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Mixed:
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Negative:
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Critic Reviews
Jan 4, 2015
Season 5 Review:
If Seasons 1 through 4 have bored or baffled or just annoyed you, Season 5 won't win you over. If, on the other hand, you greet the return of Downton with unabashed affection, as I admittedly do, you won't be disappointed, even if some of the storylines feel like reruns, or even when you want to grab a character by the shoulders and shake him or her.
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Jan 4, 2013
Jan 2, 2013
Season 3 Review:
If the Granthams are low on dough, emotionally they're richer than ever. [14 Jan 2013, p.51]
Jan 7, 2011TV Guide MagazineJan 7, 2011
Season 1 Review:
Watching Downton Abbey is like curling up with a really satisfying book, and I can't think of a better way to get through one of the crueler months of winter. This is one of those shows that after finishing it, I immediately began to envy those who had yet to experience the pleasure.
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Jan 6, 2011
Season 1 Review:
This extraordinary upstairs-downstairs drama, written by Oscar-winning "Gosford Park" screenwriter Julian Fellowes, is a dramatic, intelligent, soapy, comic, and wise piece of work, one that explores social shifts on the eve of World War I while delivering a remarkably engaging cast of characters.
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Jan 10, 2011
Season 1 Review:
For every Mrs. Patmore, the cook who wants nothing more than to stay in service the remainder of her life, there is a housemaid such as Gwen (Rose Leslie), who dreams of becoming a secretary in a modern office. It's these dichotomies, and the way they exist within both the Abbey itself (half the rooms have electricity and half don't) and its multifaceted inhabitants that make Downton Abbey not only the best soap opera currently on television, but one of the most relevant as well.
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Jan 4, 2016
Season 6 Review:
Writer and creator Julian Fellowes provides a sweet parting gift, indulging fans with closure on so many dangling storylines, while offering fiery and long-overdue exchanges between some of the most popular characters.... His ensemble of actors is equally generous, each giving such steadfast performances in these last episodes of the award-winning series.
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TV Guide MagazineJan 4, 2016
Season 6 Review:
Even though it was starting to feel a bit threadbare in recent years, its classy departure is likely to leave its legion of fans pining for more. [4-17 Jan 2015, p.14]
Jan 2, 2015
Season 5 Review:
In some respects, the latest episodic flight feels less like Season 5 than Season 4, Part B, what with so much unfinished business to transact. That’s not a serious knock on the show, necessarily, although the latest storyline doesn’t contain the sort of signature events that have dictated the course for past runs.
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Jan 10, 2014
Season 1 Review:
If some plot elements in the third season seemed forced (and they did), then Fellowes seems to have completely regained his balance in the fourth season. And that balance means expertly bouncing between the upstairs and downstairs worlds of Downton, letting the plot turns flow naturally, carrying us along joyously for the posh ride.
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Jan 2, 2014
Season 4 Review:
It continues to be to Fellowes’s credit that he manages to write for such a large number and wide array of characters and yet makes viewers know and care about each one. None is purely hissable nor heroic, intentions are murky, and impulsive choices have major consequences, keeping the enjoyable soap at full lather.
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Jan 2, 2014
Season 4 Review:
The cast is so uniformly good, frankly, it’s tempting not to single anyone out, and Fellowes continues to juggle the dizzying assortment of plots with what appears to be effortless ease. That said, one can see him repeating himself in some of the flourishes as the season progresses.
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Jan 4, 2013
Season 3 Review:
This year, by contrast [to last year], the drama flows more naturally; it cuts closer to home, and nearer the bone, allowing Smith and McGovern, particularly, deeper material than has previously been their portion
Jan 2, 2013
Season 3 Review:
The melodrama is deliciously engrossing and occasionally wrenching--two episodes in the middle of season three may empty local Rite-Aids of Kleenex--but in the end, it's a light series: "light" as in the opposite of dark, not insubstantial; warm, hopeful, inspiring.
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Jan 6, 2011
Season 1 Review:
It's quibbling to say that it feels at times as if Downton Abbey had been custom-designed for those of us for whom period romance is mother's milk, studded as it is with plucky heroines, accidental heirs and scheming dowagers, with just enough history thrown in to make the melodrama seem highbrow. It's not, really, though. It's simply delicious fun.
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Jan 3, 2013
Season 3 Review:
On the one hand, our love of the characters makes it more than possible to overlook the sloppiness of the scripts. On the other, though, it's because we do know these characters so well that we notice the inconsistencies in the first place. Again, none of this detracts significantly from our enjoyment of the series.
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Jan 3, 2012
Season 2 Review:
Luckily the characters are so fully formed, and so fully inhabited by the cast, that the whole mess staggers up out of the trenches and keeps going. [9 Jan 2012, p.39]
Jan 4, 2016
Season 6 Review:
Devoted and casual fans of the series alike will doubtless enjoy the gentle winding up of stories that have progressed over so many years, with new beaus for Mary and Edith introduced at the end of last season, an increasing degree of liberation for the servants, and even a glimpse of happiness for the tragedy-ridden Bateses. Meanwhile Downton’s villains, always cartoonish, remain so.
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