The Gilded Age is here

Yumminess.

Do we know if there's any gay male action?

If Violet Crawley is still not alive and well in her hundreds in this, they can keep it.

Delish!

Christine Baranski will slaughter everyone at award season.

The Age of Innocence is better

Martin Scorcese directing Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Miriam Margolyes, Geraldine Chaplin, Jonathan Pryce, Alec McCowen, Richard E. Grant, Mary Beth Hurt, Sian Phillips, Stuart Wilson, Norman Lloyd, Alexis Smith, Robert Leonard Smith, Carolyn Farina, and Michael Gough will always be better than whatever this show is.

Did I mention Elmer Bernstein wrote the score and Joanne Woodward is the narrator??

Looks fab!

Some of the earlier movies of this genre do not hold up and are stuffy and boring. Not sure about Age of Innocence it’s been too long since I’ve seen it

[quote] The Age of Innocence is better

How do you know? This hasn't aired yet.

And why are they in competition with one another? Can there only be one story about these people in this era?

So according to OP I can watch this OR I can watch "The Age of innocence."

It is clearly impossible to watch both!

[quote]Can there only be one story about these people in this era?

Yes.

Maryanne is no Maggie.

I agree - there is something way too clean-looking about the whole thing. NYC during that time was not some spic-and-span, gleaming white Disneyland with immaculate streets. The streets were usually full of horse manure and mud.

JANUARY 24? That is almost 3 months away.

Waaaaay to early for the trailer. This irks me because the entire series will be spoiled before it ever starts.

Math is hard, r15. Isn't it?

Don't panic, R15, if you've seen Downton Abbey, you've seen this.

Oh wow I remember hearing about this year’s ago. Glad it finally has come to be.

Yes, 'The Gilded Age' was courted by NBC years ago. (The IG page "nbcgildedage" still exists.) Baranski is perfect for this, and the whole cast actually looks amazing. I assume they'll have a cameo for me in S2, as a foil to my old friend Christine.

Will be watching!

I'll watch to see if it's any good but I have low expectations. Julian Fellowes is usually a good writer of the first script (or maybe even series) and then a writer from the Michael Landon school thereafter... he puts the required number of words on page to get another episode cranked out but he doesn't put a lot of thought into it.

The times are changing here on Fifth Avenue, Mr. Carlton.

How are they justifying Baranski’s extensive plastic surgery in 19th century NYC?

[quote]stars Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Denée Benton, Louisa Jacobson, Taissa Farmiga, Blake Ritson, Simon Jones, Harry Richardson, Thomas Cocquerel, Jack Gilpin, with Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski.

Great cast until I saw Cynthia Nixon. I think I will pass then. Thanks!

Morgan Spector is a major crush of mine so I absolutely will be watching this.

And I’m so glad that Carrie Coon has replaced Amanda Peet. Peet does not read “19th century” at all and would have been a distraction.

Cynthia's character seems kind of mousy... Baranski is the Dowager rip off... odd casting of Cynthia but the $ you'd guess.

Cynthia’s character is down on her luck and relying on Baranski’s noblesse oblige.

R27 Well that doesn’t bode well.

Not sure what race has to do with this. I'd be just as appalled if it was a white guy beating up his black gf. Has it come to a point that we can't show anyone of color behaving badly? Bad is bad no matter the race.

Lol, wrong thread...sorry. No idea how that happened.

Why are there black people acting like they're white people in this series?

Christine Baranski in a period drama? I love her, but no.

Will Cybil make a cameo appearance?

They’re approved for Season 2 already.

Trashy, new money, and COMMON! ALL of them!

I wonder if it will follow Lord Fellowes’ habit (in Downton) of building up storylines for week after boring week, and then wrapping them up in the most tediously undramatic way by having a letter delivered or a policeman appear to make clear that the mcguffin has been eliminated offstage.

I fully expect there to be a ladies’ maid who is harassed by someone called Coyle for several decades, without this gentleman ever being seen. And there’s bound to be much wittering about a hospital that no-one in the audience cares about.

It has Ms Baranski though, so I will probably watch.

I'm in if Octavia Spencer plays Alva Vanderbilt.

Delicious pussy!

"The Age of Innocence" or "The Gilded Age." Take your pick. They were both filmed in Troy, NY.

Looks like something I'd watch. I love that period. But the trailer is terrible. A shoe! A hand! A face looking out a window! All set to dramatic, self-important music.

The little bit of dialogue between Baranski and Nixon in the final scene of the trailer seemed too modern.

I’m surprised they did use the massive sets they built in Budapest for the Alienist to film the show.

Fellowes did OK with Gosford Park and the first one or two seasons of Downton. Everything else he has done has been dreck. I dare you to sit through his entire fictional miniseries about the Titanic.

So once again, some Brit is going to come to the states, produce a film or series about America, casting mostly Brit actors who portray a period and people they know nothing about. Do these people NOT get that we left and kicked them out for a reason? No wonder Obama detested them.

STUPID CUNTING INTRO by OP.

Why not make a shiny gilded age series? All the NEW MONEY were building everything new and shiny. Also there's ZERO need for plodding pretentious delivery "RICH PEOPLE" speak out of central casting and classical Hollywood since the real deal was just urban American robber Barrons and capitalists run amok and speaking as such.

TBH, 'Bridgerton' changed everything. It swung opened the doors to colourblind casting. We'd had teensy glimpses of that (like Jeff Goldblum's daughter in one of the 'Jurassic Park' sequels being black, but nothing like making the Queen someone of African descent.)

To the credit of 'The Gilded Age', it also looks like they'll tackle the subject of the black servants and how they live/progress way back then. I don't think any viewers expect Fellowes to be completely factual. He normally takes so many liberties.

There’d better be plenty of trans sex workers of colors!

My understanding is this series will be about two families in 1880s New York: the Brook/Van Rhijn family, who represent "Old New York" and the old moneyed Dutch-American aristocracy (the the Van Rensselaers and the Schuylers and the Schermerhorns), and the Russell family, who represent the aggressive New Money.(like the Belmonts and the Vanderbilts and the Morgans). Christine Baranski will play the matriarch of the Brook/ Van Rhijn family, and the Russells are led by Morgan Spector as a robber baron and Carrie Coon as his social climbing wife. They will have other characters who are supposed to be real people from old Knickerbocker society: Donna Murphy will be "the" Mrs. Astor, Nathan Lane will be Ward McAllister, etc.

[quote] and Carrie Coon as his social climbing wife

CANCELLED!!

Omg in OP’s picture I thought Christine Baranski was Carole Radziwell!

Julian Fellows would have been guaranteed a hit if he had just found a large house in America, such as the Biltmore Estate, and made the American Downton.

There is no "American Downton" because there was no landed gentry. There were very rich very pretentious people but a lot of the game was quite different.

R52 People don't care about the actual history, from Julian Fellows, they just want to watch rich people and their poor servants living in a large plush house.

And costumes! Lots and lots of pretty costumes!!!

So is the black talent playing members of the 400 - and as black recognized as such by the whites? (complete historical inaccuracy) Or are they playing members of the 400 but no mention that the actor is black? (post modern gimmick) Or are they playing parallel characters that have some semblance of historical accuracy?

Don't miss the next episode of Rich White Folks, Sundays at 9!

Will there be a Gay storyline?

Reading skills? Nathan Lane as Ward McAllister. Turn in your Gay Card. Or at least delete it from your smart phone.

R58 He can play straight. He was straight in Only Murders In The Building and City of Angels and was totally believable. On Murders he was more believable playing a straight man than Martin Short, who claims to be straight.

Ward McAllister, hunny. Look it up. Also remember to send in your Gay Card, STAT.

R60 Ward McAllister was straight, right? I haven't seen anything about him not being so.

And, I thought you were answering R57 who was asking if there would be a gay storyline.

[quote] "The Age of Innocence is better"

In depicting that period, it's still unrivaled, as far as I know. It's just a shame that otherwise good actors were terrible in it (Day-Lewis & Rider...Pfeiffer was good, and Margoyles was fantastic).

Ryder got an Oscar nomination and actually plays the character as written.

Ryder understood the assignment.

All of you ancient queens crowing about a forgotten 1993 movie that won x1 Oscar for Costume Design...your Sabbath Jello is being served in the cafeteria by barely legal Latino servers. Good fuck, get a life. Or get a new life and be open to a new series you might enjoy.

Just remember, R65, you are already well on your way to being an ancient queen, too. The clock stops at midnight for no one and your turn is coming.

I just can't buy it. It's like OP says, it's too clean-looking. The pic of the two women in front of the stagecoach, it looks like a still from some MGM musical from the 1950s. Carrie Coon's look in this pic is ridiculous, it looks like something from Bridgerton.

What him wholesale steal plots from Henry James! Look for a character based entirely on Undine Spragg!

The only possible twist that could be amusing would be to write in Shirley's character in a younger version. Then, in a big to save it from cancellation, they could write in Maggie's character in a younger version.

I always heard that that was going to happen in this series when our was originally proposed, R69. There’s definitely going to be some nod to the Downton universe.

This is HBO, yes?

[quote]Creator Julian Fellowes has said that he hopes to have a younger version of the Countess of Grantham, originally played by Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, appear in the show at some point. To be set in the same universe as Downton Abbey.

Everything's possible.

Why did NBC pass on it?

The costume design actually looks quite authentic (I think the designer is a Brit) except for Carrie Coon's (not just that one at r67) as the New Money Poseur, which seems to be trying too hard to be outrageously crass and has no authenticity at all

Carrie Coon needs to change her name.

[quote] To be set in the same universe as Downton Abbey.

This six part series by Mr Fellowes had some excellent moments (with the intriguing Harriet Walter) but other moments of mawkishness and incredulity.

So is this filling the Succession slot when it’s over?

It sucked, R76. I bailed after the second episode which I didn't view entirely.

The lady who does the speaking in the teaser trailer is giving Mary of Teck vibes. Love it!

I really enjoyed BELGRAVIA and thought it was much better written than DOWNTON ABBEY. There were were far fewer characters demanding attention and, being a limited series, it didn't have to keep inventing outlandish plot lines. Fellowes was smart to keep it to one season where it could wrap itself up nicely. You should have kept watching, Debbie Downer at r78!

Gosford Park is unwatchable.

"but nothing like making the Queen someone of African descent"

R46 - There maybe some truth here. Princess Charlotte, wife if George III, may have been of African descent.

I love Gosford Park. Didn't finish Belgravia. Downtown was a soap. The ridiculous storylines are par for the course.

Christina Baranski? Is she related to Brian Baranski of scummy mother fuck, Pennsylvania?

Well I’m excited!

[quote] There maybe some truth here. Princess Charlotte, wife if George III, may have been of African descent.

No, not maybe.

People who believe in lies are fools.

"maybe" - or - "may be"

No.

Not may be. Princess Charlotte was not of African descent.

Queen Charlotte was as pure as the the white driven snow!

And then she drifted.

R87 - Fuck auto-correct!!!!

R23, all the extensive plastic surgery done on actor's these days really stands out in these period dramas. It really throws you out of believing you're in the time or that the actor, no matter how good they are, is convincing.

Also the line "For a New Yorker, anything is possible" is such a lazy and groan-worthy line. It's like they expect anyone from New York watching this to immediately start cheering or something. As others have said it also just doesn't look authentic enough, or create that sense of authenticity, if you get me. If you do that, you can get away with a lot.

I hope the success of Bridgerton hasn't cheapened period dramas that will come out in the future. I can still see a clip from the 1996 Pride and Prejudice and marvel at the attention to detail and how it makes the whole era seem real.

Anyway, I shouldn't say much more, because I haven't seen this yet, and shouldn't judge it too hard before I see more than the trailer.

I love Downton Abbey, but the trailers for this show seem so sanitized and sterile, I'm not sure it will live to my DA-level expectations.

They make the world of that era look way to clean. Wouldn’t they be walking through piles of shit from all the horse-drawn carriages? Being stuffed into those hot, heavy dresses, you can just imagine the B.O. and crotch rot that would accompany the simplest interaction, even among the monied. There is no verisimilitude.

I’m obviously going to watch it, but I’m not impressed by that trailer at all. Some of the lines seem too modern.

*too

Who is that dude with the beard? I would like to suck his cock.

R96, Morgan Spector. I would like to suck it to completion too.

I hate colorblind casting like the black Anne Boleyn on AMC and Bridgerton. It's dishonest and an insult to the study of history. BTW Downton's great success was not due to Julian's writing, instead it was the costumes, the setting and the actors. He had nothing to do with any of that. He was not interested in how it looked.

Does Carrie Coon have a hairy poon?

Botox faces are so distracting on period dramas, like Shirley Maclaine on Downton abbey, really ruins the mood.

Well, as shit as Bridgerton was, I don't think it was because of the colourblind casting. The point was always that the show was set in an alternate reality. That COULD have been interesting, but it wasn't done very well, and the show was really just terrible Mills and Boon shit, with plastic looking costumes.

Have we seen this?

It looks like it's been cobbled together out of the minor characters from [italic]The Age of Innocence[/italic]: Morgan Spector and Carrie Coon are playing Julius and Regina Beaufort, and Christine Baranski is playing a cross between Louisa van der Luyden (the unimpeachable family position and social influence) and Mrs. Manson Mingott (the sharp tongue).

I could be completely wrong about this, but I THINK they actually filmed a pilot for this several years ago when NBC was gonna release it, and then they changed their mind after they saw it and it never aired and the whole thing was scrapped. And freaking John Barrowman was in it, so….you can imagine how shitty it must have been.

I’m assuming the face lifted ladies are just time travelers from the future on some exclusive expensive virtual reality sojourn where you get to travel back in time and be snooty members of the 400?

Christine Baranski is playing Maggie Smith.

Maggie Smith has one foot in the grave, so someone has to take over. The queens love those sotto voce bitches. There is money to be made there.

I want to start and all girl Punk Ska band called The Soto Voce Bitches.

