L i N d $ @ y

The moderators of this board have decided to open a rant thread so we can talk about certain storylines and characters that we don't like on the show (or we'll loathe) and other general rants.

There are a few rules we need for this thread to remain peaceful and respectful:

1. No name calling. ("Flopbert", "bitch", "douchebag", "*******", "******")
2. No personal comments towards a fellow poster. ("How could you...?" "Don't be ridiculous!" or "You're stupid.")
3. No bashing of the actors, writers or real life people.
4. Stay nice and be respectful. Use constructive criticism to talk about the storylines & characters.
5. Don’t post on this thread just to disagree with someone because it will only cause arguments, which is not the point of this thread.
6. Ship rants and character rants should stay on this thread and should not be brought over to the specific ship or character threads for discussion.

Please be guided by the following rules about bashing:


This thread is not opened to bash characters and actors and everything written/posted here is to be taken with a grain of salt. This is also NOT an anti thread. If you think a comment or post was too offensive and/or has crossed the border of bashing or violates any other rules here at FF, please PM a moderator. Do not reply to the post, just PM one of us. We'll deal with it accordingly. If there is a post that you do not agree with but does not violate the rules, then feel free to ignore it. If this thread becomes nothing but a bashing thread or continues to be after repeated warnings, then we, the moderators, will have to implement the strike rule (3 warnings and if ignored, thread will be closed for a period of time).

If you want to discuss episodes in detail, we have the following threads for each of the series:
Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, Series 4

Strikes:
Date:
Expires:

Lindsay

ScarletCourt

TFTNT, Lindsay!

Please read the opening post (OP) before posting.

In case anyone was looking for an example of what is acceptable to post here, you can check out the rant thread for The Vampire Diaries here.

And I'll start off with the first rant.

The way Sybil was killed off was wrong. I get that in order to keep Allen on the show and let JBF go, the easiest way was to kill her off. But I still didn't like the horror show we were given. Sybil suffocating while her family watched and her husband begged her to breathe and not to leave him will be imprinted in my mind for a long time to come and not in a good way. I didn't need that.

As well, she didn't need to die in childbirth (it should have been our on-screen moment of joy, just like M/M's wedding and Bates being freed from prison). I would have much rather she died saving some one else while doing the work she loved under much more peaceful circumstances.

HarshBench

The way we were deliberately misled into believing it would be a happy episode was unthinkably cruel. When you kill off a beloved character, you prepare the audience. At least on a show like this that is not a procedural police or hospital drama or a show about gang warfare or terrorism. The viewers support the show, and the show should tend to the viewers' sensibilities as far as they can.

The show had never been reluctant to sweeten and sentimentalize death before. They made it easy on William, for example. To suddenly change course and give us a horror show was the worst kind of betrayal. It felt to me like a punishment for loving a character that the writer found secondary. Any perusal of fan sites and forums would have told them she was the most beloved of characters.

She deserved to go out with peace and closure and justice.

Also, having Cora forgive Robert so quickly left a terrible taste in my mouth. I can never support them as a couple again because frankly, their daughter's life and doing her justice should have been more important than Robert being allowed back into her bed. She meant so much more than that to the viewers, and the way they seemed to move on so quickly (except Tom) was offensive and shocking. I found it very hard to feel sympathetic toward any of them after that or to care at all about their problems. Not when a brave young woman had just lost her life unnecessarily and her husband been left devastated and a child motherless.

After 3.05, none of the so-called happy moments felt happy to me. I felt forced and fake and I found myself just shaking my head in disbelief.

ScarletCourt

I agree that TPTB who conspired to deliberately mislead the audience about the birth episode were unspeakably cruel. They did everything they could to cover it up and I felt utterly betrayed by the whole thing.

I also don't like how Tom "is being infused by the house ... it's almost as if the house at Downton Abbey is claiming him" as according to the DA music composer, John Lunn. in the following article: (under spoiler tags as it contains some C/S spoilers)



Tom didn't belong at the house and yet there he is now.

