Sep 23, 2019 3 min read

I’m going back to merry ole’ England – metaphorically speaking. The “Downton Abbey” movie premiered over the weekend, and I’m eager to go back to the Abbey and catch up with the Crawleys.

I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why do you want to pay for something that you used to be able to watch for free – from your couch?”

I don’t know. It’s a surprise to me as well, especially since I wasn’t fond of the final season of the iconic British television show.

The show went off the rails toward the end. In the final season, they bickered ad infinitum about building a hospital. I’m not sure they ever built that damn hospital, but they sure talked about it. A lot.

In the last couple of episodes, they rushed to marry off Mean Mary and her sad sister, Edith – not to each other – the show was never THAT crazy.

Mary married Henry. And Edith married someone – no one cared – she just needed a happy ending.

When last we left the Abbey, Mary’s hubby went into business with her brother-in-law Tom.

Side note: There’s a Tom and a Thomas on this show. That bothers me. The English get a little stumped when coming up with character names. Think about J.K. Rowling and her obsession with the letter H:

“Harry and Hermione met Hagrid at Hogwarts!” Holy Hannah! It’s hard to find that sort of letter repetition outside “Sesame Street.”

But I digress, like I do. Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode) and Tom Branson (Allen Leech) decided to buy a car dealership (and possibly manufacture them). I guess they really liked working on “The Imitation Game” together so they went into business. You know you’re rich when you decide you want to start making cars. I just blew my whole budget on a new taillight last month, which, by the way, is being held in place with packing tape.

I’m pretty sure the only reason that Tom and Henry decided on this business venture was so the imperious Dowager Countess of Grantham can mock them for building “horseless carriages.”

The characters on the show like to make fun of modern conveniences. There was a whole episode about the butler and his fear of the telephone. Carson was all, “This infernal thing will never catch on.” Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge. Now we carry them around in our pockets!

I enjoy making fun of “Downton Abbey” as much as I enjoy watching it. I’m not the only one. There are a million parodies of the show, from “Upstairs Downstairs Abbey” to “Downtown Arby’s.”

French and Saunders managed to get the actual cast to be IN their parody version (and special guest star George Clooney).

In many episodes of the TV show, I just waited around for Maggie Smith to say something funny. I expect a few zingers from her in the movie.

I’m gonna go grab my popcorn and get comfy. The theater is dark and Highclere Castle looms in the distance.

Mike Buzzelli can be reached at michaelbuzzelli1011@gmail.com/.