benefit from this security because everyone from Lord and Lady Grantham to Thomas the Evil Underbutler loves her.

Also, since Tom is a single parent, he would need to find childcare in America, whereas at Downton there's already childcare fit for a future earl.

Looking forward a few years, at Downton, education will be available to young Sybbie. If Tom wants her to go to school rather than being taught at home by a governess, I'm sure that could be made to happen without compromising her place within the security of Downton. If, when she gets older, she wants to go to some posh school or go on to university, her doting grandparents will make that available.  She will be constrained by nothing but her gender (given the era), and I'm sure she'd be similarly constrained by her gender in the US as well.

What would Tom do to earn a living in America?  Be a chauffeur or a taxi driver?  That's not necessarily going to provide his child with security.  Run a business?  If he feels that he has the business savvy to build a stable life for his child, he can already make use of it in his current role as estate manager at Downton, in support of the estate that provides his daughter with a secure life. 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Tom would necessarily fail in America.  He could probably eke out a perfectly reasonable working class cum middle class living.  We all know people who've done it - in fact, we probably all know people who've done it despite being a bit of an idiot!

But I just don't see why he's confident it would be better, especially from the point of view of building a future for a child. Normally this 20th century Europe to North American immigration arc involves people who are oppressed or otherwise have limited opportunities in their homeland, and Sybbie isn't and never will be in either situation.

Little Sybbie Branson the daughter of a widowed Irish chauffeur would probably have a better life - or at least more opportunities - in America, but you can't assume that Miss Sybil the granddaughter of an English earl necessarily would.  Some insight into Tom's logic here would be helpful to the viewer.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Hats

In the world of Downton Abbey, etiquette dictates that ladies don't remove their hats indoors. They don't wear hats in their own home (or in the evening), but if they go to a shop or a restaurant or someone else's home they don't remove their hat, even if they do remove their coat.

It occurred to me that this could make wardrobe planning difficult.  Do you choose a hat that goes with your dress or a hat that goes with your coat?  Or do you have to make your coat match your dress too so the whole ensemble works?

Obviously, not everyone has the budget for multiple hats and coats to go with every dress, and they actually show this on screen.  When a working-class character is visiting someone's home, she's shown wearing a hat that doesn't really complement or enhance her outfit.  And this is because it's her only hat, the best she could do to go with her only coat, which was the best she could do for as sensible a coat as possible.

You can't have a red hat, because then you won't be able to dress properly for a funeral. You can't have a dainty floral summer hat, because then you won't be able to dress properly for the cold and the rain. You can't have a delicate hat, because it has to last you several years.

But still, you have to wear a hat every time you're indoors but not at home during the daytime. No matter how carefully you dress and groom, you still have to wear this piece of pure pragmatism quite prominently, next to your face, so it's the first thing that people see.

In the 21st century, people talk about unrealistic standards of beauty projected by Hollywood, with fashion being set by celebrities who have access to all the beauty treatments in the world and plastic surgery and hair extensions and stylists and custom-tailored clothing.

I wonder if, in the olden days, people talked about unrealistic standards of beauty being set by the upper classes, who had access to a flattering, custom-made hat to go with every outfit?

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Downton braindump (full spoilers up to the end of season 4)

- As you may have expected, I'm disappointed that they didn't show us Edith's pregnancy and time in Geneva.  There's so much of interest there!  Did they need a cover story or did they just keep quietly to themselves?  Did Edith have to wear a fake wedding ring?  Did they need to hire new servants for their time in Geneva to make sure that gossip wouldn't spread?  Did Rosamund take her lady's maid?  If so, how did she ensure her silence?  If not, how did she explain the whole "I'm going on a trip and not taking you with me" thing?

- Jack's breakup with Rose is another story that they told rather than showing, but I did think the conversation between Jack and Mary was a good character moment for both of them.

- The problem with Mary having all the suitors is that if she marries someone, she will become the lady of their estate with all the related responsibilities, when she already has the responsibility of helping keep Downton well-run so it's secure for George's future.  I can't see her just turning her back on Downton, but I also can't see an aristocratic marriage in that era working out with the lady of the house's primary responsibility being another estate.  Not to mention that if she has a son with any future husband, that son would inherit the husband's estate.

- If Lord Grantham dies and Lady Mary hasn't remarried, what would her title be?  Functionally she'd be a Dowager Countess, but she's never been a Countess because you have to be the wife of an Earl.  Would she get some bigger title than simply Lady Mary?

