... Victoria's Court and political players were waaaay too interesting for so much time spent with the servants... rather a "The Crown" for Victoria instead of a "Gosford Park", I'd suggest... please spare us the hairdresser's stories when there are so many historical characters to pick from :)
shareI was wondering the same thing until ep. 3. At that point, the downstairs scenes finally seemed to take on a purpose -- they give us a sense of what opinions the "average" person might have had about what was going on with the royals. This worked well with Penge's bets on whom Victoria would marry and the female servant's worries about the barbaric execution of her brother. By creating downstairs characters, the writers are able to work in these kinds of observations much less obtrusively than, for example, having a montage of newspaper headlines or overheard conversations between random people we've never seen before.
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You put on a pair of shoes when you walk into the New York Public Library, fella!
Well, it worked for Gosford Park.
And Upstairs, Downstairs.
And Downton Abbey.
I see your point, clearly;I find it a little distracting myself. I'm just trying to get in the creators' heads.
I'd be happy with a little less about the servants, but I agree that it is a good way to show the viewers how the commoners reacted to events.
shareAs a fan of Upstairs, Downstairs, and Downton Abbey, and Gosford Park, I really like seeing the life of servants in addition to the political machinations and cultural controversies of the time. So far (I am watching in PBS order), there isn't that much to distinguish this royal household with any old aristocrat.
I have been comparing this to Edward The Seventh http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072925/, which is much about Victoria. So far, while I am enjoying 'Victoria,' the writing in 'Edward' is better. That series just seems more serious about the issues of the time, and of the family, rather than Melbourne and Victoria making eyes at each other.
That's one of my favorite miniseries.
shareThe problem is that this series didn’t really depict the life of the servants; it spent all the downstairs moments depicting the servants as a gang of thieves, manipulating the running of the household in order to benefit from selling off whatever they could.
shareI hate the downstairs characters! None of them are likeable.
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QV was very tight with her "ladies" and deeply interested in their marriages etc...to me, that aspect would have been far more interesting than the below-stairs staff they are showing, which is not intereresting or necessary.
shareAgreed, constancebryce. While I don't mind it in totally fictional works, I have issues with historical dramas delving into the lives of the below-stairs staff.
shareI guess I'm one of the few viewers, who don't really mind the time spent on the servants. Oh well...
shareI am also one of that few. I find the Miss Skerrit/Mr. Francatelli storyline fascinating. There was a Miss Skerrit who was the queen's dresser until, 1867, but her name was Marianne 'Annie' Skerrit, not Nancy. She never married.
But I am enjoying the downstairs stories, fictional as they may be, and wondering what will happen to the characters in the new season. I find Pence's (along with Francatelli and Hilda, a fictional character) storyline with Hilda interesting, as well,wondering if it will ever come to anything.
Duke Ernst's flirtation with Harriett, Duchess of Sutherland, is also fictional, and could not have gone anywhere, but this series is not a documentary. It is a series based on a novel based on historical characters and a time in history. PBS sells the novel.
The liberties taken with historical accuracy have been kind of disappointing. Sure, it's a series based on a novelization but it's still disappointing that such radical deviation from history have been made.
shareIt is done all the time. Every film or series about historical personages is heavily fictionalized. No writer knows what they were saying or thinking or doing all the time, or their motivations. And the producers want to sell their product, So they cast attractive actors. How many people do you think would have watched this series if Victoria and Albert looked like they did in reality?
Victoria is a sort of fairytale based on a time, place, and actual people with some reality and actual history thrown in. It is based on a novelization, not a historical biography.
I am enjoying the series for what it is.
I did find the episode that dealt with the Irish Potato Famine and how the Reverend Traill dealt with it heartbreaking. My husband had family that fled Ireland because of it. Rev. Traill, too, is based on a historical character who happens to have been a several times great-grandfather of Daisy Goodwin.
Even documentaries have to of necessity to make some assumptions about what their subjects said and thought, not having been present.