R104, I believe you're right about John Barrowman being in the original 'The Gilded Age' pilot. Although, IMDB also shows another pilot called 'Gilded Lilys' starring him and Blythe Danner that wasn't picked up.

^ That girl, whoever she is, is so pretty.

Geeves, get me a bromide. And wire the beautician to come and stay the entire day....I'm tired of looking like a bulldog.

Carrie Coons looks and acts natural. Everyone else is striving mightily to e-nun-ci-ate.

Blond girl looks much too contemporary.

I know I'm in the minority, but I don't think Cynthia Nixon is a particularly good actress.

And she is dreadful trying to pull off period dramas.

She sounded so modern in Amadeus. And her received pronunciation, long before such a thing even existed, in World Without End was ridiculous.

Barrowman wasn't connected with The Gilded Age. As pointed out above, The Gilded Lilys was a different pilot for ABC that wasn't picked up.

NBC ordered Gilded Age straight-to-series in 2018, which was frankly insane. I suspected it would never air on network. Robert "Smash" Greenblatt left NBC right after picking it up.

It was on hold forever — Julian Fellowes claimed he was "too busy" and "doing research." But the real reason is that the potential audience for period hourlong dramas on ad-supported network TV is so small that the economics would never work.

As much as I like Baranski, she's terrible in the clip.

She's do better playing it like Leonard's mother, but whatever she's giving in that clip is just plain dreadful.

This show has a flawed premise. They should have done a show that was a bit closer to the other end of Downton - the marriage circus around the so-called dollar princesses, like Consuelo Vanderbilt and Downton's Countess Grantham. Within THAT they could have couched the issues around new vs. old money, as the whole point of marrying off the daughters was for the English nobility to get their money grubbing hands on their fortunes and the families to obtain social standing and credibility by getting titles.

I disagree, R115. The conflict between old and new money in America is a solid premise. It was happening at that time. And the ambition and real-life crazy characters in the old and new money American families are ripe for drama.

It would be nice to see Fellowes write an interesting, powerful male character. Morgan Spector is great, so I have hope. But it could be like Downton and all about the women. Fellowes seems incapable of writing about anyone with testosterone.

Oh, Morgan Spector was in great lead in The Plot Against America right?

R113, there were scenes in the original Sex and the City where she blew me away. Maybe it was just compared to the other actresses, but I think she can be really excellent. The episode where her mother dies, springs to mind. Also in And Just Like That, there's a scene where Brady tells her she's crazy or something and she turns around and walks back to him, and the look in her eyes made me nervous just watching haha. I was like: "oh, that's a mum's angry look!" I haven't seen her in much else though, so not sure if maybe she just had a great handle on Miranda and is less good elsewhere?

Cynthia Nixon is an excellent actress. I've seen her on stage in The Country Club, Rabbit Hole, and The Real Thing, and she killed each time.

She's not properly cast here as the mousy, recessive sister. Too much fire-in-the-eyes. Jane Adams or Molly Parker might have been a better choice.

But they needed names! Names! I see this as a holdover of the protracted NBC development period.

Morgan Spector looks incredible naked—front and back—and I would suck him until my head caved in.

JESUS CHRIST R120! You're gonna have to fight me for that, fuck!

No way, R121.

Morgan is mine. I claimed him the minute I saw that movie five years ago.

Here's a semi-glimpse of hole, just for fun:

Fuck R120, you bastard. Look you want to suck him dry, how about I go around and tongue him from the back at the same time? Haha.

(In all seriousness, thanks for introducing me to him!)

For those of you bitching that it looks too clean:

In that period, upper-crust areas of NYC were pretty fucking clean.

They found a way. Here is Fifth Avenue and 53rd, circa 1899:

R80-= BILL TAYLOR for putting caps on proper nouns and titles.

[quote] I wonder if it will follow Lord Fellowes’ habit (in Downton) of building up storylines for week after boring week, and then wrapping them up in the most tediously undramatic way by having a letter delivered or a policeman appear to make clear that the mcguffin has been eliminated offstage.

He really was profoundly awful at pacing and delivering a payoff on Downton. One assumes (hopes) HBO will take a stronger hand.

The Vanderbilts' (snubbed by Old New York society) mansion at Fifth Avenue and 52nd in the 1880s:

More hot, clean Gilded Age NYC action:

[quote]This show has a flawed premise. They should have done a show that was a bit closer to the other end of Downton - the marriage circus around the so-called dollar princesses, like Consuelo Vanderbilt and Downton's Countess Grantham. Within THAT they could have couched the issues around new vs. old money, as the whole point of marrying off the daughters was for the English nobility to get their money grubbing hands on their fortunes and the families to obtain social standing and credibility by getting titles.

Fellowes is already doing a series that will show exactly that--it will be a prequel to "Downton," and it will show how the wealthy American Levinsons brought their daughter Cora to the UK in the 1880s and married her off to Robert, Viscount Downton (who later became the Earl of Grantham).

I'm actually glad Fellowes is trying something a little different here by looking at the US, although his obsession with icy and haughty society matriarchs does begin to pall.

You can show us all the photos of late 1800s NYC claiming it was pristinely clean, but it looks like the photographer just happened to be there moments before a horse took a shit in the street.

I have absolutely no desire to watch this thing. It looks repetitive. It might be fun to watch the first episode to see which American character is the derivative from Downton... there's the Mary, there's the Sybil, there's the Branson, ope- times are changing - that's the Mrs. Hughes.

The latest trailer really exposes the artificiality of it all. It just look so arch and trying-too-hard.

At least the horses back then were subjected to Beef-a-Roni.

*weren't subjected!

Is Cynthia munching carpet in this as well?

[quote]Fellowes is already doing a series that will show exactly that--it will be a prequel to "Downton," and it will show how the wealthy American Levinsons brought their daughter Cora to the UK in the 1880s and married her off to Robert, Viscount Downton (who later became the Earl of Grantham).

I'd argue that's a bad idea also because it requires someone to be cast as a young Maggie Smith AND and young Shirley McLaine in leading roles.

Also, if it's about the Levinson's going to Britain to marry off Cora, it'll still be from a Britsh point of view, rather than showing the class struggle among the wealthy in America.

Mark my words, Fellowes will wholesale steal subplots from The Custom Of The Country.

He certainly raped Anthony Trollope with every season of Downton.

I have a friend who went to the same college (Reed) as Morgan Spector did--he says Morgan had a sign on his dorm window for a while promising any and all female students no-strings sex at any time they wanted if they just came in and asked.

You dumb bitches. Do you really think wealthy people had horse shit piled in front of their mansions? Of course not ! Street sweepers and cleaners would have made sure their stretch was pristine. I cant wait for this,I love a period drama. I dont understand people who are so negative about something they havent even seen.

R137, that was Anna. You must be thinking of another show.

If you want to watch a good series about the intersection of nouveau riche American heiresses and broke English lords, watch The Buccaneers.

R142 - Is "The Buccaneers" available for streaming in the US? If so, where?

I have not been able to find it.

[quote]If you want to watch a good series about the intersection of nouveau riche American heiresses and broke English lords, watch The Buccaneers.

Do you mean the 1995 miniseries adaptatino of the Wharton novel?

Wasn't that panned by critics?

I watched it a couple years ago on YouTube. Check Daily Motion as well.

Was it panned? I don’t remember. I thought it was fine. Since the book was unfinished, probably the complaint was about the couple running off to Italy and a supposedly happy ending. If you’ve read other novels from that era, you’d know that was an optimistic take.

Is it here here now?

The Buccaneers was indeed shitty. Better to just read the novel.

Christine Baranski is such an annoying actress....overly mannered and stagy...PASS

R147 - Th novel "completed" by Marion Mainwaring is excellent.

Hi Cybill at r148

Broadway hottie Claybourne Elder is going to be playing John Adams on this show

It's starring another of M's daughters: this time, it's Louisa.

It's sure to flop.

Louisa Jacobson (Gummer) is a revelation. Natch.

--M

[quote] Louisa Jacobson (Gummer) is an abomination. Natch.

FIFY, M dear.

When exactly is it here here?

Jan 24 2022

Flop? I think Americans liked Downton because it was British therefore classy and the behavior, rules, and customs were intriguing and “foreign” plus Maggie Smith. The American version will just seem stifling and pretentious because everyone knows there’s no class system in America [sic]. Julian Fellowes is not a good enough writer to overcome that.

I want to like it - I do love me a good costume drama - but much like that series about Harry Potter Wizards in Victorian London (though James Norton showed his butt, so it wasn't a complete loss), these shows are just lifeless & uninteresting. They're beautiful & usually have some big names attached...but there's just nothing there. I hope this series proves me wrong, but I was even bored by the trailer (other than speculating that Cynthia Nixon needed the $$ for another mayoral run)

So the characters outfits are going to match their wallpaper? That just seems to matchymatchy and not period correct.

I am looking forward to this. I just need something like this right now. But I admit, I'm looking forward to it a lot more because of the DL threads on it, even the haters will provide a lot of fun.

This doesn’t bode well, and the opening episode is 80 minutes long, that sounds very random.

For what it's worth, that TV Line reviewer tends to be negative. The Hollywood Reporter's review is more positive, though if you read between the lines, it's hardly a rave (he seemed find it slow too, but willing to wait and see).

The original source of all these shows is Upstairs Downstairs, which had real substance, and it was not nostalgic. Downton stole everything from it, used the big money to buy costumes, but never had good writing.

Everyone I know who watched Downton back in the day said the same thing: It went stupid starting in the second season. And yet it got six seasons all up! People really will watch anything.

[quote]Everyone I know who watched Downton back in the day said the same thing: It went stupid starting in the second season. And yet it got six seasons all up! People really will watch anything.

My elderly mother once got genuinely mad at me for calling DA a silly soap opera (this was like in Season 4). Don't underestimate the power DA's fans!

R25- There are lots of photos FULL FRONTAL of his BEAUTIFUL cock on the internet. I assume you've seen them.

Tvline is full of shit anyway. Like some others have said here- Downton Abbey was itself NOT a good show.

The ONLY show to watch about servants and their masters is Upstairs Downstairs (1971-1975).

Upstairs Downstairs was made for about $5, and yet the writing and acting were miles ahead of these other shows.

R168 - Maybe PBS will use the old scripts and a do a new remake scene-for-scene with great costumes and modern production techniques.

Are all episodes now available? Are people bingeing as we speak?

It doesn't start until January 24th R170

Crew friend of mine told me Season 2 starts shooting April 4th and most of it will be shot in Newport RI. And there will be less of Christine Baranski in it because she’ll be off shooting Season 6 of The Good Fight.

Never match the wallpaper.

--E. Wharton

Maybe the poor script and poor directing will be made up for by a SURFEIT of COCKS.

Crew friend said there’s no gay stuff in Season 1.

There was an Upstairs/Downstairs remake/update made maybe a decade ago which only got one series set just before the Second World War. Claire Foy played a good timing second sister that got mixed up with Von Ribbentrop in it. I enjoyed it.

I won’t see this since I refuse to sign up for HBO just to try something out.

[quote] Everyone I know who watched Downton back in the day said the same thing: It went stupid starting in the second season.

The first two seasons were solid.

I don't know that Fellowes expected or planned for it to go to 6 seasons and was probably going to cap it at 3 and revisit down the line, as some British shows do. But the popularity of the show exploded in the US. At the same time, they lost the characters of Matthew and Sybil.

Seasons 4 and 5 are paced terribly and you can tell Fellowes was treading water. The one idea he had for filler was Anna's rape. Otherwise they repeated stories (Edith gets then loses a man, one or both of the Bateses are in jail) or had stories that made you think "what was that all about?" (A huge buildup for a story with Baxter, and yet we never even see the man.)

The last few episodes were great, including Edith finally telling Mary to fuck herself, but it was years of drudgery in between.

I hope the Gilded Age has others involved that can better reign in or correct Fellowes' excesses.

[quote] Fellowes' excesses.

You can't complain about his 'excesses' after you say 'his first two seasons were solid'. He was required to supervise a team of 20 writers to do the following four seasons.

His quite-satisfactory show 'Belgravia" was fine at 6 episodes.

I am tempted to get HBO just to see this, but I'm still not sure. The sets and costumes look great, but the acting in the trailer seems off. All of them -- including Christine Baranski -- are kind of stiff, like they are saying someone else's words.

I loved Downton Abbey as a sort of guilty pleasure ... it was well made and fun to watch, even if it did not amount to much dramatically. But so far this show is starting to remind me more of Julian Fellowes' version of Titanic, which was utterly drab and unnecessary.

[quote] You can't complain about his 'excesses' after you say 'his first two seasons were solid'.

I can.

I did.

I did so because those are two different things. Sorry your mastery of English is failing you at this time.

Downton Abbey had a. staff of 20 writers because some boffin decided it needed to keep 20 different story lines going and developing in each and every episode.

Chaotic and stupid.

The costuming and locations alone are enough for me to give it a try. I hate winter and hopefully, this will be a fun watch.

The Washington Post hates it:

"The series’s headlining star is Carrie Coon, who’s trapped in an iciness from which Fellowes barely lets her stir. (She’s hardly alone; the sprawling cast is chockablock with beloved actors, nearly all saddled with frustratingly underwritten characters.) "

"It’s difficult to parse what exactly “The Gilded Age” adds to HBO’s roster of shows about terrible rich people, the latter a symptom of our own gilded era, in which the most consistent protest we can seemingly muster up is to make TV shows about how miserable our overlords must be on their private planes. "

"But if “The Gilded Age” isn’t a serious show, it’s not a reliably entertaining one, either. Sure, the sets and costumes and gewgaws are fun to look at. But it’s also dispiriting to watch so many talented stars get so little meat to chew on. "

Hates wasn't the right word. Finds it glibly written and unentertaining.

WSJ: “Downton on Hudson” is probably too obvious a label to pin on “The Gilded Age,” the latest recycling effort by creator-writer-producer Julian Fellowes. How about “Upstairs, Downstairs, New Stairs, Old Stairs”? Too Dr. Seuss?

