LUSCIOUS TV SHOWS: Downton Abbey Season 5 – is it time to end the series?

Have you seen the new episode of Downton Abbey, the first for Season 5? Sadly, we were very disappointed…

It’s hard to keep the faith when time passes but they still behave if the last season was the week before. So I did some quick digging and confirmed that I wasn’t going mad – we’ve jumped through 12 years in five seasons.

Yet we’re still seeing characters anguish over the same things from 12 years ago, or even 5 years ago.

To be frank, I should say “spoiler alert” for the following notes, but NOTHING IS VERY DIFFERENT to what you’ve already seen:

Lady Mary is still toying with potential new husbands.
Branson is still complaining about being torn between two worlds, despite being part of the family for many years now, and he still hasn’t made a move on the school teacher.
The villagers are only now (in 1924) discussing a war memorial, despite the war ending 6 years earlier.
Barrow is still tormenting everyone with the same old threats, yet is now magically trusted by Jimmy the footman.
Lady Edith is still being pathetic (why hasn’t she just moved to Germany to find her missing man??) and her baby is now a toddler on which she dotes but the adoptive mother still hasn’t worked out why she visits/cares so much for this particular child.
Molesley is still pining for Miss Baxter.
The dull is-he-a-murderer line still lurks around poor old Mr Bates.
Even Granny, the Dowager Countess, hadn’t thought through the consequences of pairing Isobel with an aristocrat and potentially usurping her own position, despite spending her life devoted to the intricacies of high society.
And the way the Little Sybil and George have grown from babies to small children (yet others have stayed looking the same), it’s like a bad soap opera.

Here’s a Downton Abbey date summary:

Series 1 = 1912-1914
Series 2 = 1916-1919
Christmas Special 2011 = 1919-1920
Series 3 = 1920-1921
Christmas Special 2012 = 1921
Series 4 = 1922-1923
Christmas Special 2013 = 1923
Series 5 = 1924

More timeline details here.

I feel bad dissing a show I’ve loved so much, but Mr Luscious and I were both squirming in our seats as we watched it. However, we did love Lady Mary’s remark, “I’m going upstairs to take off my hat!” which we are now applying to all things at Chez Luscious.

Have you seen it? What did you think?

Cheers, Natasha

Scroll through our full collection of Downton Abbey photos here: