It's not an easy question, as countless critics have shown with their facetious resumés of the predictable plot lines, their facile parodies of recurrent gestures and clichéd dialogue, their painstaking notice taken of every inconsistency or improbability of plot. Has any 6-season wonder ever received such relentlessly acerbic criticism? And it's all true, of course--the whole upstairs/downstairs Great House setting was already hackneyed before Fellowes wrote his pilot, and even a frequently inspired writer such as he is will be overreaching at numerous moments in the 59-episode run. Yes, it was easy to laugh at Downton, and many did.
But I somehow joined the milllions who didn't laugh long, and came eagerly back for more, though I still find my affection for the show--for almost everything about the show--something of a mystery. But the task of analysis is to shine light on those dark places in the psyche, so here goes.
What most characterized Downton, both the show and the world it represented, was its consistency, stability, predicability, its conformity to fairly strict rules. There was security in those starched outfits and the knowledge that the characters would for the most part leave them on. Security in knowing that the Crawleys would remain Crawleys, despite internal blood-feuds, sudden deaths, unwise investments, and unwelcome pregnancy. That absolute loyalty to family, class, and social position may be preposterously out of date--one recalls for example the House of Lords futilely intervening against the ecologists and animal lovers to preserve fox hunting--but the values of family and loyalty on display transcend the particular reactionary politics of Lord Grantham and reflect a timeless value: very few of us aspire to be the 7th Earl of Grantham, but most of us would love to have families who protect our interests as the Crawleys protect theirs.
Love really is the operative word in Fellowes's world, saccharine at times--though we see plenty of jealousy, resentment, disquiet, and even a little anger. In the end, though, Downton returns to its utopian condition, a place where everyone finds shelter (variable in quality depending on one's station, but shelter nonetheless), and always will. Even the outcast Barrow finds redemption and returns with grace in the final episode. Outside forces assail this little fortress--from the accident of the Titanic to the vast tragedy of the Great War, from petty snobbery to the intrusions of homicide investigations, and most of al, the specter of change as Labour forms a government, government agents visit the estate's pig farms, and a chamber maid turns secretary and then philanthropist--but through it all the bonds of love are only strengthened until at the end absolutely everyone is paired with someone or something to love. Is it any wonder a person of sensibility would like to spend at least an hour a week in such a place?
Yes, yes, yes, I know it's all about fantasy and escapism. but the psychological face-offs are nonetheless realistic in the best sense more often than not. Mary's snobbism, for example, is hardly a revelation (though it's magnificently acted by Michelle Dockery), but the late moment when she and the footman Barrow recognize each other's propensity for misery, recognize each other in their arrogance as profoundly semblants--is brilliant. Likewise the pairing of Lord Grantham and Carson, the ways they share Lady Mary as proud fathers. Or the inadvertent revelation, après-coup, by Gwen the returned chamber-maid of how nobly Lady Sybil assisted her in her mobility--and the way this accidental stranger thus reshapes the vision Sybil's dearest family will now carry of her. Such moments are the work of a brilliant novelist of the old school.
Real dramas, real conflicts, even a little real history, played for the most part with credible accuracy but contained within the utterly secure enclosure of a timeless and invulnerable world--that's the magic formula. For several seasons I wondered how Fellowes would handle the inevitable dissolution of Downton, as he gave us glimpses of other Great Houses and great families giving up their estates and joining bourgeois society. Toward the end I realized that such would never happen to Downton. What we treasured was its impossible determination to stand against time (unlike that flower petal that falls, time after time, in the opening sequence, to tease us with the possibility of demise). And stand it does in the final episode, each character soldered into place, ready to withstand whatever new buffetings come its way. In and against our own world, poised on the brink of disaster, devolution and decay, could any place of refuge be more desirable than Downton Abbey?
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