I couldn't read it for the paywall but you have to guess calling it a recycling effort largely tells you what you need to know.

Big fag Mo Rocca will be chatting with Christine on CBS Sunday Morning doing the last minute push for GA I’m sure.

Oh god, Christine was waitlisted by Juilliard because she had sibilant “Ss” from a gap in her front teeth and had to get her teeth capped and work with a speech therapist, and Mo had to jump in and insert himself into the story saying that getting rid of a sibilant “S” is really, really hard. I hate him with the heat of a thousand suns and his pathetic need to insert himself into every story when he should be covering things objectively and from a distance.

The reviews are generally poor.

HBO sure is rolling out the clunkers of late.

What does a Monday night slot on HBO generally mean in terms of placement and prestige?

I was driving a day or two ago and heard Baranski being interviewed on some radio show. She sounded profoundly pretentious.

I roll my eyes at her obeisance to Fellowes, as if he's some great writer. Julian Fellowes is to stories of the wealthy what Michael Landon was to stories of the prairie.

R190 Especially as someone coming from Buffalo of all places.

That WaPo reviewer has a Smith BA, a Master's from UCLA, and is Asian. She's also about 30. Of course, she is triggered by Uncle Julian. And rich white people being rich white people for entertainment purposes.

She also thinks PENI5 is, like totally, the greatest TV show ever made.

WTF does Asian have to do with anything? Or have I guessed.

WaPo TV reveiwer refers to her Asian heritage frequently, and frequently reviews shows with Asian characters and themes.

[quote]Big fag Mo Rocca

Datalounge hates every white openly gay man. They love the blacks, though. And the Muslims. Hates the Jews.

The approach is wrong. If you read William Dean Howells novels about middle class New Yorkers, their lives and problems are familiar. (For example, The Hazard of New Fortunes has a long section about apartment hunting in New York that could have been written yesterday. The family has an image of the apartment they want, but with each property they see they become willing to settle for less and less.)

Character look for work, worry about how they will afford college for their kids, etc. Along the way they do interface with the very rich and the very poor, so the story would be a wider panorama than the design-porn this series looks to be, but focusing on a wealthy household.

A different focus would have been both relatable and distant enough to satisfy viewers. Is anyone going to care about arranged marriages for money, mislaid tea-cups, social climbing in a forgotten world?

Fellowes only does missing teacups. He's been living off his understanding of the aristocracy as long as he's sought work, hasn't he?

I never saw any of his other work other than the Altman film.

Part of what made Upstairs Downstairs work was that they did not have a big enough budget to do design porn and had to find meaningful drama. I got about 15 minutes into Downton Abbey and being too bored to go on.

Also, the UD family was influential and well-off, but not at the top of the heap. Wannabees are always stronger dramatically.

I'd love to know how Gosford turned out to be such a fine film... I assume it was Altman fostering so much ad lib and a cast of (largely) terrific actors, because the script just seems so beyond Julian Fellowes comfort zone.

R192- When you're from Buffalo you have to do something.

I agree the approach is wrong. Fellows is the wrong man for the job.

Those high school photos of Baranski on CBS Morning revealed that Christine also had "nose-thinning" surgery along with her capped teeth. She didn't mention that to Mo though.

I think the trailers for this all look horrible. I'm glad to see it's getting some reviews if they're deserved. But I will watch tonight and try to keep an open mind.

I know I'm in the minority but I loved the Upstairs/Downstairs reboot of about 10 years ago. It took several episodes to find its groove but I was sorry it didn't get more seasons. I think it was the first time I saw Brit actors Claire Foy, Ed Stoppard, Keeley Hawes, Anne Reid and Adrian Scarborough, who I've come to love in so many other series and films.

And the chauffeur played by Neil Jackson and young footman played by Nico Mirallegro were truly hot, as well as the American businessman played by Michael Landes.

Any other fans?

R204, me. I was watching Britbox last night and for lack of anything better watched some episodes again. I agree, it was more of a drama than UD, with a harder edge to the themes. I particularly liked how Keeley Hawes character grew into this substantial person, in command of herself. I knew Anne Reid from Last Tango. Scarborough I recalled from Gosford. Hawes I knew from something... maybe Durrells? Not sure on the timing. I think it was Foy's first major part. Stoppard I hadn't seen before. I kept asking myself if there might be a little Duke of Kent bisexuality coming his way but it never happened. The characters were far less cartoon than Downton. Eileen Atkins' character remained what Maggie Smith's started as, probably even a bit tougher. I never really understood why Atkins flounced.

r205, keep watching for the second season when the chauffeur and new maid played by Laura Haddock are introduced.

Yup. I'd seen it all during the original run so I wanted to see the big finish episode. I really wish they'd done a third at least, through the war, R206.

An English friend of mine is an actor and he says you can map who is hot because they are cast in everything for about five years. You can certainly argue that about Hawes and Foy, though to a lesser degree. I liked Hawes. I thought she might have made a better Queen than Colman for the middle part of the series.

I think Hawes would have made a far better Margaret, R207.

Ah, there's an idea. R208. Anyway, her being her I was surprised she didn't get into it. I have been watching a show on BritBox called Mum... it's hilarious if you're smart because it is close to satire but they play it so straight it doubles the hilarity. A good chunk of the cast play really, really stupid people but you're so on their side. In any event, the titular Mum is played by Lesley Manville, who will play Margaret in the final go. She's gentle and sweet here but an excellent actress so she may be able to give Margaret some real humanity. It will be interesting to watch.

Fucking ouch, big time... this is the opener:

Julian Fellowes chased his new series, “The Gilded Age,” for a decade. Call it his white whale. Beginning Monday on HBO, you can watch it drag him and a large, talented cast beneath the waves.

I wish this was called The Gilded Stage and was about New York Theater in the late 1880s.

To my surprise, it's 84% on the reviews from Tomatometer. The only major dissenters are The NYT and the WSJ. That will wound egoes but not sink the ship. Will be interesting to see if HBO viewers find it interesting. I wasn't even going to watch, but maybe I should.

How can this (apparently) be so bad? I thought that HBO had a more strict vetting process when purchasing new shows. Like, the pilot script would need to blow everyone’s socks off (right down to the guys in the mailroom). Is it simply a case of no one daring to tell Fellows that it sucked?

I’m at a loss here. Did no one pop in an old VHS copy of The Age of Innocence?

I love Carrie Coons.

R6 What you left out if your illustrious list is ...

It's real literature.

I never really got into HBO's fantasy show Game Of Homosexuals.

My favorite HBO period piece was ROME. A lot of violence which I don't care for but also lots of nudity which I DO care for. The nudity was not the only reason I enjoyed.

It's time to remember two other recent series set in Gilded Age New York: THE KNICK (superb) and THE ALIENIST (generally good enough to warrant watching). Uncle Julian's show won't be as "nasty".

R217 I still can’t believe that that didn’t just use all the huge sets they build in Eastern Europe fir the Alienist to film this show. It could have saved them millions.

Daniel Day Lewis in that movie freaked me out with his weird softly spoken line readings. It's like underneath it all he was a serial killer. I would be too if I was married to Winona.

It’s COON, R214/dear.

The grandfather of all these Olde New York series is BEACON HILL, though, of course, it was set in Boston, which was the original US answer to the original UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS. It also featured lots of favorite NY stage actors and quickly fizzled. I'm not sure it even made it through a first season. Was it on PBS? I can't remember the network.

I haven’t watched it yet and it may very well be bad but I don’t really trust Mike Hale the TV critic at the Times. He hates everything.

He hates everything because he has good taste and it's all bad.

R217- I agree The Knick was a good show. The sets , the actors and the mood really made it an engrossing period drama 🎭.

He gave "Chernobyl" a bad review r223.

I was looking forward to this but have yet to see a good review. I don’t have the energy to go through this thread to see a favorable one, so please let me know if such reviews are to be found here.

[quote]He gave "Chernobyl" a bad review

That show was brilliant. Yeah we can all have our own tastes, but that guy sounds idiotic, because even if you didn't like the show you couldn't deny how well it was done.

Is anyone else feeling exhausted by this show even though it hasn’t even aired yet?

R218, because Fellowes wanted to shoot it in NY where he has a lovely residence in Gramercy Square. And because NY actors could fill all the roles. Like, duh.

r226, apparently Vanity Fair gave the series a good, or at least enthusiastic, review. Sorry not to provide a link.

[quote]Is anyone else feeling exhausted by this show even though it hasn’t even aired yet?

Ooh, me! Me! I will be writing up my feelings of exhaustion with this entire show (based on a brief watch of the trailer) on Medium - stay tuned!

Overall, the review on Rotten Tomatoes (just critics so far) are very favourable. They only missed some boasting rights reviewers... NYT, WSJ, WaPo.

r213, HBO has a great track record, but they're hardly infallible. It seems like their biggest disappointments tend to be series from creators who had previous hits, so HBO let them do what they want, and it didn't work out. Remember Alan Ball's Here and Now? Vinyl was a disappointment. So was John from Cincinnati.

Baranski gets all the good lines and this would be dead without her wit and energy. Cynthia Nixon gets to play an even more pathetic character than she does on AJLT, all anxiety and insipid lines. If Baranski is the Violet of this piece, Nixon is the Edith. M's kid is no beauty as the nouveau riche daughter.

M's kid is the old money niece, not the nouveau daughter, although she (the daughter) looks like M, though homelier.

Is Che Diaz in this? Will she be finger banging Cynthia underneath her hoop skirts and pantaloons?

What the hell was that??

So much wasted money. Sad.

I just finished it. I like it! The younger characters are poorly written but I like the old broads.

Is it all episodes available on Max?

Baranski will win an Emmy for this.

I'm in it for Baranski, Morgan Spector, and the gay romance. Taissa Farming is vey unfortunate looking. The period hair and clothes do her no favors. Carrie needs to be careful - she's on the edge of playing Bertha as unhinged.

No, R239. Only one episode each week.

Uhhh…this was not good. I love Carrie Coon but she doesn’t read or sound period at all. Meryl Jr #3 looks distractingly like Cindy Brady (as I thought on set) and isn’t interesting at all. Morgan Spector (George Russell) just comes off as creepy and has zero charisma. Almost everyone (even Baranski and Nixon) sound like they’re reciting lines and not very good ones, either. The best of them in my opinion is the gal playing Mrs. Russell’s untrustworthy “assistant” Miss Turner. She’s very good. I’ll watch every damn episode but…bleccch.

I shall like the Russell footmen (particularly the blond piece polishing the silverwear in that one scene) washed and sent to my tent. He can polish my silverwear anytime.

Five minutes in and there was a big gaff. The painting in the lawyer’s office is a very well known masterpiece by Gilbert Stuart called the Skater. It is a practically life sized portrait, so the one shown here was greatly reduced in size. It also was in Great Britain until 1950 when it was purchased by Andrew Mellon for The National Gallery of Art. It would not have been hanging in a mid level lawyer’s office in Pennsylvania in 1882.

Meryl Jr. does indeed look like a cross between Cindy Brady and the older Nellie Oleson. She's got limited skills and no spark.

The writing is just too on-the-button: "Mark my words, I'll make them all pay!" Seriously, just show Carrie Coon weeping furiously in bed and let her act the line rather than say it. We'll get it, I promise. And there were about 25 examples of that throughout.

Did anyone else think Cynthia Nixon used Billie Burke as her voice model?

I'm just treating as an entertaining period piece primetime soap. And the fact that Baranski, Coon, and Audra McDonald are in it is an added bonus.

I liked it. Apparently, my pain at Mrs. Russell's numerous faux pas and her extraordinarily shameful premiere soirée kept my partner in stitches the whole show. I cannot root for her; I pity her and she pains me.

Meryls' daughters. Che bruttas!

A number of aardvark-faced women in this show. Too bad they didn't do nose jobs in those days.

Streep Jr is easily the most inept actress here and it isn't just her character's awkwardness.

The gay romance is probably going to turn out to be the most interesting thing here, other than Baranski's snark.

So in 1882 the term “Wow!” was actually in use?

Mixed feelings. Unbelievable sets, especially the Russell's grand staircase and entrance hall. Louisa Jacobson has zero charisma and minimal beauty (she would never have won this role had her mother been Jane Doe), but almost everyone else is great, especially Baranski (playing a surprisingly likable and liberal version of snob), Nixon, Morgan Spector (SO FUCKABLE), Audra McDonald, and Taissa Farmiga.

Carrie Coon was the best of all in terms of energy, but she did not make me feel sorry for her character at the end of the episode, which may be a constant problem. How can you feel sorry for Mrs., Russell when the stakes are so low and you know she'll win anyway? (Everyone knows New York was won by the new money.)

It's a little disconcerting seeing so many Broadway actors as servants, especially Michael Cerveris (whose shaved head did not seem period to me).

Stamford White joined McKim, Mead and White in 1879 and they agreed that they would always collectively be listed for every project they did, so him being their exclusive architect makes no sense. Also, he was much more focused on interiors and furnishings more then building and while he had apprenticed to famous architects, he had never formally been trained.

I'm really disappointed. I expected more. Baranski is great but the rest of the cast, including Merly's daughter (she couldn't afford a nose job?) is lackluster.

Hel-LO, Mr. Raikes (he was in the opening scenes with Meryl Jr #3). Thomas Coquerel (sp?), a Franco-Australian, will apparently show up in future episodes.

The problem with the show is that you root for all the old society cunts even though you know they are going to lose.

I really don't like Cynthia Nixon's acting. She can't do period.

Enjoyable enough. Coon seems manic. The black girl and the young girl playing the Astor were very good. Baranski is a hoot and I can see what Nixon is going for but am having trouble washing AJLT/Che out of my head. Looking forward to Coon getting her revenge on those nasty society bitches.

Sorry but it's nowhere near as good as Downton was.

Cecilia Keenan-Bolger and Kelli O'Hara have faces made for the stage, In a big theater.