- Actually, if Lord Grantham died right now, would Cora also be a Dowager Countess?  If there can only be one Dowager (and what with Violet obviously being immortal), what would Cora be?

- Speaking of Lord Grantham, I think it's an excellent writing decision to make him incompetent.  People have criticized the trope (often found in sitcoms and such) of the father being an incompetent buffoon (although Lord Grantham isn't a buffoon), but I think it's really interesting in this era and context because his decisions have so much impact on so many people.  If a sitcom father does something foolish, maybe he blows up a barbecue.  If Lord Grantham does something foolish, the livelihood of everyone in the house (and maybe the whole estate?) is harmed.  So when he didn't want Mary to be involved in running the estate (with that paternalistic "for her own good" tone), this was actually a threat to the estate.

- When Thomas catches Branson showing the teacher around the house, Branson makes a point of explaining the situation to him and worrying about whether he misinterpreted it.  But when Lord Grantham comments "I heard you had a guest", Branson simply says "Yes I did."  That seems bass-ackwards to me.  If Branson somehow felt that he owed Thomas an explanation, surely he'd owe Lord Grantham (who actually owns the house!) an explanation!  Even if he'd collected his wits and wasn't going to fall into a stuttering apology/explanation, he could have just thrown in a very casual, "Yes, Miss Bunting the schoolteacher is very interested in our local art and history and architecture, so I was showing her around."  Cora and Isobel and the Dowager Countess already know that he is friends with the schoolteacher, and even if they do evolve in the direction of a romance eventually that makes it look more organic, rather than having a secret assignation at his dead wife's parents' house while they're away.

- Why did the season finale mention that Mrs. Levinson's lady's maid had quit and that Cora had asked the Dowager Countess not to travel with a lady's maid and then not do anything with that information?  They should have showed us some chaos with only two lady's maids for four ladies (plus Edith, plus Rose who was actually being presented to court and therefore would have wanted to look her best.)  They should have at least showed them with slightly different hair styles than usual!  (And speaking of which, who did Mrs. Levinson's hair etc. all during the ocean crossing if she wasn't travelling with a lady's maid?)

Ideas for spinoffs:

1. A prequel covering the early days of Robert and Cora's marriage.  A benign marriage of convenience isn't something we really see portrayed on TV or in fiction in general, and it would be interesting to explore.

2. If Tom decides to move to America like he's mentioned in passing (although he hasn't raised the idea lately, there should be a sequel where, after WWII has conveniently killed off anyone who needs to die to make this happen, Baby Sybbie, now a twenty-something woman raised in the US by her working-class Irish father, inherits Downton. in all the mess of postwar Britain. Daisy is the cook, Anna is the housekeeper, and Thomas is the butler.  (I haven't figured out where Mr. Bates is, but Thomas would be more interesting as the butler because he's evil but he's on Sybbie's side.  And I know Anna isn't on a housekeeper track, but we don't have any other named maids.

3. Fifteen or twenty years in the future, George begins a flirtation with Edith's daughter, not knowing that she is his biological cousin.  Edith tries to stop him, but he assumes she's just a snobbish old aunt. This could also have an interesting "everything dies and the illegitimate daughter inherits" denouement.  Or maybe everyone but Edith dies, and then she reveals herself to her daughter.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Downton Abbey thoughts (up to S04 E06)

Spoilers:  This post contains spoilers for Downton Abbey up to Season 4, Episode 6 (i.e. the one with the pigs).  However, I haven't watched any further (I'm watching along with PBS) so please do not spoil me about future episodes.

When it was revealed that Edith is pregnant, my first thought was "Did they have abortion in England in the 1920s?"  I knew that if it existed it was illegal, but I wondered if it was an option at all and, if so, how it worked.

So I was very disappointed that she just changed her mind at the last minute.  That simply wasn't a good, interesting use of this plotline, given the setting and the era.

Given the setting and the era, it would have been really interesting to cover how abortion worked.  I know they couldn't actually show it (even Call the Midwife had to do it by symbolism) but they could have taught us something about the reality of this era.  But by having Edith ultimately choose not to go through with it, they missed that opportunity, and rather wasted precious limited screen time setting us up for it.  If they need her to stay pregnant for long-term plot purposes, they could have her leave after the doctor explains the procedure to her, perhaps because she's afraid to go through with it or because the doctor wants to be paid in sexual favours or something.

