Farewell to an Era

I managed to write yesterday. It was very exciting. I seem to have finally emerged from my haze. Now I might start to make actual progress again. But first, I have adult-type stuff to do, like get my car safety inspected so I can renew my registration. It's still early in the month, so I have time, but I have to get new license plates this time around, which means that I can either do the inspection early and then renew by mail or online, or I can wait until later in the month and go stand in line at the tax office. I suppose I could still do it sometime next week, but I have some other errands, and it's a reasonably nice day, so I may as well take care of it today and get it out of the way.

This weekend marks the end of an era, with the final episode of Downton Abbey Sunday night. I can't believe I wasn't initially planning to watch it, but the review in the newspaper was so glowing that I thought I'd give it a shot, and I loved it. Alas, the first season was really the high point. They made some questionable decisions after that, skipping through most of the war, the terrible romantic triangle, the "miracle" cure. Then they started losing actors left and right, and I'm not sure the show ever recovered from Matthew's death -- all that buildup to his relationship with Mary, and then he was gone. I bought the first two seasons on DVD, but I haven't bought the rest because it was no longer something I could imagine rewatching, and once they were into the 20s, the fashion was no longer quite so much to swoon over. This season has become kind of lackluster, and they have a really bad habit of making the interesting stuff take place offscreen. But I love the characters, and I might find myself missing them, even while I'm ready for the show to end before it becomes even more of a parody of itself.

So, Sunday night I may put on a nice hat or maybe a tiara and settle down with a glass of champagne to say farewell to an era. I suspect there was a lot of Downton Abbey influence in the world of Rebel Mechanics, just with the dealings with household staff and the divide between the upstairs world and the downstairs world. I wasn't doing it on purpose, but I'm sure I couldn't help but be influenced by something I was enjoying. I did once quote the dowager countess in responding to a question posed by an editor (they wondered about a ball being held on a weeknight, to which I replied "what is a weekend?" -- people who don't have jobs don't have to worry about scheduling things around weekends).

This is also the return of Once Upon a Time for the spring season, but advance reviews are saying this is mostly a Regina episode, with token appearances by other cast members, so that's nothing to get excited about. It's their 100th episode, and it says something about where the writers stand that they center a milestone episode around a single character, and that single character in particular. If ever there was a cause to do a true ensemble episode, you'd think #100 would be it.