I like the fact that the black characters are treated like real black people. It allows a look into their (burnished) world at the time.

If this were a BBC production, Mrs. Astor would be African American, which is so ridiculous.

Carrie Coon's toneless voice and potato face. And her wacky nouveau riche costumes trying waaaaaay too hard. Just no.

Carrie Coon is such an underrated actress. She usually steals whatever show she's in.

Former Broadway hottie Douglas Sills looks unrecognizable as the French chef in the Van Rijn household.

Would the Baranski character really have a Black woman as her live-in secretary? It makes no sense.

And yes, Cynthia Nixon seems to have based her character on Billie Burke in a drawing room comedy from 1933.

You gotta love how Bertha dressed her footmen. TACKY. No wonder the old society bitches treat her like shit.

And the guy playing John Adams is on Broadway in Company where he shows off his killer bod in a pair of tight blue underwear.

It wasn't awful, but it is not good and I don't see how it gets a second go.

I mean, it's nice to Nixon munching on canapes instead of her usual trick, but what's with the Aunt Pittypat cover?

Carrie Coon chews scenery like Glenn Close in Sunset. She's striking but her take on the character is humourless. I don't root for her because she's so grasping. The character needed a little wink from time to time. She doesn't relish her challenge, she's taking aim at it for a kill shot. It's kind of creepy.

And Fellows couldn't even give us some gays in an original take. He literally cut and pasted from script one, series one of Downtown and deleted a bit of the conflict. (To say nothing of let's take Miss O'Brien but make her horny!)

The standouts to me were the younger Russell son and Baranski, who wasn't a Maggie Smith style hoot but watchable. She's strict but not unkind.

Streep Jr. is pretty enough, but then the youngest usually is.

[quote]And her wacky nouveau riche costumes trying waaaaaay too hard.

I thought the costumes for Mrs. Richmond were off, too.

What's with the enormous swagged cummerbund she had slung over her groin?

Morgan Spector (George Russell) is flat as can be.

R265, Season 2 starts shooting in April in NY and Newport.

Jesus, R268... HBO must have money to burn. On this clunker?

So is Mrs. Richmond a “fallen woman” or a madam like Belle Watling?

I can't believe Season 2 will happen. This was horrible. Worse than Bridgerton and that's saying something.

So, Mrs Augustus Richmond was Jeanne Tripplehorn, right?

Oh, God, Bridgerton is awful. It's like an hour of the Mary Poppins animation sequences.

[quote]So is Mrs. Richmond a “fallen woman” or a madam like Belle Watling?

Every time Bertha Coons was chewing up the screen I kept thinking this must be what it was like when Scarlett first married Rhett and was building that new house in Atlanta. She sure had her clothes.

r253 I also noticed Thomas Cocquerel. He's delicious. I'm glad we'll be seeing more of him.

Nixon is better in theatre than on film. Additionally: she was never meant to wear 1880s bustle gowns. That silhouette somehow defies her natural demeanor and carriage, and she can't act through or around it.

Interesting to see this glimpse of Louisa sitting next to her mother from 2003. (At 00:33 in the video.)

Hated the garish colors of the gowns. This did not have the assured and authentic sensibility of Downtown Abbey in the wardrobe department.

Nixon is miscast. She's certainly got the ugly looks of the period but... can Cynthia Nixon do anything but twitch?

Sad to see great actors like Katie Finneran, Donna Murphy and Deborah Monk playing such small nothing roles.

Carrie Coon is playing this character so humorlessly. We should be rooting for this bitch but she's so grim.

And what was that accent on Kristine Nielsen (the cook)? It seemed to change with each scene.

Cross-posted to the Broadway thread. I assumed Elder would be playing a straight character, since I didn't think there would be any gay ones (stupid, I know), and was happy an openly gay actor would get to play a straight role. Perhaps I should have known better. He's convincingly straight in Company, but hasn't always been onscreen:

Did they shoot this for NBC before HBO got it? Because it has a really nasty network smell to it. The dialogue is completely cliché ridden, the acting - awful. They're clearly trying to make the Baranski character into a kind of Countess of Grantham but the part is just not there. Cynthia N. replays Cynthia N., as usual. And the CGI is so poor I keep wondering when the blue lines are going to show up around the characters.

Over-produced rubbish bearing little resemblance to the true Gilded Age. 'Should do well.

Blake Ritson, who plays the token gay, is 41!??!

^ He was also the Duke of Kent in the shortlived reboot of Upstairs, Downstairs. I kept waiting for the gay to erupt then.

No, R282, NBC wisely passed on this because it was too expensive.

Baranski mispronounced John Quincy Adams’ name, which surprised me. Surely someone would have told her that well educated, upper class people of that period all pronounced it as “Quin-zee,” not “Quin-see.” And yes, I did replay that bit to make sure I heard what I thought I’d heard.

[quote] Baranski mispronounced John Quincy Adams’ name, which surprised me. Surely someone would have told her that well educated, upper class people of that period all pronounced it as “Quin-zee,” not “Quin-see.” And yes, I did replay that bit to make sure I heard what I thought I’d heard.

MARY, the IGNOMINY!

Not bad for a pilot episode, I like Carrie Coon. Interesting period of history.

R249

Nixon is the ONLY one I like...she's the only one giving a performance that feels like it MIGHT be rooted in that era.

Everyone else sounds like they're auditioning for a role on General Hospital.

It's pretty much as I expected. Julian Fellowes is a shite writer who got very, very lucky with doing Gosford Park with a director like Altman who really creates his films on set. NOTHING Fellowes has done since then, has been a tenth as good as Gosford.

The writing is atrocious, the acting is surprisingly bad considering all the theater talent they have on screen, and the direction is dire. And, I'm shocked HBO gave the director's gig to a hack like Michael Engler...yeah, he did some Sex and the City's for them but he's wrong for this material. Though, I see he also directred the shitastic Downton Abbey movie so I guess it makes sense.

Even the design seemed off...it all looked fake and cheesy.

After reading the reviews I wasn’t expecting much but I really enjoyed it. Some of you are so ridiculous with your criticism about things that nobody but you notice. Is it the best show ever? No but there are worse things you could do on a Monday night.

R293 I'm always amused by people who enjoying criticising people for being too critical about things and daring to offer their own opinion in a public chat forum. The whole purpose of a public chat forum is to praise/criticize the subjects at hand. If you don't like people criticizing things, then stop coming to public chat forums and go watch your shitty tv shows.

Also: it's fun to hate watch things and talk about it. This show is ghastly but it's just the right amount of watchable in its ghastliness to possibly be fun to hate.

[quote] Some of you are so ridiculous with your criticism about things that nobody but you notice.

What I love is that it's a show about snobbery, and Dataloungers are actually responding to it... by being snobby towards it!

"It's NOT up to my standards... they don't pronounce 'Quincy' correctly! Clearly, [italic]I[/italic] am akin to the true Old Money, because I know these nuances, while they pretend to but do not!"

r295 half of DL eldergays imagine themselves to be 19th Century aristocrats anyway, so they're nitpicky because nothing will ever be up to the standards they have in their imaginations and the other half want to watch "Dynasty" that takes place in 1882. You can't win with these old queens. It's a fine show for what it is. The costumes are gorgeous and the performances so far are accurate enough for the period.

Although like the above poster it's now hard for me to watch Cynthia Nixon and not think of Che Diaz all up in her pussy. It kind of takes me out of things during her scenes.

This thread is going to be Peak Eldergay!

I like it well enough. But why do Nixon’s upper teeth look ok here, yet terrible in AJLT?

[quote]half of DL eldergays imagine themselves to be 19th Century aristocrats anyway, so they're nitpicky because nothing will ever be up to the standards they have in their imaginations and the other half want to watch "Dynasty" that takes place in 1882.

LOL, R296

R296 We all have different tastes and it's all subjective but if you think those are "good" performances....oy.

The acting is atrocious and the story so predictable you see every scene coming from five miles away. It's hard to believe this is "a quality production". They picked colors for the costumes and the sets that would be found in a West Hollywood boutique today, not in the Gilded Age. What a monumental misfire.

R250 A bald servant?!?

Does he have typhoid or tuberculosis? Keep him away from the children!

Oh Mary at r302: take a dose of your smelling salts. Perhaps your servant has your silver vinaigrette handy.

My objection is not the baldness but that the parts where he's still clearly got hair, he shaves, which is very 21st century.

Balding men in those days let the remaining hair grow long.

The reason Mrs. Russell was dressed that way js because they were trying to show how garish and out of touch she was with the embellished, fussy attire. That’s how I read it anyway.

You all are too picky as usual to sit back and enjoy a good show. It’s better than 99% of the rest of streaming shows.

Bright colors in women's clothing was actually very much in fashion in this time period. The colors of the clothes are accurate.

All Victorian women wore embellished, fussy attire, bonnet, bows, frilly petticoats and furbelows.

The colors had to be bright to be seen in gaslight.

[quote] This did not have the assured and authentic sensibility of Downtown Abbey in the wardrobe department

The clothes in Downton were seen with electricity.

Is it something about the 1800s that everyone was closer together? Like in each other’s personal space, all cramped together? It seems they are always depicted that way in movies and tv during that era.

Farmiga’s sister gags me. Still playing a child decade plus down from Horror Story. She’s a weak woman, which is pitiable and works for the period. But a real actress, like Jodhi May, could have made that interesting.

I am watching this and sharing my impressions as they come.

Meryl's daughter is HORRIBLE. Like sub-community theater talent. Like second-lead-in-your-average-high-school-play talent.

Wow.

Baranski and Nixon are wrong. WRONG!

There is no depth or interest to anything they're saying. They're like Pia Zadora interpreting Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

I'm turning it off. I made it eight minutes in.

Good luck to the rest of you.

I lied. I'm continuing, to my regret.

Molly Parker should have had Carrie Coon's part — she would have been about 10 times more sympathetic and layered.

The costumes and sets are wearing the actors.

Meryl's daughter is completely talent-free.

R313 Molly is very gifted but she’s already done everything in a corset and then some on Deadwood. This Cunta woman I’ve never seen before. She’s definitely interesting and annoying at once.

I disagree with people who say Amanda Peet would have been worse as Bertha.

Coon is very wooden here. Peet has at least previously shown that she can convey some warmth or spark.

The direction is awful. It seems to be limited to, "Say your lines as quickly as possible, clip the endings, and seem constipated."

This is Che Diaz: The Show

I think some people are under the impression that back then everyone talked like they were in The Heiress. The whole notion of everyone in costume dramas speaking as if they're onstage, or with perfect diction, etc., is so phony. There are recordings of old people in the 1930s who were alive in the mid-to-late 1800s and they don't speak any more formally than we do.

R316 I’ve only ever seen snarky or cruel from Amanda Peet. I don’t think she’s quite what one could call talented.

Ugh, Louisa "Meryl's daughter" Jacobson is so bad she's making Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon seem better.

Not exactly what you expect from a good director.

The direction is just awful! Awful!

The only scene that has risen to "HBO drama quality" is the one between Audra Mcdonald and Denee Benton.

All these actors — except Louisa Jacobson, maybe — are better than this!

There are a couple promising twinks below stairs, but only one got to say anything...

Does this shitfest have a Thomas? Which is the only reason I'd bother to watch.

The Thomas is the son of Morgan Spector/Carrie Coon, a Harvard-educated guy who is shown to be keeping house/sleeping with a man in a very simplistic scene.

I don't know how anyone at HBO could have screened this pilot and decided that Amanda Peet should be recast but not Louisa Jacobson. She's bad on an epic level—she sinks the show.

Like Godfather Part III/Sofia Coppola bad.

I hope she can direct!

Ugh, another implausible wokefest. How disappointing, but I suppose I will continue to hate-watch. After recently seeing numerous scenes of Cynthia Nixon's sexuality, any future role is ruined for me. But clearly Christine Baranski is a worthy successor to Jane Wyman's Queen Bitch crown.

This pilot is so bad. It never should have been picked up. I don't understand how seeing and hearing people could have greenlit this, much less shepherded it along for nearly a decade across two networks.

HBO could have burned piles of cash in a fireplace instead and come out ahead.

R324 No, the gay is the son of Christine Baranski's character not the son of the nouveau riche family.

And, the bright colors of the rich women's dresses are actually accurate to the era. The invention of aniline dyes in the mid 19th century led to very strongly colored fabrics which were very popular and fashionable. Color combinations we look at as gaudy today would have been very chic.

The main problem with the designs for this show is that they all look like....designs. Nothing feels very organic or real; it all looks like costumes and sets for a show at Disney World. When Meryl Streep Jr the 3rd went to the ball in that yellow dress, we shrieked "She's Belle from Beauty and the Beast!!!"

And, it's not just because it's an American show...we've done historical films, TV shows and certainly theater productions in this country that looked accurate and had strong designs that were appropriate for the material. This show looks like they spent shit tons of money but not wisely. (Part of the problem is the cinematography...the show is dreadfully lighted and shot).

This is so bad on a basic level that it could have been easily improved by any English-speaking network liaison.

So I wonder what went on.

It's just so poor on simple aspects of line readings, pacing, motivation, etc., that most Sopranos fans would be able to say, "No, don't do that. Try this instead."

I'm just dumbfounded that the network behind The Sopranos, The Wire, and Six Feet Under allowed this to air. Or is it not actually HBO? Is it just HBO Max? I'm confused. I have HBO Max, but is that not TV, and not-TV-meaning-HBO, or ... what is it?

[quote]Ugh, another implausible wokefest.

Actually, the "wokeness" — I guess you mean the presence of black people, meaning Audra McDonald and Denee Benton? — provides the only genuine and affecting moments in the pilot, R326.

How important is Audra McDonald and Denee Benton and their'genuine affectingness' be to the series?

Ae they merely plot devices?

The authors says we need to now about Mrs Caroline Schermerhorn Astor if we want to know what sparked the story.

Jamming black characters into historical narratives to stroke white Millennials egos over their progressiveness, while attempting to boost black audience numbers is just trite and tiresome.

