I finally watched the first episode of Downton Abbey for the first time two days ago after hearing and reading about the show for months. I guess one of the reasons why I kept putting off watching the first episode is that for some reason I felt like Downton Abbey is a show that anyone who ever watches it needs to like it given how much hype and praise that the show has been getting. After finally watching the first episode, I have to say that I absolutely loved it, and I have to say that I'm really surprised by just how great the show really is.
One of the things that I loved the most about the first episode of Downton Abbey is the fact that it dealt with people reacting to the Titanic sinking, because the Titanic is one of my favorite things in history to learn about. I don't know why the writers chose to start the series at that point in history, but I love that they did. I have to say that I thought it was interesting on how the writers kind of danced around what exactly had happened at first other than the fact that something bad happened before they finally mentioned that the characters were talking about Titanic sinking.
Obviously, I wasn't alive in 1912, but I thought that the overall look and feel of the show was very real and authentic when it comes to the sets, wardrobe and props for the show. I'm also a big fan of the TV shows Mad Men and The Tudors, and it’s very important to me that the overall look and feel of both of those shows to be very genuine and authentic to the time period during which they are set, and that’s definitely the case with Mad Men and The Tudors.
The character that intrigued me the most in the first episode was definitely Thomas Barrow. When I say that Downton Abbey surprised me, the character Thomas was definitely one of the things that surprised me the most about the show. Even though I’ve read a lot about the show, I was unaware that Downton Abbey included any gay characters. I didn’t see the kiss between Thomas and Lord Grantham coming at all, and I have say that scene as a whole was very well done. The fact that Thomas and Lord Grantham had been lovers at one point gives Downton Abbey a bit of scandalous, soap opera-like vibe for me personally, especially when Thomas tried to blackmail Lord Grantham in order to get a job as his valet. I loved that since I love soap operas. It really ticked me off when Lord Grantham threw the love letters that he had written to Thomas into the fire, which destroyed the proof that Thomas had of their relationship, which he was going to use in order to blackmail him into giving him the valet job that he wanted. I personally found the character Thomas very refreshing, since the attitude that people had towards homosexuality has changed and evolved over time. I would love to see the writers of Downton Abbey explore the subject of homosexuality some more in the future episodes.
I know that some people can be very bigoted when it comes to the subject of homosexuality and that sometimes they feel like people are shoving homosexuality in their faces and that they don’t like seeing two men or two women kiss, but the way I see it, it kind of goes both ways. We live in a predominantly heterosexual world where members of the LGBT community are surrounded by men and women who are kissing each other all the time, and they could easily say that a person’s heterosexuality is being shoved in their faces since they are the minority. Members of the LGBT community deserve to see themselves be represented on TV and movies, so I applaud the writers of Downton Abbey for featuring gay characters on the show, especially a character like Thomas who’s not afraid to be a bit of villain while also managing to be a sympathetic character.
While the extent to which the LGBT community is featured on TV and in the movies has grown greatly since the 1990s when Ellen Degeneres first came out of the closet both on her show and in real life and Will & Grace was on the air, I feel like there’s always room for more representation of the LGBT community on TV and in movies. However, I don’t want TV shows and movies to have LGBT characters just for the sake of having them so they can have a token gay guy or a token lesbian. If a TV show or a movie has LGBT characters, I want them to be well thought out and well written characters that act like real people with flaws where their sexuality isn’t their defining characteristic as a character. I want their sexuality to simply one aspect of the character. Also, I kind of like it when shows aren’t afraid to have an LGBT character be somewhat of a villain instead of having them be saint-like character that’s always the victim when something bad happens to them, and I think that’s a part of why I love how Thomas tried to blackmail Lord Grantham.
The other thing that stood out to me the most as I was watching the first episode was Maggie Smith’s portrayal as Violet Crawley. I’m a huge fan of Maggie Smith’s, but I pretty much only know her from the Harry Potter movies, so it was great seeing her in a different role. I thought she did a great job in the first episode of Downton Abbey.
The only complaint that I have about the episode is that I felt like there was a lot going on as they were establishing the plot and introducing all of the characters, so I feel like the episode could have benefited from being just twenty to thirty minutes longer so the episode would hopefully not feel quite as rushed as it felt to me at times. The main reason why I say this is that I felt the writers were moving from one scene to the next a bit too quickly for my taste at the beginning of the episode, but I feel like the pacing of the episode got better as the episode continued. This aspect of the episode didn’t bring my level of enjoyment too much as I was watching it though. Having the episode be a little bit longer than it was is simply something that I probably would have considered if I had been one of the producers working for the show the first episode of Downton Abbey was written and filmed.
All in all, I really enjoyed the first episode of Downton Abbey, and I can definitely see why the show has become so popular and why it has become the phenomenon that it is now. Watching the first episode of Downton Abbey definitely left me wanting more, but in a good way. I’ll definitely be buying the season 1 and 2 DVD sets of Downton Abbey at some point, so I can watch all of the episodes that I missed.
That being said I give this episode a rating of an A-.
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