I have not been watching Downton
Abbey, but lots of people I know have been glued to their TV sets for the
whole run. Julian Fellowes, the brains behind the operation, has been the
creative visionary behind many, many fine productions I have very much enjoyed. But somehow, this story of the Upstairs,
Downstairs variety has not drawn me in whatsoever (although admittedly I haven’t
seen any of it at all).* And this is why I really think Mr. Fellowes ought to do
something with the show’s finale to make all the people out there like myself
feel they’ve missed something very special.
But how to do that? I only don’t watch it because it’s not
some mystery show. Pure dramas bore me, but for some reason, throw a ghost in
there, and all of a sudden, the drama is great, even if it’s just as boring as
before. And this is how I think he could wrap this whole entire affair up in a
way where he could frustrate everyone:
those who watched, and those who
didn’t. How is this possible? Well…
Okay, so Downton Abbey
is really about some aristocrat family trying to keep the estate in the family
somehow through numerous generations, right? (At least, that’s what I’ve been
told.) So then for the finale, what Fellowes should do is this: Have the last
descendent of this family be some ne’er-do-well wastrel drunkard gambler type,
and he squanders all his inheritance, so he has to sell the estate to some gauche
developer to tear it down to build a block of flats. Oh, but then it turns out
that Downton Abbey was haunted all along (by the original builder/owner: as it turns out, this family’s ancestors murdered the original owner and his family, and he cursed the place to bring them all down, and that’s why it’s called Downton Abbey: because it will drag them all down like a ton of bricks!), and it was cursed that all the
descendants of this family would have to stay behind and haunt the place if it
ever was sold to someone else (and that’s why they wanted to keep it in the
family so badly {!}, and part of the curse is that it’s so hard to keep the place in the family!), and so this last family member gets haunted to suicide by all
the characters from the show, and then he becomes a ghost too, whereupon they
all go to haunt this new block of flats and this developer guy. And this starts
a whole new show about the haunted block of flats (with all your favorite Downton Abbey characters as malevolent spirits haunting a building full of birds and punters).
Does this sound like too much of a stretch to you? Then consider this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/06/jane-austen-ring-for-auction?newsfeed=true
That’s right: Jane Austen’s ring is going up for auction, so there really is nothing sacred.
* I actually like it a lot now that I have watched it. I just miss the mystery series it replaces.
Does this sound like too much of a stretch to you? Then consider this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/06/jane-austen-ring-for-auction?newsfeed=true
That’s right: Jane Austen’s ring is going up for auction, so there really is nothing sacred.
* I actually like it a lot now that I have watched it. I just miss the mystery series it replaces.