HarshBench

Sending HB hate mail is obviously horrible and ridiculous. However, I think the lashing out against Robert is the fault of the writing. He behaved terribly, but was forgiven almost instantly by his wife and never even confronted by anyone else. I think Cora's forgiveness of Robert was meant to give the audience permission to forgive him, but for me it did just the opposite.

After what happened, I felt it was only right that he should suffer, torment himself, and that the family's mourning should be deep and prolonged. None of that happened. As a result, the devastated viewers felt that Sybil never got justice. There was no catharsis. And after that, nothing felt right again.

Seeing Mary holding the baby was more a slap in the face than a salve. Seeing the family happily playing cricket in 3.08 felt oddly dissonant and even offensive. To me, the season from 3.05 on was a complete failure at balancing dark and light. It got dark, and despite the efforts no light would really penetrate.

I won't feel catharsis until Tom is happy again. And even then, my attitude toward Robert and the Crawleys as a couple has forever been tainted. I used to wish them happiness, but I can't any more because they didn't mourn their daughter properly or try to do her justice.

And unfortunately, if the lessons learned from Sybil's death help to save Mary's life in childbirth, I won't even be able to feel happy she survived. Nothing can ever make up for how it happened. The good will, for me, is gone toward all but a few of the characters on the show.

Okay, I was asked to post again to advertise the new thread. But I will try to focus on a new rant.

I am tired of how this show tells us everything rather than showing us. It is insulting to me as a viewer. I want to watch the characters in action, and draw my own conclusion as to how I feel about them.

Examples: People constantly talking about how wonderful Mr. Bates is and how the place could not run without him. It's like a drinking game. I found it odd, frankly, that shortly after the death of their little sister Mary and Edith seemed so happy to hear he was being released. We never saw either of them interact with him. Maybe they were just happy for Anna? But it rang false to me. It felt like an effort to interject happiness where really it was not appropriate.

This is not about Bates or what kind of man he is. But if he is so indispensable and amazing, I want to SEE it, not be told by every character. It's lazy and it doesn't work.

Another example: Edith being plain. She's not beautiful, but she's a perfectly attractive girl. The way they talk about her like she's a troll who can never hope to land a man is ridiculous.

Those are the two worst examples that come to mind, but there are others.

Another thing: Character Inconsistency. So many examples. Here's one: In S2 when Mary had lost Matthew and he returned from war paralyzed, she behaved as though she would have been happy to take him in any way, shape or form. With or without legs or the ability to sire children. She pushed his wheelchair around, she stood up for him when Faux Patrick turned up. It seemed as though she had finally decided that Matthew was more important than anything else, including Downton. That she regretted what had had happened enough to sacrifice for him.

Fast forward to 3.01, and Mary is threatening to sink the relationship again because of Downton, because Matthew didn't want to take the money. What happened? Did she forget what she almost lost the first time when she took Rosamund's bad advice? I felt like I was getting whiplash.

And Tom, as we all know, has had almost schizophrenic personality changes from time to time. Not due to the acting, but the writing. This one really hurts.

Anyway, I could go on and on but not right now.

ScarletCourt

I really wish that S3 was as consistent and awesome as S1. That is all.

HarshBench

I guess I am the only one who has complaints about the show? LOL.

Well, I am going to throw out a term from TV Tropes:

"Protagonist-Centered Morality."

This show suffers mightily from it. I recommend checking out the site for a synopsis of this syndrome. I would love to discuss how it applies here.

ScarletCourt

I agree that the trope applies here. However if you want to discuss it, I'd suggest taking it to the S3 discussion thread here. The rant thread is not for discussions. See OP.

confessor_meggy

That is the worst thing DA did in my opinion. Sponsoring family bliss and happiness and ending it shortly like it happened. That's plain cruel to me.

Andorra

The misleading and cruel promotion for 3/05 is actually the one thing I really feel I have to rant about, too.

I understand JF's motives for killing Sybil and I'm not angry at him for it. No more angry as I am at JBF. I understand her motives for leaving, too.

But the promotion really was awful. To get our hopes so high and made us looking forward to a happy episode was horrible. I was never more shocked by a TV show in my life! And I won't forgive that.