It was bad enough in Just Like That, where the women went from having no racially diverse friends to nothing else but. It became ridiculous.

Cluetrain! Sophisticated black audiences don’t need pandering to with tokenism. Michelle Obama was one of Downton Abbey’s greatest fans, and no one felt the need to jam a black figure into THAT until the 1920s, when including a black jazz singer or bandsman in London was a realistic possibility.

No, R330, not the actors nor their presence, but their predictably implausible roles and characters in this period drama.

R326

It doesn’t have the magic or spirit or grit of Downton which was terrific right out of the gate. It’s just… boring. The one thing I loved seeing was the shot going down into the kitchens and “downstairs” workspace of the servants into the “upstairs” of the residence. Living in NY, one never gets to see how these giant old buildings functioned as they were initially intended. Even if it’s fictional, you can get an idea of how it worked back then, and that’s cool.

There are black stories that can easily be written and integrated into this show. EASILY. However, I don’t think Fellowes has a single clue how to do it, and he won’t allow anyone to help him. Please tell me what an old white heterosexual Tory obsessed with old money has to say about blackness in America that is actually relevant or important? Is he writing every episode again? Also, as I feared when this was announced, he doesn’t get “America.” He doesn’t get the tone. He doesn’t get the striving. America and England are socially not the same. Old money NY does not equal landed gentry in England. Despite their supposed nearness in social mores, they are two entirely different things with two entirely different attitudes.

And the casting. No one should have let Telsey near this. The solution of casting every fucking Broadway actor within ten feet was NOT it. There’s a reason 95% of these people don’t regularly work in film or TV. Because they’re theater actors, telegraphing every single emotion or feeling every single second. Yeah, there’re lots of Tonys on the screen, and to what end? Theatrically trained American actors do not equal theatrically trained English actors as we saw in abundance last night. And putting the eighth Streep daughter (and they seem to be getting less talented and uglier as time goes on) as the peppy unidiomatic ingenue when she has literally never worked before was a stunningly stupid mistake.

It just all feels so pedantic and heavy and burdened. Gorgeously expensive but somehow visually off, similar to Boardwalk Empire. This seems like a very VERY expensive misfire. HBO will probably give this a second season because they never like to admit defeat, but I don’t see it surviving beyond that if they don’t figure out how to turn it around and fix it.

[quote] There are black stories that can easily be written and integrated into this show. EASILY.

Can you give us examples of the stories you're thinking of?

[quote] Cynthia Nixon gets to play an even more pathetic character than she does on AJLT, all anxiety and insipid lines.

She’s just copy pasting her Tony winning performance of Birdie.

No, R336. Do your own work and research.

[quote] The best of them in my opinion is the gal playing Mrs. Russell’s untrustworthy “assistant” Miss Turner.

YES! She was the only one who had a clue what she was doing, and was written that way.

How quickly did you spot Oscar as being gay? What about John Q A?

R340, as soon as Adams barged into Oscar's bedroom I thought: Oh, here comes the Duke of Crowbrough. Fellowes flipped fucked the master-servant to equals from society and then hit paste.

[quote]I'm turning it off. I made it eight minutes in.

I made to the end but the fast forwarding started in the first ten minutes.

[quote]we shrieked "She's Belle from Beauty and the Beast!!!”

That's where I'd seen it before!!!

It's terrible. Hopefully Laverne Cox can save this in Ep 2.

[quote]Jamming black characters into historical narratives to stroke white Millennials egos over their progressiveness, while attempting to boost black audience numbers is just trite and tiresome.

I agree with this and I agree with the observation MacDonald (who I find terribly stagey, she's still delivering lines in character for the Reverend Mother) and the daughter delivered the most human moments of the night. But the black storyline feels forced and false to me. I am sure there were black storyline precedents but this ain't it. The only spark I saw was a downstairs objection to the secretary because "they'll be taking our jobs." Fellowes is too sugary to write this or anything else well or honestly.

[quote]The solution of casting every fucking Broadway actor within ten feet was NOT it.

That one thing I liked because I don't know them and so they were just actors playing the part, except for Baranski and Nixon, who looked like Baranski and Nixon dressed up for a Gilded Age themed costume party and hating every minute of it. I thought I recognized Oscar from the reboot of Upstairs, Downstairs a decade ago.

I'm gonna keep watching. I know my weaknesses. Not quite hate watching but there's something compelling in Carrie Coon's emotionless, relentless, humourless, one note character. It's like watching shark week with bustles.

I see this is going to be the latest DL hate watching obsession.

You see twenty bucks on the sidewalk and you're not supposed to pick it up, R346?

It's another one of those wide divides between the critics and the viewers. 81% for critics on Tomatoes (42 reviewers.) 56% from viewers (granted, a very small sampling of 9.)

It's just boring.

McKim, Mead & White designed the 5th Avenue palaces in the 1890s, if I recall correctly. Of course I was a boy and recollections vary. The timeline is off in this series. White's Payne Whitney House was finished in 1909! Richard Morris Hunt was designing the chateaux in the late 1880s.

The supposed scenes of Newport were shot in the Hamptons or Montauk right? That coastline didn’t look right at all. So if they are filming there already why are they going to the real Newport for season two? Is it about using the existing interiors of the mansions?

Had we seen the son's lover before. I didn't recognize him - I was hoping it was blondie from the Russell household - but it wasn't.......

After the first episode, I opened up my John Singer Sargent picture book (oversized for coffeetable stacking) and started imaging scenarios and dialogue between the people in the book. It was much better than Uncle Julian's show.

The most colossal piles in Newport, which we associate with "Newport Mansion", were all post 1880s. Marble House was one of the first and finished in 1892. Before the giant stone palaces the ambiance was more shingle style.

The coastlines of Hamptons and Newport are completely different.

Some of the weakness in the writing comes from establishing the characters, but other than Baranski, no one has any wit and Spector looks and sounds a little close to Snidely Whiplash. I've never paid attention to Nixon's backside before but that bustle seems bigger than her. She seems to be channeling Sandy Dennis at her "sentences are like wounded birds" worst. I'm hoping there's enough unintentional humor from her to keep me interested.

It will be fun for Baranski and the gay subplot as well as deciding whether to love or hate Carrie Coons' character in her social climbing (and to see if Nixon remains horrible). It's funny that Spector's character is trying to ruin a Cleveland to Toledo railroad, the same week that Miranda is flying to Cleveland to throw herself at Che on AJLT.

I knew who the gay character was as soon as he mentioned he had been in Europe lmao. Europe alwys means gay to Americans. Also, he had an attitude, he was kinda sassy. Another proof that he was gay. So glad they didn't shy away from him having a love life though. That alone will make me continue to watch.

Maybe it was because of the Plot Against America, but Morgan Spector just comes off to me as very Jewish and that makes his appearance jarring for me.

R354 Then what is the reason for filming there most of next season? Is it possible there’s a big time jump?

I agree R357.

If they had balls they would have made the Russells Jewish!

I must say I love the actor playing the son of Coon and Spector. Harry Richardson. Of course, he's British!

I bet 90% of you Marys shrieking about how HORRIBLE this show is will be right back watching it next Monday.

While I totally bought how they brought the Denee Benton character together with Meryl Streep Jr. #3, I thought it was outlandish that the Christine Baranski character would invite her to live with them and work for her as a social secretary - because of he good penmanship!

R325, it wasn’t produced like a standard series. It was a straight to series show with no pilot produced. The second episode was shot directly after the first.

The gay Adams' snub of the youngest Streep was an anvil, but I chalked it up to her having no money. Then when he stomped into the bedroom like he owned it I thought "Oh, Uncle Julian, thanks but can't you come up with something different?"

R351, the show shot Season 1 in Newport, too. Also Troy in upstate New York. It says so at the end of the credits.

[quote]So is she a “fallen woman” or a madam like Belle Watling?

To-may-to/to-mah-to.

[quote]The gay Adams' snub of the youngest Streep was an anvil

I think it plays in a much more interesting way if that was because he was, as a member of an old prestigious family, out-snobbing the Van Rhijns. It would have been an interesting reveal that even in the Old Money crowd there were lines of demarcation. And that Agnes was getting a bit of her own medicine.

The reveal that it was because he is gay was far less interesting to me and smacked of repurposing Downton plots.

The stuff that is based on fine literature always does better, for obvious reasons, including on television Brideshead, The Jewel in the Crown, The Forstye Saga, were all pinnacles of what television can do in the realm of quality programming. Wuthering Heights, The House of Mirth, Age of Innocence, all come out better usually on film and television because it's already been written by great writers. The Mayor of Casterbridge was also a fantastic adaptation on television, and Far From the Madding Crowd was a terrific film. Oliver Twist, the Lean version, was a masterpiece.

What Fellowes does is borrow the style but he can't provide the substance. And that's what's missing from fluff like Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age.

Was there any Troy in last night? I assume the opposing mansions are a backlot set? It all looked so fake to me. The CGI was ambitious, but not subtle. A lot like poor old Bertha.

The historical consultant on this programme is on the latest episode of Dan Snow's History Hit for those interested.

R369 Yes and no. I mean Dicken's stories were soap operas, indeed written as melodramas, episodes once a week in the newspapers. And both Downton and TGA are essentially soap operas. "Telenovelas" for the PBS (and now HBO) demographics. I'll get hooked.... I want to see the "old New York" get its comeuppance.

Clean: while the look is way too clean (the street between the two mansions looked like sand raked carefully in a Zen garden, not a street of mud (the recent big storm) and the tons of horse shit that was there. Horse shit in NYC in the late 80s was a huge problem. The Big Crapple. But I was also taken with the Stanford White mansion being sparkling brand new. All those old 19th century mansions were squeaky clean at some point.

It makes 19th century NYC look so clean. No horsehit in the streets. No one in ratty clothing.

Lurved it.

I thought the actress plating Marian Brook us too old and the Russell son looks too young. The story should really refer to the homeliness of the Russell daughter. What was that restaurant frequented by blacks? Did something that nice really exist then? I thought they socialized at church. Knew from the start that the Russell party would blow. Coons character is too knowing and hard. Sone humor would be nice. Morgan Spector had had his sexiness deflated, why? If he was a sexual buccaneer I might be more interested. A show us in trouble when Baranski is your marquee performer. I always see her as a sketch performer like Carol Burnett. She can’t sustain a character. She gets full when she does. I was surprised by all the supporting actors, big stars in the theater and they don’t make an impression here. It’s really truly off.

I kept wondering, "Why do none of these insufferable, exclusionary snobs notice that Mrs. Russell is married to a Jew?"

[quote] masterpiece by Gilbert Stuart called the Skater. . . It also was in Great Britain until 1950 when it was purchased by Andrew Mellon for The National Gallery of Art.

Thank you for the info but Mellon died in the 1930s. Perhaps you meant The National Gallery bought it.

This thread is going to get into a long, five hundred post fight about paintings and art galleries, isn't it?

r378 the complaints are ridiculous. We had the same persnickety queens on the old Mad Men threads. Some cleaning product or cigarette brand that was not on the market yet in April of 1965 generated dozens of angry posts with the old queens using those examples of what a terrible, horrible show it was.

A lot was shot in Newport R351, quite a few of the interiors and exteriors are done in grand houses there. I would imagine that some of those exterior Newport shots had some CGI going on.

Loved every part of this, the acting, the sets, the costumes, spectacular!

I'll buy the overly garish colors of the gowns but would a character as mousey and housebound as Cynthia Nixon's really wear vermillion and scarlet and bright yellow to sit in her parlor with her lap dog? The colors are simply not in her character and don't help delineate her from the other garishly dressed women.

I also wondered about the Blacks Only restaurant which reminded me of the old B. Altman's cafe on 34ths St. Not to mention the overly elaborate costumes and hats for Audra and Denee. The show is whitewashing (no pun intended) what 1880s NY was like for people of color.

I thought this was awful, yet somehow I found it entertaining and will probably watch the next episode.

Marion has a very unlikeable face. As already pointed it, she is reminiscent of Nellie Olsen and Cindy Brady, two mock-able characters. I don’t understand what Marion was doing prior to her father’s death. Even if she didn’t know he was broke, she must have known. So why wasn’t he ensuing that she was already socializing somewhere and looking for a decent guy with some cash?

Marion was way too rude. Telling the Russell son she just let that she anticipates conflict with her aunts? Ordering her aunt not to speak I’ll of her father (when the aunt had said something relatively mild)? I don’t think that would have happened in the era. And, ignoring the sneaking out element, I don’t think she would have gone alone to a party at the home of people she had met once. And I do t think she would have latched on to a black woman and traveled with her.

Agree with the poster up thread who said the black characters are shoehorned in to satisfy diversity demands. I was on edge and almost in dread during every scene with the black character because I kept expecting someone to say or do something that would be horribly cringe by minders standards. That’s just not entertaining. I did, however, find the actress very appealing.

I understand women’s clothes were colorful in that era, but I also found them oddly flashy. And the dress that Mrs.Fane (?) wore to Bertha’s party seemed almost swimsuit-like on top. I’m not buying that a matron would have worn that. Bertha’s eyebrows are ridiculous. There is no excuse for that.

Is the exterior of the house historically accurate? I thought the lines where strange. Also, the oak cabinets in the kitchen look well-maintained, but at least 50 years old. It’s a brand-new house!

R377 I was pulling from the National Gallery of Art’s webpage on the painting that lists it as part of the Andrew W. Mellon Collection. I guess there was established a fund that continued to buy works for the NGA in Andrew’s name. I was surprised as Paul was much more an Anglophile then his father. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he was heavily involved in the deal, but then why wouldn’t he have wanted it for his own collections?

Is Denee implying, rather loudly, that daddy diddled her Victorian no-no and that mother knew about it?

Forgot my prediction - Peggy’s (?) family is rich. Maybe her mother is a version of Madam Walker. -R383

I will, of course, watch this but so far I find the social climbing new money frau to be unlikable and what's up with her maid?