Given the setting and the era, it would also have been interesting to see Edith attempting to procure the abortion, by which I mean attempting to find a place to have it done.  Perhaps she first asks her doctor, who is shocked and appalled that she should suggest such a thing.  Then she has to explore different and shadier avenues, providing us with a lot of interesting historical insight along the way.  It's a time-sensitive secret mission!  If they need her to stay pregnant for long-term plot purposes, they could simply have her not be able to figure it out in time.  It's certainly not implausible for a sheltered upper-class lady of her era living in a country house not to be able to figure out how to obtain something illegal.  But instead they just had the information fall into her hands offscreen (more telling rather than showing!)

But if Edith is going to have the baby, they could also simply not present abortion as an option.  It's illegal, and Edith is a sheltered upper-class lady who lives in a country house.  It's perfectly plausible she wouldn't even know abortion is an option.

If it's necessary for plot purposes to make Edith deliberately choose to have the baby, they could simply have someone discreetly mention to her that there are things you can do (Isobel would be a good candidate for this), and have her say "Oh no, I could never do that."  Done and done, in one 30-second conversation, then we could get into the interesting part of what she'd actually do with the pregnancy and with the baby.  (Hide it?  Own it?  Be disowned?)

But setting up all this intrigue and using all this screen time on a shady illegal abortion only to a) change her mind and walk out and b) do so without giving us any interesting historical details is just a waste of our valuable screen time. And our screen time is in fact valuable, because there are so few episodes and each season covers years.  I'd much rather have it used on something other than "Look a plot...no, wait, no, we're just going to walk away from that." Like they did with "Patrick Crawley might be alive or it might be an imposter...but he just wandered off so never mind." Or with "Downton is dying, no wait Matthew inherited money, no wait he won't take it because he left Lavinia for Mary, no wait she was okay with that."  Or with "Mary's infertile...no, wait, fixed it." Or with "Sybil is getting a new and interesting life in Ireland...but we're not going to show it to you."  All this taking plotlines away rather than resolving them, and telling rather than showing.

Which makes me think this is all going to go away with a soap-opera miscarriage.  (And if they wanted to do that, why not have it simply be a pregnancy scare?)  If they can't resolve big, live-changing plots, why not just stick to smaller stories?  Stories on par with Mrs. Hughes's old beau turning up at the fair or the courtship of Anna and Bates or Lady Mary saves the pigs are the kind of thing  Downton does well, so just keep doing them!

***

This will never happen on the show, but I think the ideal person to solve all Edith's problems is Sir Anthony Strallan.

In the setting and era of the show, the way a lady secures her future is with a good marriage.  Edith did everything right in that respect by getting Sir Anthony to the altar.  Moreover, she was (given the reality of her era) very sensible in her choice.  She wasn't holding out for a knight in shining armour or a handsome young duke with no war damage or Rudolph Valentino.  She chose someone she gets along well with, who makes a good match pragmatically, and didn't blink an eye that he's older and disabled. 

By the standards of her era and setting, she did everything right.  So, by the standards of her era and setting, she deserves to be married - and, by extension, to be able to honourably have sex and have a baby.

But Sir Anthony left her at the altar - not because of anything she did wrong, but because he thinks, in a sort of romantic idealization - that he's not good enough for her and her life would be worse married to him.

But now she's in a situation where she would clearly and by all standards be better off being married to him.  Being married would allow her and her child to live comfortably and respectably.  It has already been established that Sir Anthony doesn't have children so this arrangement wouldn't be stealing any rightful inheritances from anyone (with the possible exception of some distance male cousin à la Matthew Crawley - and not even that if Edith's baby ends up being a girl).  Yes, his estate would be inherited by someone who isn't his biological child.  Fair penalty for abandoning Edith without thinking about her actual, practical, real-life needs and wants.  And he still gets companionship and sex and caregiving and family connections with an earl and all the other benefits of an attractive younger wife. All he has to do is provide respectability for a woman he cares about and her child

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Spoilerrific Downton braindump

Warning: this post contains spoilers for all of Downton Abbey to date.

- So why did O'Brien have it in for Thomas all this season anyway?  If the show told us, I've forgotten.

- I think making Robert basically incompetent at his job of being Earl of Grantham is a good and interesting direction for the show to take.  In the first two seasons, many people criticized the character for being too perfect - kind and benevolent to everyone.  But having him be incompetent (and a wee bit out of touch) while continuing to be kind and benevolent makes him far more interesting.  It's also an interesting contrast with Ethel: Robert is incompetent but gets to retain his position and will live in luxury for basically the rest of his natural life; Ethel made one mistake, and is socially deemed unemployable and reduced to prostitution.

- Although I'm surprised that Ethel didn't just take off for some other part of the country and claim to be a widow. They'd just had a war and an influenza outbreak, I'm quite sure there were many young widows with small children.

