It is his lordship’s tweed that drew me in, I suppose. I am a great wearer of tweed and, when my wife decided we would watch the British series “Downton Abbey,” I was first struck, and then enraptured by the clothing of the men in the series, which is set among the English aristocracy in the years before and after World War I.
“Look at that tweed,” I would say admiringly to my wife as his lordship strode off across the fields or lounged in a huge armchair, reading The London Times.
Gray tweed. Brown tweed. Green tweed. Green tweed with a faint red stripe. I was in love.
In the beginning of the series, all was well. The family was rich landed gentry. Their house was huge. Their servants were plentiful and respectful. They lived by an iron code of conduct. Their tweed was gray and well-fitting.
Unfortunately, the series was set during a “time of change.” Writers love to set stories during a time of change because it gives them a free plot. The writer establishes characters and, bang, a war breaks out or there is a huge social upheaval. Women want to vote. Servants no longer wish to serve. Butlers grow weary of butling. Unsuitable couplings occur. The younger generation falls away from tweed.
“They’re ruining the show,” I said to my wife as his lordship’s family began producing out-of-wedlock children, as one of his daughters married the chauffeur, and as the footmen became surly and seemed to smirk as they brought the tea.
“What’s wrong?” my wife said.
“Everything’s changing,” I said. “No one’s happy.”
My wife explained to me (rather slowly, I thought) that the series had to have a plot.
“Couldn’t it just be that maybe the episodes focus on the planning of the yearly hunt ball or on the butler forgetting to order new tweed for his lordship?” I said.
“So, the show would just be about nothing?” my wife said. “Like ‘Seinfeld’?”
“Yes,” I said. “It would be like ‘Seinfeld,’ except the characters would all wear tweed and they wouldn’t be whiny, sexually inept New Yorkers I’d like to hit with a tire iron.”
Last weekend, we watched the first episode of the last season of “Downton Abbey.” I’m not sure, but I think the under butler shot two nuns and a duke impregnated one of his lordship’s prize cattle.
When television and movie script writers set their stories in a time of change, my favorite character is always played by the oldest actor in the cast, the one whose character is invariably whipped bloody because he can’t “accept change.”
I can accept change. I’ve been a reporter for 30 years and newsrooms are change-y places. One murderous cackle of the police scanner and I’m down in the projects, watching them put the victim’s body into the ambulance.
Change is fine. I don’t wear a holstered pistol to the grocery store because it’s not 1876 anymore. I won’t vote for Donald Trump because I know America isn’t a “white man’s country” anymore.
I’ll keep watching “Downton Abbey,” but only for the tweed. Tweed never lets me down.
Marc Munroe Dion is a nationally syndicated columnist. Dion’s latest book, “Marc Dion: Vol. I,” is a collection of his best 2014 columns and is available for Nook and Kindle.