Flickr/crapatdarts
, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Downton Abbey has closed to visitors at last. Compared to the original Upstairs, Downstairs, it was something of a disappointment. Downton was a soap opera of incident rather than a drama of character. If the period look was superficially credible (and well-acted), the period background of manners and language was questionable. Wholly inaccurate was its depiction of class attitudes of a century ago when in reality servants were seen as little more than robots without inner lives of any consequence.