After all the negativity on here beforehand, I was expecting to be disappointed. But I enjoyed it. And yes, I will watch again.

My prediction: Ada will have a late life romance with a ne'er do well that Christine Baranski will intervene to scuttle.

My 2nd prediction: The part will not be played by Sara Rodridguez.

My 3rd prediction: If it doesn't happen in the first series, there will be a Downton crossover of some description in the second year.

[quote] Is the exterior of the house historically accurate? I thought the lines where strange. Also, the oak cabinets in the kitchen look well-maintained, but at least 50 years old. It’s a brand-new house!

Yes, it looks very much like many of the grand houses on the UES.

I believe Baranski’s kitchen was a set, but Coon’s kitchen was shot at the Breakers in Newport, along with her husband’s office and bedchambers, so that would explain the incongruous age.

I did love the absurdly gauche (but not particularly French other than the croque-en-bouche) spread that the Russell’s had out untouched. Would she actually have donated that to charity? More like let the servants party and toss the rest out?

Only the best botulism for the poor of New York!

Great Expectations, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House . . . Whatever Dickens thought, are great works from a great writer.

The House of Mirth was first released as a magazine serial, so was Sherlock Holmes in the Illustrated London News.

"Lily Bart is dead" a reader wrote despairingly to a friend when the last chapter of House of Mirth came out

You cannot compare these works to General Hospital.

They all offer far more depth and commentary on their societies.

Some are better than others especially as a matter of taste.

Paul Scott's Raj Quartet is a heartbreaking tour de force.

But they're all galaxies above Fellowes' glib work.

I don't think she would have donated the food. That would just be advertising her failure.

She would have just had it quietly thrown out.

[quote]Paul Scott's Raj Quartet is a heartbreaking tour de force.

If you enjoy florid, overwritten prose, it is indeed a delight.

Cora "Levinson" Crawley is supposed to show up at some point in a small role as a guest at a party talking about preparing for her departure to England to do a "season".

Cora would be 20 years old in 1888. Cora's father was Jewish, from Cincinnati and owned a Newport "Cottage", Ohio so I am guessing she (the Levinson family is a "friend" of the Russells.

Servant: "Ma'am, Miss Ada has a visitor."

Agnes Van Rhijn: "Who is it?"

Servant: "An enormous man. His calling card says, 'Che Diaz.'"

Agnes Van Rhijn: "Tell this immigrant person to use the downstairs door. Or, better yet, none at all."

Re: Spector's jewishness

You could be originally Jewish in this social world as long as you did not practice your religion. August Belmont, whose son Alva Vanderbilt married as her second husband, moved in high society (though he was considered an arriviste like Russell). Edith Wharton based her character Julius Beautfort, whom she said "passed for British," in [italic]The Age of Innocence.[/italic]

There were other extremely wealthy NY Jewish financiers in the Gilded Age: Felix Warburg and his brother Paul, the Loebs, the Strauses. They also lived in the grand style although they were rarely accepted into the old Knickerbocker crowd, but socialized on their own instead.

*Beaufort, not "Beautfort"

R394 Or, if you just haven't got the patience for anything that isn't easily digestible.

It's a pity that exquisite and masterful handling of how magnificent the English language can be is so put of style. It's like sex: sometimes it takes a slow hand to uncover its possibilities.

As I said, a matter of taste, about which you might have been civil instead of sneering

I'd agree with you on Henry James as it happens, but not Scott.

But the tact is, whether it's to your taste or not, comparing Fellowes with either man is absurd.

[quote]Bertha’s eyebrows are ridiculous. There is no excuse for that.

There is no end to what DLers can nitpick about. "The eyebrows are ruining this show for me!"

No one should employ Bernard Telsey or Mark Saks to cast television series. Both men are star fuckers, so you won't get quality actors, just actors you recognize from somewhere else. No one gets "discovered" by either troll.

[quote]There is no end to what DLers can nitpick about.

We have already fielded complaints that there's not enough horseshit on the streets!

Ah.....so the Russell son's lover was JQA? I see.

Charles Worth would have designed many of these women's gowns, but in NYC in this era, women would put their new Paris gowns away for a season or two. It was thought more "correct" not to wear brand new things. They are missing the subtlety of the Old Knickerbockers, who were the arbiters of society.

The women who couldn't get to Paris for Worth gowns wore gowns that were knock offs. Yes, there were some bright colors, but usually not in day dresses.

Regarding complaints Carrie Coon is playing Bertha Russell too forcefully: Bertha Russell is based primarily on Alva Vanderbilt, who was a force of nature. Her zeal to climb socially was such that she determined from an early age her daughter Consuelo would make a marriage to the british aristocracy like her daughter's namesake, the Duchess of Manchester. Alva whipped Consuelo with a horsewhip for minor social infractions. and forced her to wear a steel rod at her spine when she was young to enforce proper posture. When Consuelo refused the proposal of the Duke of Marlborough initially, Alva locked her in her bedroom for several days until she relented.

I predict the coincidence of Christine Baranski's dead husband being a contributor to the black girl's school will be a story down the road. And the Christmas shows that were attended. Christmas Carols are mentioned. Hello Audra? Is Deena somebody else's daughter? Maybe she authentically belongs in that house.

What was up with Carrie Coon’s whack accent?!

What accent?

Disappointed in this so far after the first episode. Horrible, stilted acting from many, especially from Carrie Coons. How is anyone here thinking she's doing a good job?? She has a nasally, whiny monotone voice, and sounds like someone performing in community theater who considers themself to be the "star."

I felt the first episode to be flat and predictable. And the poor relation niece has absolutely no charisma or interesting presence on screen. I'll keep watching, of course, for the sets and costumes, but I'm not optimistic it's going to improve. I hope I'm wrong.

They'd have to be German Jews. the Yiddish speaking would have been implausible.

[quote]Hello Audra? Is Deena somebody else's daughter? Maybe she authentically belongs in that house.

If they were true to period it would be a scandal that would see her driven from that house. In 2022, Baranski will probably organize her coming out ball.

I don’t understand the vicious press reviews. Some characters need to be fleshed out but it’s shaping up to be a fun soap opera. And I love richie-rich porn.

There was a small Black aristocracy--not as rich as the white folks but relatively well-off. German Jews were never fully accepted but would have been acceptable business partners under certain circumstances. In some smaller cities, they might have been embraced more, esp. if they intermarried and "didn't seem too Jewish".

At least they weren't Catholic--there would have been a small Irish middle class as well as a German Catholic middle class by then and a few truly prosperous people from those backgrounds. One of the early NYC department stores---Hugh O'Neill's (the building is on 6th Avenue) was an example.

In that era there may have been a patronizing version of acceptance of middle class Blacks. They probably would have been seen as a step up from the Irish.

I think the biggest failing between GA & DA is that in Gilded the families don’t seem to be loyal or loving to each other. Old Money seems to resent each other. New Money is climbing and using each other for position, including what appears to be an adulterous patriarch. The family of color has been ripped apart by the daughter setting boundaries or being too modern. None of the servants seem to like each other. I hope this changes, otherwise there’s no hope.

Also - some of the green screen work was of a zoom virtual background quality. Just horrible.

How many episodes in the first series?

R416 Too many.

Another big mistake in the design of the ladies gowns is having some of them, most notably the characters portrayed by Coon and Kelli O'Hara wearing day dresses with decolletage. Baring one's cleavage (and bare arms) was strictly reserved for the evening in the 1880s. I guess some will say that the daytime decolletage shows how boorish Mrs. Russell is, but to someone like me (who knows something of fashion history!) it's the equivalent of putting her in a knee length skirt. And if she's trying so hard to break into high society, wouldn't she be paying attention to this kind of fashion rule?

I don't even blame the costume designer. I'm sure its the producers egging this on because they think American audiences won't get the character without these historically inaccurate details. Oh well, at least Mrs. Russell doesn't have shag carpeting in her dining room.

r416, well that is your opinion, what is the fact?

I doubt there are many here, including myself, who hated the first episode but will eagerly continue to hate watch. It's all too too delicious!

It was a wallow in splendor. I didn't hate it but it was an uneven pilot.

And, much thanks to the poster that included that nude scene featuring Morgan Spector.

R15: That all sounds realistic, not problematic. I'm sure there was fondness within and between families, but a lot of relationships would have been utilitarian.

It's just bugs me they get the decade wrong for the socially ambitious material details of houses and decoration. All for the caprice of this somehow predating Downton? Do they say exactly what year this series starts?

R418, I think they are just making mistakes. Mrs Russell may be ambitious and aggressive, but I think she is meant to be at least as intelligent as her husband, who is getting the better of his business rivals. And Mr. Russell refers to her good taste. He could be delusional, but I think it’s meant to be accurate. It goes along with her choosing the “trained in Europe” Stanford White as the architect for their new home, over the architects who were already in fashion in NYC.

She is making a study of the old people and she isn’t likely to get the easy stuff wrong.

It's 1882. The details are pretty accurate. This was the era of "new money" asserting itself.

The Gilded Age got 4/6 in Norway's biggest newspaper.

Another Norwegian newspaper gave it 2/6. Which is bad. Very bad. The critic said he couldn't watch it anymore. It was that bad.

[quote]The Thomas is the son of Morgan Spector/Carrie Coon, a Harvard-educated guy who is shown to be keeping house/sleeping with a man in a very simplistic scene.

He seemed to be straight last night.

It was the other son, Oscar van Rhijn, who was the gay one.

[quote] She is making a study of the old people and she isn’t likely to get the easy stuff wrong.

Well, it's tricky. Many people think that stuff is beautiful now, but at the time it was thought ridiculously flashy and over the top. The same is true of her clothes, which are much flashier and bolder than any of the other women's. The Old Money women would have hated it, and they wear more muted colors with lots of tiny details. (Kelli O'Hara as Mrs. Fane, who seems to be halfway between the old and the new money, wears the fussier detailed dresses but with bolder colors.)

I just finished watching the first episode. i thought it was pretty good, although the overall tone is pretty odd. The niece, Miss Brooks, is a little too modern-looking, and yet sometimes she also seems to be starring in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman. I predict she will be mopping fevered brows before the first series ends, much to Aunt Agnes’ disapproval.

Ms Baranski is good, but hasn’t really had much to do yet. Unless she is given a big, powerful storylines, she is going to need many Dowager-Duchess-style one-liners if she is going to make an impact.

Ms Nixon is not twinkly and charming enough to play a sparky maiden aunt.

Carrie Coons is great, as she is not playing the character as yearning for love, but rather as yearning respect and power. It’s interesting. And both the actors playing her husband and her son are exceptionally hot.

Overall, it looks beautiful and is more tightly plotted and faster paced than Downton, which is a relief. The script is not particularly witty though, which is a shame.

It seems m

Oops, sorry, I pressed “Post” before finishing!

If you look at Rottentomatoes now, it's a reasonable success with both reviewers and viewers... high seventies.

I still think it could stall out. There's a major energy lag and Coon is just cardboard.

All the rich people (over 35) should be fat for this to be authentic. I mean Trump-level fat, since the New York aristos gorged themselves several times a day, and had no physical activity. All you have to do is look at the photographs of these capitalist pigs.

That was my problem with Scorcese's AGE OF INNOCENCE--most everybody was too thin and pretty.

Lily Rabe should be playing Bertha! Even if she may be too young for a 20 year old son.

r433 there are certain concessions that have to be made. A bunch of modern actresses are not going to get fat. Nobody is going to have jacked teeth. That's just how it is.

Ryan Murphy's THE GILDED AGE would feature much LilyRabing and below-stairs homosex among the male servants and the delivery boys who are told to appear at "the rear entrance."

Lily Rabe is 40, she could have a 20 year old son, esp. in that era.

Bertha just needs to be played by someone with more flash and spark than Coon. Even fucking Jane Krakowski might have been interesting.

Jane is far too old

I'm terrified Cynthia Nixon has conditions in her contract that will result in a storyline where Ada goes camping with Emily Dickinson.

The new house is not accurate for 1882, as I detailed above. As I said Hunt was just doing the Chateaux and Romanesque piles. McKim Mead and White bringing in the neoclassicism and Beaux Arts was 90s and 1900.

Besides the Panye Whitney, another neoclassical house, the Duke mansion, went up in 1909. Elms in Newport, around 1900. White's Rosecliff same era, 1900.

Hoi polloi don't seem to understand these colossal piles have different influences and styles changed with the decades.

Here - they are filming in locations that didn't and couldn't exist in 1882.

[quote]the neoclassicism and Beaux Arts was 90s and 1900.

That style was around in the 1880s.

You're ignorant R444. Just stop.

r443 many of those houses already existed by the 1880s. The others are close enough to the time period. Again, it's just fussy old queens nitpicking.

In Ep 2 Laverne Cox's character LaBeyoncé lays the first stone of the Empire State Building and cures smallpox.

You people take all the fun out of it. A bunch of sour old grumps.

[quote] Hoi polloi don't seem to understand these colossal piles have different influences and styles changed with the decades.

This thread shows why we can't have nice things.

Seriously r448! They were like this on the Mad Men threads too. There is always some artistic license in various media portrayals of certain time periods. It's really not that big a deal if the artistic license isn't too blatant.

[quote]Again, it's just fussy old queens nitpicking.

How dare you disrespect their lived experience.

I WAS THERE, blowing Ward Mcallister. Have some respect for the sacrosanct knowledge book of the gays.

This is a good overview of Standford White’s work in a review of a book of photographs taken of details of his designs done by his great-grandson, which came out in 2020. White never formerly trained as an architect, he was apprenticed to H.H. Richardson for many year and then did a nearly two year self study sojourn in Europe. As this proposes, he was really known for his surfaces and acute attention to details and elements. Design of the big buildings was left to the Beaux Arts trained architect partners.

They are going to draw plot points heavily from the high social drama of Mrs. Vanderbilt's balls and entry into the 400, fair enough, and get the details wrong over and over, and I will deal. But if they JUST GO TOO DAMNED FAR, just too sloppy about it, I will have a grand mal seizure!!!

