An Open Letter to PBS
My Dear PBS Executives,
How dare you slash the bajeezus out of Downton Abbey, the most-watched show in British Television history since Brideshead Revisited. And all to accommodate our American short attention spans? Please. Don’t do us any favors. We like our British period pieces as long and drawn out as possible. It’s what we’ve come to expect. It’s the English civilized way.
Instead, you underestimate our capabilities of slouching on our couches for hours on end, patiently watching the drama unfold, mesmerized by British accents, and you audaciously wipe out 25% of this much-anticipated miniseries. That’s two whole hours you’re tossing to the cutting room floor.
If Downtown Abbey were a famous feminine statue in a Paris museum, you have essentially cut off her head, her entire left arm, and most of her right one. So while many people will still watch it, it is not in the form that the original creators intended. And for me, it is not worth the price of admission if there are alternatives to be had.
Imagine my outrage when I saw these headlines in the Daily Mail:
Downton downsized… by two hours because American TV executives fear its intricate plot will baffle U.S. viewers
and
Series slashed for the States
and
Inheritance storyline simplified for Americans
Now, I may not be some Oxford-educated hob-nobber and I may not understand a thick Cockney accent too well, but I like myself a good British drama. And your attempts to “dumb it down” offends me profusely, sirs and/or madams.
Oh sure, I like Top Gear and Life on Mars, although I prefer the wittier British versions, not the idiotic American ones. I also like Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Graham Norton and for the love of all that is holy, do NOT attempt to Americanize these shows. I would also like to point out that these shows appear on BBC America and they have not been slashed to pieces like Downton Abbey.
I watch a lot of British shows because I enjoy the subtle humor, or the civility between characters, or the outright British sensibilities in those shows over most of what goes on the air in America.
And I love that whole Victorian period piece stuff and those carefully paced English-mannered TV shows and movies that Eddie Izzard so wonderfully mocks as being full of scenes where two characters pause enormously between lines of dialogue, most of which concerns re-arranging matchsticks.
It’s about expectations. I pray that I speak for more than myself when I say that we do NOT expect to be insulted by your vast assumptions about our viewing preferences. Would you cut the second scene of Hamlet and any reference to royalty in general because of your fears that we don’t understand how the ascension to the throne works and therefore get bored and change the channel? Are you kidding me? Get bored during a Shakespeare play? We Americans, who are willing to subject ourselves to the likes of Shakespeare EXPECT slow. We also don’t expect to understand what they are saying all the time. This is what the “subtitles for the hearing-impaired” are for. We also don’t expect to get every British cultural reference. I’ve watched every episode of AbFab dozens of times and still don’t get all the references, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the show.
How can you even presume to edit to our short attention spans? Do you forget who you work for? We’re talking about PBS, for Pete’s sake! Short attention span people don’t watch PBS, they are channel flipping between Jackass Celebrity Survivor Island and Two and a Half Smoke MonsterQuest Hunters.
But no, you think we don’t want to hear anything, let alone learn anything about the British culture, that we’ll yawn and leave. That we are so ethnocentric and self-absorbed that any attempt at learning about another country outside of this great nation, one nation, under God, indivisible, and…uh, cherry pie. Where was I?
Right. Short attention spans.
You probably thought the only reason this show had a snowball’s chance even playing in the states was because of one American actress in the cast, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Well, I’ve got news for you. Nobody knows who Elizabeth McGovern is.
I don’t think you understand your audience at all. I mean, we’ve already slowed down our audio-visual metabolism just changing the channel to PBS. We already know it’s going to be slow. It’s why we come over there. To calm the hell down and watch some real drama for a change.
I watched the first so-called “episode” of Downton Abbey. I waited for DAYS for this thing to come, ever since I saw Elizabeth McGovern on the Graham Norton Show. On BBC America.
I counted down the hours to air time out loud on my Facebook Page. I cancelled all of my appointments and stayed home and watched it play live on television Sunday night, which I never do for any show because I don’t like being controlled by a network’s oppressive schedule. In other words, I was kind of looking forward to it. But then something happened.
First, I was a little put off when the PBS programming geniuses felt it was necessary to have Laura Linney come out before the curtain and get all pedantic regarding certain British terms: Today’s word, boys and girls, is “entail”. Do you know what an entail is? Well, I’m going to tell you. And then we’re going to have recess so you can have milk and graham crackers. Although, in England, people would have something called tea and crumpets. Isn’t that interesting?
And I lamented to my husband about the jerky story movement in that first episode, only to realize it was because YOU CUT A BUNCH OF IT OUT.
I, for one, will not watch the rest of Downton Abbey on PBS, in its edited format, once a week at precisely 9pm. I have added the “Original UK Version” (now with 30% more story!) to my Netflix queue and will watch it on DVD when it begins shipping on January 25.
Shame on you, PBS.
As I said, I am not some high-falootin’ educated snob. I’m just as crude as any other American you’ll find talking out of turn. But when I flip the boob tube to PBS to watch a sweeping English period piece, by golly, I expect some rearranging of matchsticks!
Quite Truly Yours and All That Rot,
Margaret
P.S. It has been reported that Downton Abbey will return for a second season in 2011. Should you decide to air it, may I suggest you offer two versions of it, one of them being the original length, so that we Dumb Americans have a choice in testing our short attention spans? Thank you.
Watch the full episode. See more Masterpiece.
Addendum:
And then my rant came crashing down when someone pointed out to me that the Daily Mail’s article could be a total agenda-driven fabrication, that PBS did not cut 2 hours off of the show. If true, I’m a total sucker (a dumb American, if you will) who fell for it. I’m also wiser about the slimy-ness of The Daily Mail and will mock them at every opportunity and use them as examples of what NOT to believe, and all because they made me feel stupid once. So, as one rant comes tumbling down, a new one takes it place. Beware the wrath of NGIP, Daily Fail. You have been warned.
You can see the other side of the story entitled, In Defense of Downton Abbey.
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