- I'm disappointed that we'll never get to see Sybil's everyday life in Ireland. It would have been so interesting to see how she adjusted.  Even with her nurse training, she probably would have had her own "What is a weekend?" moment.  For example, she's probably never done laundry (it was time-consuming in that era, and I doubt they would have had trained nurses doing hospital laundry when any untrained person could have done it) and she's probably never gone grocery shopping.

- I really don't get why Robert and the Dowager Countess were so put off by the prospect of Edith marrying an older man and therefore having to nurse him through his dotage.  So what if she does?  Basically, she'd be earning her pension.  It's the early 20th century British nobility equivalent of taking some tedious administrative job in a university so your kids will have drug coverage and a dental plan.  And, I just realized, Robert had his own marriage of convenience, which worked out splendidly!

- (Speaking of, they should make a Downton prequel that covers the early days of Robert's and Cora's marriage.  A benign marriage of mutual convenience has got to be an interesting interpersonal dynamic, and not something we often (if ever) see in fiction.)

- This means Sir Anthony Strallan's "I'm leaving you at the altar for your own good" thing was a triply dick move.  First, because Edith gets to decide for herself what her own good is, thank you very much.  Second, because he's denying her the opportunity to earn her pension. As of the time of the wedding, Downton was broke and the family was going to downsize.  Sir Anthony still had his fortune.  His refusing to marry her because he thought she could do better would be like that university administrative job refusing to hire you because they unilaterally decide that this job wouldn't be your passion.  And third, he's leaving Edith dependent on her family.  Which doesn't just mean she's dependent on her parents, it also means that, once her parents die, she'll be dependent on Matthew and Mary.  Imagine being financially at the mercy of your least favourite sibling for the rest of your life!  Leaving someone in that situation is certainly not noble, Sir Anthony!  In fact, the noble thing for someone in Sir Anthony's position to do for someone in Lady Edith's position would be to marry her even if he isn't attracted to her but they get along reasonably well enough for a marriage of convenience.

- At the very very least, Edith should have gotten breakfast in bed the morning after she was jilted at the altar!

- I really want to know the internal logic of this "married women get breakfast in bed" rule!  How did they come up with it and why?  Surely getting dressed and going downstairs is just as difficult for an unmarried woman!  Also, why don't they share with their husbands?  We saw several scenes of a woman eating breakfast in bed and chatting with her husband while he gets dressed to go down and eat breakfast.  I don't know about you, but if my spouse were right there with food while I was getting ready to go get food, I'd certainly stop getting ready and start eating off their plate!  I also wonder if women who have been married but now aren't (widows and divorcées) get breakfast in bed.  Maybe we'll learn next season...

- I think we needed a bit more "show, don't tell" about how many men of the daughters' generation died in WWI.  Sybil mentioned once that it seems like every man she's ever danced with is dead, and Edith told Robert that it's ridiculous to object to her marrying someone older because so many of the men of her generation died, but we haven't actually seen this.  William (the footman who married Daisy) died, the father of Ethel's baby died, and...that's it for named characters, I think. Maybe a scene where they're organizing some major social event for the first time since before the war, and a huge chunk of their guest list is dead?  Too bad they jumped right from 1918 to 1920 at the end of season 2, so now they can't really address this any more.

- I really do think they've had time moving too quickly in this show.  We've had 9 years in three short seasons!  I kind of get why they didn't want WWI to last more than 1 season, and they had to make the last xmas special take place nearly a year after season 3 for obvious plot reasons, but if we keep up this pace they'll have to kill off the Dowager Countess from old age in a season or two!

- I really want to know what Mary's medical problem was!  A "small operation" that restores female fertility and could be successfully diagnosed and carried out in the year 1920. And, whatever the problem was, it presumably didn't interfere with the mechanics of sex, because if it had then Matthew wouldn't be worrying that the problem might be him.  Anyone have enough medical knowledge to figure out what this was?  Theory: maybe it isn't a real condition at all and is just a plot device.

- I had the misfortune to learn that the actor who plays Matthew was leaving the show before I even started watching Season 3, so the whole plot of the Season 3 xmas special seemed glaringly projected to me.  I knew where they had to end up, so the foreshadowing and such seemed completely unsubtle.

- Why oh why oh why did they have to name the latest new maid Edna?  We already have Edith and Ethel for me to get mixed up.  Why introduce yet another two syllable old lady name that starts with E?  (I know they're probably old lady names because of the era, but we also have names like Mary and Anna and Matthew.)