Sunday, January 2, 2011

Downton Abbey Takes A Shortcut Across The Pond

I was all set to gripe about the subject of this article in the Daily Mail when I noticed that someone already has.

Still, I feel rather exasperated. To chop two hours off of this really fabulous miniseries on the basis that certain inheritance procedures in Britain might leave viewers "baffled" is almost insulting. What ARE the heads at PBS thinking? Have they succumbed to the Dumbing Us Down mentality?

"For the land of the notoriously short attention span," the article claims, "TV executives have taken a knife to the...series, slashing its running time and simplifying the plotline..."

"American audiences are used to a different speed when it comes to television dram and you need to get into a story very quickly [said Rebecca Eaton, head of PBS programming]."

"Ms Eaton insisted that any changes were minor and did not affect the quality of the programme."

Nice. Thanks for that. Given that I've seen what you're going to cut, well, all I can say is shame on you for expecting so little of your audience.

Want to voice your disapproval? You should. Click here.


6 comments:

Kimmarie said...

Thanks for the heads up! I did post a comment to Masterpiece, voiced my displeasure and also stated that I will be waiting to watch it on dvd rather then my local station : (

Becky at Farm School said...

I live in a land without PBS, but I've already (pre-)ordered the dvd set at Amazon.com and assuming the American powers that be keep their mitts off those, I'll be happy. Somehow this doesn't surprise me. Same bunch of people who think we would need Sigourney Weaver instead of David Attenborough. Gah.
Merry merry and happy happy (see, I'm trying...)

Becky at Farm School said...

Ooh. Am going backwards in the alphabet doing my (minimal) blog reading and at a new to me blog (discovered while away to help me keep my sanity) found this,

http://enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.com/2011/01/downton-not-being-downsized-shame-on.html

All I can say is that for the past month or so, Enchanted Serenity has lived up to its name for me. The mental equivalent of "Calgon, take me away...". Highly recommended.

sheila said...

Well, I'm going to have to check the times on my copy versus the times at PBS, because it sounds as though there ARE going to be some cuts. Honestly, why do they have to change ANYTHING? It's such an interesting story, that entail. Thanks for the link, B.

The Rush Blog said...

It's already been confirmed that hardly any cuts have been made.

sheila said...

Rush, "hardly any" is still too much in my book. They shouldn't be cutting this thing at ALL.