I wanted to like this, and it started strong, but Downton Abbey is just terribly written and awkwardly paced. Every time it creates a little tension, it seems to want to relieve it, post-haste. And the resolutions it comes up with are often trite, sometimes out of character, and almost always anticlimactic. It's fluff at best, with some entertaining bits and pieces. Maggie Smith, in particular, carries the whole thing, like Atlas. But it's Maggie Smith, not the character and definitely not the script, at work in that one consistently good thread. By the last episode, even the lethargic, bland yellow lab got under my skin when it appeared, as if all its scenes had been shot in the same 10 minutes.
Review of Downton Abbey