OK Jesus Fuck we're not watching this show for the history of architecture in that period! Some pillar in one of the houses wasn't in style until the following decade or whatever. That's great, we don't care. Stop analyzing everything to death and taking the fun out of it. Enough already.

With the gay storyline, might we get a scene of some hidden gay bar in the Village?

They could read Hugh Ryan’s WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER for research.

[quote]Also - some of the green screen work was of a zoom virtual background quality. Just horrible.

It's godawful. They can spend a fortune on the set for the Russells' new house, but not on competent CGI?

The worst was the "fly-in" to the house where the beach party was being held. It seemed like any college student could have done that, and the people on the grass were badly superimposed.

You think the difference between châteauesque and neoclassicism has nothing to do with you! It all looks alike, who cares!

One of the more interesting and unknown tidbits I found out from the book at R454 was a house that White designed for a wealthy family in Cornwall, Pennsylvania that today sits abandoned. He was low man on the totem pole at the firm, so he was the one sent off to the wilds of Pennsylvania to deal with this commission on his own. This house was built in 1881, so a year before the supposed house in GA, and you can see he’s still focused on the Newport shingle style and very much designing in the Eastlake style or Aesthetic style, which was big at the time before the Beaux Arts overtakes it. You see the Aesthetic style rendered in the sisters house most prominently in the William Morris wallpaper on their walls.

But this house is very fascinating and I hope at some point all the threads come together that it can be restored and saved.

[quote]You think the difference between châteauesque and neoclassicism has nothing to do with you! It all looks alike, who cares!

It's a tv show made for a broad audience. Scholars and fussy old queens aren't enough to make a show like this a hit. Just relax and enjoy it in spite of errors in details only you care about.

R461 of course I agree, I'm just having fun with my mis-en-scene nit picking. He wanted 1882 so he could have the social climbing plots of 1883, the year of the sea change when new money comes out on top. Oh, is that a SPOILER?! Hard to believe eldergays didn't all burn this into their memories as little boys.

I liked the bit where Bertha was humming along to Megan Thee Stallion.

[quote]One of the more interesting and unknown tidbits I found out

[quote]OK Jesus Fuck we're not watching this show for the history of architecture in that period! Some pillar in one of the houses wasn't in style until the following decade or whatever. That's great, we don't care.

You may not care, but some of us, with less dull minds, find such information fascinating regardless of the show.

Mad Men was quite actually intricate and meticulous about its period details so I’m not sure why the imbecile upthread used that as an example of DLers being precious and fussy about them.

Why don’t you stick to watching Yellowstone, honey.

So far the most (unintentionally) entertaining part of this thread are the architectural history queen's prissy hissy fits.

I love the fact that we have some extremely well educated folk among us who can take this mediocre show apart. The architectural and costuming issues wouldn't be a big problem if the show was otherwise great, like Mad Men was, but this show is so predictable, so poorly overacted, so full of cliches, that I say, go at it! Destroy!

R467 unintentionally entertaining? Thanks, a lot. I see you are a satire free zone!

You think critiquing the architecture is too niche when someone is quoting Norweigean reviews in Norwegian?

Downton Abbey DID get all the historical details right for 6 seasons. The sets and costumes were impeccably designed, so why shouldn't this be, too? Julian Fellowes and and director/producer Michael Engler were both responsible for DA.

I feel because it's aimed at an American audience, that producer thinks we're dumb enough to not notice all of the painful inaccuracies and everything must be dumbed down.

And, r470, I suspect your average Norwegian is far more informed on period detail than many of the posters here.

[quote]You may not care, but some of us, with less dull minds, find such information fascinating regardless of the show.

Was that really necessary, given your evident superiority?

We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so as not to offend stupid people.

The normalization of stupidity is overwhelming.

Hell on the pompous, too.

R471 If you think Downton is an example of a show that got everything right, historically, then you don't know much about history.

The interpersonal relationships in Downton were very contemporary and pure soap opera.

And, the costuming was all over the place.

The only aspect of Downton Abbey that was on point was the Red Nose Day parody of it with Joanna Lumley, Kim Cattrall, and Jennifer Saunders. It was hilarious and they pretty much nailed down every thing that was fucked up with DA.

R475, Red Nose skewered Uncle Julian brilliantly and mercilessly - it may have been the best of the whole thing - and I still laugh at Simon Callow grinning into the camera: "Marvellous! I don't know how I do it!"

R357, R360

The character is Jason Gould (1836 –1892) railroad magnate and financial speculator.

He was of Scots descent but his surname made him be perceived Jewish.

Downton Abbey was so punctilious about getting the period details right:

"Oh, you're a poor person who is also a homosexual? And fucking guests above your station in the house? Why, of course, you can continue working here! Carry on, nothing to see here, my good man."

[quote] All the rich people (over 35) should be fat for this to be authentic.

Yes, Mrs Caroline Schermerhorn Astor was fat

Downton drove me nuts when they did dinner table scenes and they were all screaming at each other across the table.

And, the odd and non realistic relationships between the staff and the family.

And, the horrible writing, directing and acting...including Maggie Smith's bored hammery and paycheck cashing.

a crotchety countess with her hand out for money sounds about right to me.

I'm sorry, but using the term "coon" is just not done in high society. Please restrain yourselves.

And, Cynthia Nixon's character WILL have a beau, played by Bill Irwin:

"Though Ada hides it well, her interest is piqued when Cornelius reappears in her life after many years. A former beau from her days in Pennsylvania, Cornelius and Ada haven't seen each other since the Civil War threw all of their lives into chaos. Cornelius makes his interest in rekindling their friendship clear, and while Ada's niece Marian is thrilled at the idea of her aunt finding romance, Ada's sister Agnes remains dubious about his motives."

R473 I endorse your quote.

[quote] We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so as not to offend stupid people.

The normalization of stupidity is overwhelming.

This dumbing-down attitude is sweeping through our schools and televison.

R462 What happened in 1883?

The German Jews had their own crowd, aka Our Crowd.

[quote]Mad Men was quite actually intricate and meticulous about its period details so I’m not sure why the imbecile upthread used that as an example of DLers being precious and fussy about them.

You mustn't have been on DL during Mad Men. The eldergays were constantly nitpicking about minute details and going off on tangents.

I want Mr. Raikes inside me quite deeply. With his gorgeous eyes trained on me as I hold my head back in utter ecstacy.

My British lady friend’s review of last night’s premiere was “Well, those young footmen were LOVELY.”

[quote]We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so as not to offend stupid people.

It's a tv show for a mass audience. You can get off your lectern.

The best thing about Downton Abbey was when Benedict Cumberbatch called it "fucking atrocious" in print.

Hello R485 Thank you for your curiosity. 1883 was Mrs. Vanderbilt's ball, in her new gigantic Châteauesque (not neoclassical) mansion on UPPER 5th Avenue, when Old New York caved, said what the fuck and let the new money into the 400, more or less. I linked the summary at R455. This is a major plot point of the series Gilded Age, names changed to protect all implicated in this entertaining but middling effort.

For the record there are ten episodes in Season 1.

And yes, the East 61st Street set is a backlot in Old Bethpage on Long Island. Lots of green screen. Season 1 shot from September 2020 until July 2021. Newport/Troy stuff was shot from May 2021 to July 2021.

So the drama is all about fat Mrs Astor allowing Mrs Vanderbilt into her circle?

It was originally supposed to shoot from April 2020 to Christmas 2020 but Covid fucked that up, obviously. They werd going to shoot June in Troy and August/September in Newport.

Amanda Peet had been fitted for Bertha’s entire wardrobe but Covid hit and because the schedule got so pushed back she dropped out because of her committment to producing The Chair for Netflix.

Was Mrs. Astor Donna Murphy?

Yes, R495.

Two big problems with this for me: casting (some random choices and Broadway acting is not fit for this) and cinematography (the awful lighting make this look like a stage production and does big disservice to otherwise good set designs and costumes). Will still hate watch.

That Celia Keenan-Bolger has a HARD look. She belongs downstairs.

[quote] Ah.....so the Russell son's lover was JQA? I see.

No, he's a descendant of JQA.

This story takes place in 1882; JQA died in 1848.

[quote] We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so as not to offend stupid people.

Mary!

I want them to unveil a portrait of Agnes’ dead abusive husband. And I want it to be a portrait of Billy Clyde Tuggle!

R493 The social climbing of the Russells is based on Mrs. Vanderbilt's. There will be plenty of other plot points, some apparently ridiculous. At least the social climbing is based on history.

As mentioned above, once the new money gets into NY Society, thus American, it's not enough. They then want their kids to marry European aristocrats. Thats the link to Downton. Any other questions?

R501, ironically Matthew Cowles (Baranski’s late husband who played lowlife pimp Billy Clyde Tuggle on All My Children) was from a very wealthy, very aristocratic old money family in Virginia.

Do a lot of people not know this history? The robber barons were SO rich, like todays 100+ billion dollar billionaires are rich. So their money was essential to European aristos who didn't have the fortunes to maintain their EXTRAVAGANT lifestyles. The Americans and to some extent Brazilians and Argentinians had the CASH.

Blenheim Palace was revived by Vanderbilt money. "Downton Abby" by the Levinson dowry.

Here is a recent Smithsonian publication that maps it out a bit.

R506 What do you mean by 'revived'? The Vanderbilts paid for building repairs?

[quote] Broadway acting is not fit for this

Why? Channing Tatum and Dwayne Johnson would've been better?

R508 her dowry was 2.5 million to the Spencer-Churchills, in 1895

Her father inherited about 50 million, so it was a very large chuck to fork over for the prestige. Future husband and wife disliked each other. The Duke of Marlborough wanted the CASH and Consuelo did as her socially ambitious mother told her to do.

For Christmas, I got the book A Well Behaved Woman. It's about Alva Vanderbilt. I hadn't even picked it up, but I'm going to read it now.

"Will it be beloved, like Downton? No, because it lacks both that show’s warmth and humour. (Baranski is in a role closest to Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, but gets none of those zinging one-liners.) Almost every character in Downton had likeable qualities, but that can be said of only a couple in The Gilded Age. At its centre is Bertha, who is not so much social climbing as hacking up the face of New York high society with crampons and an axe. She is fixated on breaking into the top ranks, shameless in pursuit of her aim. Perhaps this will make her a heroine to US viewers, but the British don’t like people who try too hard.

And yet, granted a sneak preview of future episodes, I found myself quite absorbed in Bertha’s mission. The Gilded Age is by no means radical – looks-wise, it could have been produced at any time during the past 40 years, and the depiction of a black woman (Denée Benton) being welcomed into the van Rhijn household while encountering barely a hint of racism is a cop-out. Thank goodness then for Bertha, whose intensity fires up every scene she’s in."

Marian is played by Streep's daughter, Louisa Jacobson

“none of those zinging one-liners”

Always the old. Never the new.

^ That nepotism is enough to make me dislike her already.

[quote]Marian is played by Streep's daughter, Louisa Jacobson

If she lists "actor" as her profession on tax documents, she's begging for an audit.

Just watched it, Thought it was ok, lavish, glamourous and interesting, not as bad as the NY times review suggested. Agree that some of the CGI was a bit rough.

I know Upstairs Downstairs (the original ) is regarded as one of the best costume/historical dramas/soaps ever made for tv. But looking at today it's limits are very obvious; it's shot with this awful 1970s video, it looks terrible, the set, lighting design are as basic as hell, it looks exactly like it is, a stagey, studio bound drama (almost no exterior scenes) made as quickly and as cheaply as possible. However, the acting, writing and characterization are excellent.

Based only on the first episode, I think Amanda Peet would have made a much better Bertha. She has a fragility that I couldn't find in Carrie Coons and I like Carrie but I found her delivery really flat in this, made worse with having her run in and out of every scene. I kept wondering, is she walking fast because the sets are so large she needs to make every entrance and exit fast?

"The Gilded Age" mentions that the Vanderbilts had been welcomed into society (the Russells discuss this, I believe). So the story is post "400", although the reference continued to apply to what I assume is the shifting membership in this group.

It's so wrong that skinny, weasel-faced Baranski is playing the very fat Mrs Schermerhorn Astor as seen at R332.

Baranski is NOT a stand in for Mrs Astor, another character who is mentioned in this plot. Baranski is married into the "van Rhijn" family representing the OLDEST of old New York money, and is herself a "Livingston" if I understood correctly. The Livingston is old old old, having come in the 17th century and having been Scottish aristocracy.

The Russells are a "stand-in" for the Vanderbilts. That the Vanderbilts are mentioned in the script is a caprice, as is the predating of their welcome. It really was 1883 that they were finally officially welcomed into High Society. Of course they have WEALTH from the mid century so they were already around.

*sigh*

Still chasing the high of "Mr. Selfridge" of PBS.

I just watched TGA and agree with all of the criticism here.

I know MS is set a few decades after TGA, but damn, hate Jeremy Piven all you want, but, for the first few seasons anyway, that show was pure fun to watch. The writing was superb; pure highfalutin' soap opera. The sets and costumes were an eyegasm and a real luxury to see during the height of cheapo "reality" shows.

TGA just isn't good.

The caprice that the old money was any more respectable than the new money is laughable of course. The Astor money was fur-trapping and trading money, then real estate speculation. It was very very dirty money, just old.

Isn't Bertha basically Alva Vanderbilt?

I'm just not sure where the dramatic tension comes from for Bertha in the long run because apparently all it takes is one mega costume ball and you're in. And then what? Bertha is no crass or uneducated or badly dressed or or or. Unless it's just becoming a soap.

For example the Van Rensselaers were Dutch immigrants who were granted a million acre estate in the old colony. They even had titles - Patroon and then Lord of the Manor. Dirty bloody money.

It's kind of a fascinating botch. Clearly no expense was spared in the palatial sets and intricate costumes.

But the gorgeous sets are terribly lit and boringly shot.

The actors in the intricate costumes were given barely any characters to play and no direction on how to play them.

It reminds me of what I've read about CBS's megabomb ripoff of Upstairs Downstairs: Beacon Hill (which I wish would show up on YouTube somehow—no one has seen it since it was canned after 13 weeks in 1975). It had all the visual trappings and a ton of New York theater talent and zilch in the script department.

Well we don't know if they reproduce the costume ball as the plot point but it seems something very close to that will come, no? Yes its a soap and there will be plenty of backstory and intrigue or it all sinks.

I remember Beacon Hill was on tape and not film so it looked like Upstairs Downstairs mixed with a daytime soap.

[quote] "Mr. Selfridge"

I watched bits of that show and I was so conscious that every set was a brightly-lit TV studio set. Were there any scenes shot outdoors?

Skip to ROBERT LIVINGSTON (1654 - 1725) to read about the Livingstons in New York

When I was in Germany last month I watched a lavish miniseries about the early days of the KaDeWe department store in Berlin. Lots of debauchery in that.

Well they shot the croquet lawn party outside and it appeared to be early spring at the latest as the grass was dead and tinted green, the trees were bare, and the light and sky were cold. It was supposed to be Newport in season. HA

R532 I watched a DW documentary on the little German town that series was filmed in. It was a very rich town on a trade route that was not destroyed and has amazingly grand architecture. And a vast department store, in this little town, that is now used as a film set.

here:

[quote]the early days of the KaDeWe department store in Berlin

Now *that's* a series. Either set there or in Biba in London during the swinging '60s. Why doesn't someone do that?

It's been so long, r530, that I couldn't say. I'd have to re-watch it.

Mr. Selfridge is really enjoyable (DLers who were watching it had a thread going) but, like a lot of these shows, the writing got lazy after season 2.

Piven didn't bother me, but, I can see why he has his detractors.

The Levinson backstory, as I recall it, was more interesting than these people. I got the impression they were comparatively recent arrivals in New York, Cora's father's fortune having been built primarily in Cincinnati. As written, Martha Levinson was an unreconstructed snob: crass, blunt, happy to spend money. She seemed perpetually unimpressed with English society and the aristocracy, so she either changed her mind or it was the father who drove the scheme to sell Cora to the Crawleys. The Martha character, younger but vulgar, with an ambitious husband exhorting her to act like a lady, that could have been intriguing.

dropped a word: an unreconstructed reverse snob. She was also cynical as hell.

Yeah, Coon is bothering me too. Just too damn frantic or something. We get it: she's grasping and ambitious. Fine, cool. But she's being kind of a moron about the whole thing, and that doesn't seem right. Can the next few episodes be: Mrs. Russell Calms Her Shit Down and Starts Playing the Long Game.

Fellowes has yet to give the audience a reason to like most of the principal characters.

I enjoyed the first episode. I thought it was fun. Two weird things: It made me think of Pete Cam bell’s family. (Mad Men) And Mr Russell looked like he was going for a cast member on the Fiddler on the Roof look. The beard was not the best idea.

[quote] Coon is bothering me too

That woman needs to get a stage name or marry someone.

R217 The Alienist is juicier in characters and plots and settings, with fantasy elements and some wry humor.

Morgan Spector is too Jewish looking to play a WASP.

Dear Bertha,

I know 'xactly how you'se feelin'! The same thing happened to me, but then I invited a heap of Europeen Royalty and they all showed up! Try that next time!

All the actors would be fine, if it was decent material, which it isn't.

Only Christine Baranski scores here, but I keep waiting for the Maggie Smith zingers — so far, nada.

Carrie Coon is utterly defeated.

For someone who said that no one gets anywhere in that town without Mrs. Astor's approval, Bertha has shown a total lack of wit or cleverness about how to navigate the situation. Instead, she seems to think she can bludgeon her way into society by name dropping, showing off her house, and sporting a garish wardrobe. Also, that stupid open house, or whatever she called it, had no one R.S.V.P, so why she had food for 200 and was pissed that hardly anyone showed up, was ridiculous.

the last 15 minutes were indeed an abomination.

[quote] Also, that stupid open house, or whatever she called it,

They called it an "At Home" in my country.

Ladies didn't have telephones so they'd leave calling cards (or 'carte de visites') announcing they would be 'At Home' on a particular afternoon which gave people permission to visit at that time.

Morgan Spector is not registering for me at all. Kind of like a little kid trying to fill out an older brother's clothes, acting-wise.

The actors were all really poorly served by the direction.

But the role needed someone who could do magnetic All-American patriarch. Like an Aaron Eckhart or some such.

^ But Jason Gould used discretion and deceit to get power. He wasn't a blowhard Barnum & Bailey.

He needs to be a menacing if also charismatic Robber Baron. I'm getting good-looking narcissistic sensitive MBA graduate.

Why do you insist on using Jason and not Jay Gould, which everyone uses?

[quote]He needs to be a menacing if also charismatic

This is not Dallas or Dynasty

[quote] Morgan Spector is too Jewish looking to play a WASP.

We don't know for sure yet his character is a WASP. The Old Money would not consort socially with anyone but Protestants at this time, but he could be a converted Jew (like August Belmont) or the son of converted Jew (like Oscar Belmont).

Bertha needs someone way more “yas queen” than Carrie Coon, who seems less like a woman ferociously determined to scale the mountains of New York society than a woman who is moderately aggrieved to find that she’s not in a grim Steppenwolf revival. It’s a part that should have been written around someone like Lady Gaga.

It’d be more fun to watch Barnaski play someone like Mrs. Astor than starchy head aunt.

I watched it again. It's missing vitality and energy, in all aspects. There's no sense of why they want what they want.

"We're New Yorkers now" Said with all the energy of a blasé rich girl who would just as soon be in Boston or Philadelphia.

Baranski looks nothing like Mrs, Astor. Weirdly enough, the incredibly unWASPy Donna Murphy does more.

I adored Carrie Coon in The Leftovers but she’s resolutely incapable of playing someone who’s lived pre-1960. She’s very contemporary. And her Bertha is absolutely charmless. I don’t think this problem can be fixed.

R560: She does have the aardvark-like nose that seems to be on half the women in the cast.

R562 At least they are not all plumped up with fat injections and Restylane. Well, except for Donna Murphy.

Why would Baranski need to look like Mrs. Astor when she is not playing Mrs. Astor, another actress is.

[quote]I adored Carrie Coon in The Leftovers but she’s resolutely incapable of playing someone who’s lived pre-1960. She’s very contemporary.

I thought the same thing. Also a problem with others in the cast, but her in particular, no matter how well she does in the role.

[quote]Weirdly enough, the incredibly unWASPy Donna Murphy does more.

Aaaannd.......now the Eldergays have moved on to a favorite subject: "Who Can and Cannot Pass For WASP?" This was inevitable.

Collapsed on her bed in her almost Norma Desmond ambiance nighttime bedroom, utterly destroyed by something her character should have shrewdly anticipated. It was so clumsy and heavy handed not to mention melodramatic with her declaration to make them sorry one day. Why? She wants them to like her and accept her or at least socially tolerate her.

JFC Bertha's daughter is so unfortunate looking.

[quote] melodramatic

You must allow nineteenth-century people to behave in a nineteenth-century mode.

[quote]JFC Bertha's daughter is so unfortunate looking.

The Farmiga girls have never been oil paintings.

A fabulously bitchy review in The Grauniad:

"And then there are servants, who live beneath these posh people and bitch about them whenever the restraining influence of the butler is absent."

"Get used to this kind of drivelling redundancy, folks, because there is an awful lot of it. Also, everyone is using that strange voice Americans do to indicate that they are posh in the past – it mixes precise diction with a strained tone, as if they are all having a hard time on the loo. Which, actually – well, never mind. We needn’t labour the point. Marian’s aunts (or “auurahnts” as it is pronounced in 1882) are Cynthia Nixon as Ada Brook, presumably as punishment for letting And Just Like That … go ahead, and Christine Baranski – who must have a very persuasive agent – as Agnes van Rhijn. "

"All of human life is here. Not in any credible way – just here. Marian acquires a young black woman, Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), as a friend on her journey to her aaughuhaunts. She is taken on as a live-in secretary by Agnes so Fellowes can develop as nuanced a portrait of race relations in turn-of-the-century New York as he does of class. It is agony, but no more so than the rest."

“I only ask that you never break your own moral code,” says Aunt Ada, whom I suspect should not be allowed to cross Fifth Avenue unaided. “How wise, Aunt Ada!” says Marian. I will have to look up whether taking the piss had been invented by 1882. And there are secrets among the servants. Miss Turner hates Mrs Russell and is bidding for an affair with Mr Russell. The Van Rhijn butler Bannister (Simon Jones) says he has nothing to hide, which makes me suspect he has something to hide."

The dialogue reminds me of [italic]Titanic[/italic]—clearly subordinate to the costumes and special effects.

R226 Don't rely on others to do your thinking for you.

The dialogue reminds me of [italic]Titanic[/italic]—clearly subordinate to the costumes and special effects.

[quote]Marian’s aunts (or “auurahnts” as it is pronounced in 1882)

In CT, people pronounce "aunt" the same way to this very day.

Bertha should have had the food wrapped up and left on Mrs. Astor's doorstep with a note "Sorry you couldn't make it..."

Watched it tonight. It’s not ground breaking, but I enjoyed it. It’s fun enough, and great to look at (other than the unfortunate CGI/green screens), and has cute guys, and bitchy matrons. I am intrigued by the Jeanne Tripplehorn character. I’m also now going down a rabbit hole of history of that era, and Stanford White architecture.

I have read nothing about this show, so I feel like an idiot that I didn’t know the niece was a Streep spawn. At one point I even thought she looked like one of the other daughters. Didn’t put it together! Glad Peet had to drop out. I agree Coon was a bit off…I hope she pulls it together.

The scheming slutty maid is pretty cliché, but the actress is good. And then there’s Debra Monk as a racist Mrs. Hughes!

I’ll keep watching. Why not?

Mr. Russell is sometimes condescending and sometimes too blasé about his wife's spending. That might be possible in a man born to great wealth but he made his money and her spending is gigantic. This character would be a bit more invested in the lifestyle and social ambitions he is paying for.

I want my legs resting comfortably on Morgan Spector's shoulders as he turns me out.

Oh, the pilot was okay. Didn't hate it. Loved Baranski. And Pumpkin.

But I wasn't surprised by one single scene, piece of dialogue, or plot point.

The gay scene included.

They got the wrong Farmiga.

Vera would have been a fab Bertha Russell.

Ugh. I thought it was TERRIBLE! Downtown had me hooked with the first episode but this. . . this is nothing nearly as good. The acting is really rough.

That review is amazing, R571.

Mr. Russell seemed to understand that his wife's society endeavors, and thus her spending, could benefit him business-wise. He asked what women she had met at that charity event, and when she told him, he remarked that their husbands were aldermen. In one of the first scenes Russell said something to one of his assistants that they needed aldermen to approve one of his projects.

R543 Carrie Coon is married to Tony Award/Pultizer Prize winning actor/playwright Tracy Letts.

Maybe she should hyphenate?

Carrie Coon-Letts

I can just see the blurb in Variety now:

"MOST CUNTED-ABOUT SHOW OF 2022" — DATALOUNGE

A lot of you didn't pay much attention to what you were watching...

The gay is Oscar, the son of Christine Baranski's character. NOT Larry Russell, the Russell's son.

Christine Baranski isn't playing THE Mrs. Astor...who IS a character in this show and we saw her towards the end of the episode and she's played by Tony Award winner Donna Murphy who will apparently be a regular character in the series.

The Russells seem to be more based on the Goulds than the Vanderbilts.

Also: the problem with the show isn't the "Broadway" actors. What a stupid thing to say...many of the best actors in film/television started out as theater actors. The problem is the fact this show is created, produced and written by a shitty hack like Julian Fellowes who hired the also shitty Michael Engler to poorly direct this mess.

[quote]THE Mrs. Astor...who IS a character in this show and we saw her towards the end of the episode and she's played by Tony Award winner Donna Murphy who will apparently be a regular character in the series.

"But Donna Murphy is NOT a WASP! The casting is atrocious! How can an Irish play a blue blooded WASP such as Mrs. Astor? She was SO high born and well bred. The historical inaccuracy is giving me the vapors. It's madness!"

If Ryan Murphy was the showrunner for this he’d cast Sarah Paulson as Bertha, of course. Who would he cast as the husband?

HBO should just dump the rest of the episodes and substitute a weekly hour of Morgan Spector walking around naked in various situations.

He could fuck the actor playing his son.

[quote]If Ryan Murphy was the showrunner for this he’d cast Sarah Paulson as Bertha, of course. Who would he cast as the husband?

Sarah Ramirez or Laverne Cox.

[quote]Aaaannd.......now the Eldergays have moved on to a favorite subject: "Who Can and Cannot Pass For WASP?" This was inevitable. The Gilded Age is here

[quote] "But Donna Murphy is NOT a WASP! The casting is atrocious! How can an Irish play a blue blooded WASP such as Mrs. Astor? She was SO high born and well bred. The historical inaccuracy is giving me the vapors. It's madness!"

Clearly my reference to WASPiness left you feeling threatened and triggered.

I am so, so sorry.

We'll Take Donna Murphy. They were wooing Viola Davis.

Too much bad CGI of backdrops.

I'm waiting for Spector's Jewishness to be a plot point. Perhaps the missus doesn't know he chnged his name for Rosen or Roth. Carrie Coons needs to change her name to Carrie Cuni-Lemel as a tribute to everyone nvolved in the production of this series.

Kuni Lemel—One who gets everything backward., From: How to Swear in Yiddish

r592 the WASP obsession is peculiar to Eldergays on DL and baffling to everyone else who actually lives in the 21st Century. No triggering involved.

[quote] Jewishness

But Jay Gould is of Scottish descent.

This

Thread

Is Done

Right now