"Home is not where you live, but where they understand you." - Christian Morganstern
My, how time flies: It's been more than three decades since Rose Buck (Jean Marsh) walked out of the front door of 165 Eaton Place and into the future.
For those of us who grew up on Upstairs, Downstairs (created by Marsh and Dame Eileen Atkins) watching the repeats on PBS or on DVD later, the show--which depicted the lives of the wealthy Bellamy clan and their servants below stairs--defined the period drama, transforming the stuffy recreations of aristos into a soap opera teeming with the hopes and dreams (and failures and foibles) of both the masters and the servants of a great London house.
While there have been countless adaptations of period-set literature over the years (Austen and Dickens remain always in style), recently viewers have seen a resurgence in open-ended, serialized period dramas. Lark Rise to Candleford may have perhaps started the trend in earnest, but it was the double punch of ITV's Downton Abbey and the revival of Upstairs Downstairs that truly brought the trend into full bloom.
Upstairs Downstairs, which begins its superb three-episode run on Sunday on PBS' Masterpiece, sees the series return to the small screen after a sizable hiatus. Revived by writer Heidi Thomas (Cranford) and directed by Euros Lyn (Doctor Who), this new Upstairs Downstairs has Marsh reprising her role as Rose, the former parlormaid who now runs an employment agency for domestic servants. The...
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Read the full article at Televisionary (http://www.televisionarytv.com).