HarshBench

And you know they wouldn't do it for JF's favorite characters. I feel the show favors and focuses too much on certain characters. Yes, there will be some who are more prominent than others, but it is an ensemble and it needs to be more balanced. Not just in terms of screen time, but in terms of happiness and sadness. One character's happiness does not make up for the eternal grief and heartbreak of another. It bothers me that even as of the CS, Tom seems to be the one bearing all the grief for the family. That's wrong and frankly unrealistic. The death of a child is supposed to be one of the hardest things to overcome in a marriage and it doesn't leave you that easily.

It was the misleading promotion, I believe, that caused the backlash and outcry. That, followed by the too-quick resolution of Cora and Robert's conflict.

confessor_meggy

Especially since Elizabeth did such a wonderful job in 3x05. I actually thought she would carry her grief even longer than Tom. After 3x05 simply doesn't make sense to me at all.

Patano

Just another rant.Why Sybil's death is wrong on oh so many levels.

Story integrity

Forget even for a moment about shippers' emotions, what about narrative and character consistency and integrity? That man destroyed his previous direction and work on S/T in one moment. It's not only about what we preferred to see, but also about sacrificing narrative, storyline and character for the sake of easy sensationalism and melodrama. I think that JBF would have preferred if her character had received an appropriate closure that would have fitted her character and S/T narrative.

Fellowes can write good stuff if he wants to. It's not that he's not talented. However, after s1 he has been gradually becoming lazier and lazier. Maybe he started to think that since ratings and critical reception are good, he may now relax 'cause people and the critics will buy anything? It seems to me that he had little ideas for s3 (many things that he had initially planned for it had to be postponed for further seasons), so he used JBF's departure to fill the episodes with all the melodramatic, purposeless stuff. People will talk only about Sybil's shocking death anyway. They won't notice that practically nothing happens there.

It's like Fellowes counted that people would be so shocked by 3x05 that no one would notice or talk about what else he dribbled out. And yeah, Sybil's death overshadowed all the rest. I simply hate that JBF's leaving served as an excuse for Fellowes to create something that would cause an uproar in the media and the Internet. And some people complained so much about s2. Ha! It was heaven compared to this.

I've never treated JF as a genius or a perfect screen writer, but at least a solid one who at least does not write truly abhorrent stuff. A writer not perfect, but still trustworthy. And his previous absurds and nonsense did concern other characters than S/T. They previously were this non-dramatic pair of characters, though they paid for it with little screen time.

Season 4

There's no other reason for prolonging this show other than monetary profits. JF had the show planned initially for three seasons; anything more brings with itself a high risk of jeopardizing the show's quality. Same about the actors - it's easy to predict that they may want to leave even though their characters' SLs have not been given an appropriate closure.

We don't know about the ratings for s4 and how it will be received. People watching doesn't mean that they like it. Many are simply accustomed to watching DA on evenings. The show continues, so they watch it, but maybe they'd prefer for it to have its closure already. DA's ratings are gradually decreasing with each season. Same about the critical reception.

JF even admitted that he worries about e.g. keeping M/M interesting after their marriage. He needs to keep them interesting for longer, which means lots of unnecessary drama and character regression. M/M cannot mature because they need to always quarrel about petty things. While e.g. Bates cannot once and for all deal with his past. Prolonging a show indefinitely usually leads to this.

JF also risks here his reputation. The show is more and more often criticized. We also see that many people left the fandom (even after s2) or no longer appreciate JF/are not willing to recommend the show anymore. All of those also cast shadow on the previous seasons and people's opinion on the whole show. People are more satisfied in the long run if something has higher quality than quantity. Ratings are another matter. Further seasons are only for ratings, not viewers' satisfaction. In the age of never-ending stories, people now value when a show has its beginning and an appropriate ending. DA is not the only show on earth; for casual viewers once one show ends, they quickly switch to another without any pain involved.

I hate so much when behind-the-scenes developments affect the narrative and characters. This wasn't much of an issue on DA before because the actors were all prepared to do 3 seasons. From now on there may be more out-of-the blue farewells to characters. Every thinking person could have predicted this. Yes, I'm talking to you, JF. Critical opinion of the show is decreasing. Is it really worth it?

