Our Downton Abbey family ritual: Thanks for the memories, PBS

Now in season 3, Downton Abbey has become our Sunday evening family ritual, like "Murder She Wrote" before it, or Bonanza before that. It makes the electronic hearth safe again -- and it satisfies a kid as much as Glee.

By Clara Germani,?Staff writer / January 4, 2013

Downton Abbey's third season starts Sunday: A family is addicted to it and it's all good.

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Conversation over the leftover roast dinner the other night suddenly got very spicy when I mentioned? we?re going to have our Sunday evenings cut out for us now because ?Downton is back.?

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Clara Germani is a senior editor for the Monitor, based in Boston. She handles in-depth projects, or cover stories, for the weekly print magazine and is the editor of the Monitor's parenting blog, "Modern Parenthood."

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?Oh YEAH-uh!? said my 15-year-old daughter in a near milk-spew, as excited as if it were a new KPatz Twilight movie. She?s no PBS nerd, but she?s as addicted to the Edwardian soap as her mom and dad.

Why do we love it?

As much as I?ve enforced the ?no TV? rule throughout Ellen?s childhood, I have to admit: I love the feeling of the Sunday-night ritual of getting Mom, Dad, Kid and Dog together on the couch, staring into the flat screen and sharing the tangle of angsts, glories, irritations, and loves of Downton for 60 minutes ? as well as our own irritations when that 60 minutes is up. It?s like having our own cozy little tea time ? only we?re dressed in pajamas and Queenie tends to bark when we get too unruly about the latest injustice to passive-aggressive Bates.

I revel in every moment from that rear-view Lab shot in the opening credits to the brutal cliffhanger closings and all the in-between of the fine cutlery of Maggie Smith?s one-liners, the copper pots and pans that make even English fare look good, and the desire to just reach out and touch someone (an encouraging cheek squeeze in the case of goofy servant Daisy, a firm pinch for middle-Crawley-daughter Edith, and a bear hug for butler Mr. Carson). And, I?m able to suspend disbelief (I?m talking to you New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley!) of the show being unrealistic treacle because ... I just want to. I even succumbed to Boston public television?s WGBH membership drive just to get that ?Free Bates? T-shirt they were offering.

My husband considers the show just? ?a cracking-good old-fashioned soap opera of a story? that substitutes rich characters for the modern TV failsafe of video game action or cheap humor.? And, like me, he likes his TV ritual and he likes it on Sunday nights ? and rarely any other time ?? as a cozy family thing going back to ?Bonanza? and ?Disney?s Wonderful World of Color? and ?Matlock? and ?Murder She Wrote.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/9Wlmy5Cmg7o/Our-Downton-Abbey-family-ritual-Thanks-for-the-memories-PBS

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