I watched half of the first episode of season 1. Turned it off, read my Bible and discovered that the world isn´t going my way either!

I just got the DVD of the third season and can´t wait to watch it. I love this series. Sure it´s a soap opera, but it´s fun to watch and Maggie Smith is the best.

Perils of Pauline.

...now that it has us hooked, this show is starting to go down the path of all others before it. The men are incompetent boobs, the women are the ones that really rule the roost, and of course they´re the ones driving progressive thought, while the men are mired in the muck of their backwards ways. There´s no value in the traditional past that built what they have, only value in destroying it so everyone will be equal. I think just as many women of the era would have found Ethel´s prescense at the Crowley home as offensive as the men would have, just as they would today.

The Left (Salon) is such a downer. Don´t they ever find anything in life enjoyable, or worth the experience? Can´t imagine what the attraction is in being a Leftist, too gloomy for normal sane folks.

#5, my inference from your post is that you are male. If I´m wrong, I apologize. But I believe females do think of redemption and forgiveness differently than men tend to do, particularly toward another woman. In addition, the residents of Downton Abbey, in that era, are beginning to address the same issues as the rest of the free world, women´s suffrage and women´s rights in general. Even in the US, it´s taken a long time to correct some of the wrongs of the past. In 1970, I inherited a house from my grandmother. I am a resident of Texas. I could not sell that house without permission from my husband. If I had been unmarried, I would have had to get permission from my father or a brother. That law has since been fixed, but I still hold a fierce resentment.

I, for one, would rejoice for a former prostitute who is now learning to be a cook. How could anyone object to that?
And, the butler overstepped his bounds. He rules the servants at Downton Abbey, not Crowley House.
Mrs. Crowley runs her home as she sees fit.

#1 right. I do watch the program, but it offers no more insight on life than the "Real Housewives of..." wherever. Yes, it should be clear to all believers that we are strangers in a strange land.

#8, that´s a very modern attitude about things like rehabilitation of a "fallen" person. Those ideas were only just coming into popularity at the time of the events in Downton Abbey, and places like rural northern England were far behind the curve in that way.

Moreover, Lord Grantham´s objection in the show is more about appearances than his judgment of Isobel the maid as a person. He´s deathly afraid of scandal enveloping his house, and he´s made it clear on many occasions that his title and house are the most important things in his life--more so even than family.