I'm afraid that as long as Michelle does not leave, JF won't see the problem

It could all end with this year's CS, without deaths triggered by actors' departures. There's no artistic integrity to it. And we've seen how much they care about the viewers. S4 is only about money

The destruction of Sybil and Tom's characters

Tom showed great strength of character in dealing with his loss, but he would develop more if Sybil was alive. I loved how he tried to find balance between his wife and his beliefs in 3x01 and 3x04. Now with him stuck at DA and a little baby it would only get even more interesting. Without Sybil there is no conflict - his first priority is his child; there's no place for considering anything else. His internal conflict got brushed under the carpet.

I liked how Tom's acceptance into the family was carried out in 3x01-3x04. First the awkwardness and petty problems like the morning coat, then we see Tom adjusting a bit and the Crawleys getting used to him, then things getting worse because of his political involvement etc. The Bransons being stuck at DA offered so much potential for a great continuation of this plot line. That's why I'm bitter that it all ended in 3x05 and now the circumstances completely changed and it all started anew. I really think that it would have been better if the Bransons had got more screen time in s3 and then had been written off at the end of s3. Most of their issues would have been discussed and dealt with in s3. It would have required giving them more screen time now, but then they wouldn't claim much more screen time in s4 and let's face it, how much screen time was devoted to Sybil's death and all that cheesy melodrama connected with it? A lot. If only JF ever had devoted so much screen time to previous, undramatic and unmelodramatic S/T! JF should have used Jessica as much as he could when he still had the chance to do so.

That's what I see when I look at the new Tom. Lots of wasted potential and "it shouldn't be like that" and "this character deserved so much more". It does not console me that he's still a sympathetic character as it does not console me that Sybil did not slip on a banana skin and hit her head. On an emotional level, I can't look at his suffering because did nothing to deserve such a fate when other characters can have their happiness even though they did little to achieve it.

Sybil was allowed to make a life-changing decision with consequences for years and finally break free from DA's constraints only to end up as a passive victim of fate so soon afterwards. As I have said earlier, this does send a bad message about passivity and activity as well as choosing your own way of life IMO. It's sad that through her death she was reduced to this "young, good and innocent dying" cliche. I also lament that she died in ignorance about Robert's true character and his hypocrisy in relation to Pamukgate. Yes, that she even died in ignorance about Pamukgate.

No matter that you were making a careful decision for years and your new lifestyle suits you, you'll still be punished for daring to cross social barriers and leaving DA. All cross-class relationships are doomed and tragic no matter the circumstances and people involved. Blah. A/B and M/M are from the same class, so everything must be jazzy in the end, despite the fact that their characters fit the tragic more. S/T were always active characters, not passive victims of fate!

I don't mean that JF sent a bad message about cross-class couples intentionally, but by being lazy and striving for sensationalism - yes.

Sybil's death was horrible because the idea of her death in itself was meaningless and purposeless, but it even adds fuel to the fire when we think how cruelly she was treated both through her death scene and earlier in the series when she hadn't even been given much to do or say before she was taken from us. Sybil Branson certainly did not deserve such treatment.

ScarletCourt

Not only should the death of a child be something that's difficult to overcome in a marriage. The death of an adult grandchild should make one feel old. Aside from in 3x05, Violet didn't seem to struggle to overcome losing her grown up grandchild. In her conversations in 3x06 with Robert, she treated LMB like some sort of parcel. I always thought that Violet would have forgiven Sybil anything because like she had forgiven Mary for her indiscretion with Pamuk because she was family, she would have embraced LMB as one of her own.

bijou156

I resent this show for that awful promotion, the only reason why the rating was so high was bc everyone expected this episode to be a happy and fluffy one rather than a macabre tragedy.

I know that eclampsia plot was to depict the dangers of child birth but what was the point if the whole eclampsia that was badly researched . This is what one of our followers in Patano and mine blog:

I was annoyed that Violet referred to LMB as if she is a little parcel? I would have thought that there would have being a bit of more warmth but the way that scene was written made it look like the Crawley want to compete for who has the most influence in LMB's life?