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Masterpiece Downton Abbey Season 1

Like many other reviewers have already stated, this is a wonderful series. It had me completely hooked 10 minutes into the first episode. I recorded the series when it aired on PBS last January but loved it so much I wanted to own the boxed set, so I was very excited to receive it for a Christmas present. There seems to be so much confusion/conflicting information concerning the differences between the original UK version and what was shown in the US on PBS, I spent some time watching the new discs and comparing them with my recorded ones to try to sort it out for myself (This also gave a Downtonaholic a way to keep busy until Season 2 airs in a couple of weeks). One point of confusion has been the running times, further complicated by the false information in an English tabloid that the series was considerably shortened and "dumbed down" for American viewers - this was instantly proved false but the myth persisted. In the UK, the series ran in 7 episodes, of varying length, with commercials. In the US, PBS aired the program as 4 90-minute episodes, without commercials. The longer length of the US episodes means that Matthew Crawley is introduced in the first episode here (in the UK version, episode 2 opens with the Crawley's arriving at Crawley House), which may give the impression that the US version is more "rushed" but in fact, very little, if anything, was cut from these first two episodes. Watching my new box set, the original, unedited UK edition (commercial free), I noted a few short scenes that I had not seen before, and that some scenes that did air in the US had been slightly edited, cutting out a little bit of dialogue. I didn't keep track of the exact run times of the additional scenes/dialogue, but it could not have been more than 15-20 minutes of footage total. I am delighted to now be able to see every minute of the show; while I would not call any of the deletions critical to the plot, they are well worth seeing, and some minor things were clarified. Note: the scenes I'm talking about are not the same as any "deleted scenes" the show's directors/producers may have made during the normal post-production editing process - those that often show up on DVDs as special features. I also saw read conflicting reports claiming that the American version contains scenes that were not in the original UK version. I compared the two versions pretty closely and did not note ANY scenes in the PBS version that do not appear in the original UK edition. Also, the rebroadcasts PBS aired earlier this month were exactly the same as those aired in January 2011.

These are some of the specific differences between the UK and US versions that I noted. If you haven't seen series 1 yet, THIS SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS:

On the UK DVD set, there is a scene between Matthew and Isobel at Crawley House after Matthew comes home (early) from dinner at Downton with Napier and Pamuk, and another that takes place the next morning in which Matthew wonders if he ought to go see if Mary is okay (In the US, we see by a later scene that Matthew does in fact call on Mary, but not the fact that he'd been kind of brooding about it).

One thing I had been puzzled by is the scene where Mary tells William he should go home as she'd heard that his mother is ill. I didn't understand what that was all about - Mary is evasive and seemed like she was up to something, yet nothing ever came of it. All becomes clear with the inclusion here of two short scenes - one, Isobel tells Cora and Mary that William's mother is a patient at the cottage hospital and is seriously ill but doesn't want William told as he will worry. Cora says they can't tell him, but Mary defiantly says she will. Then, during the scene where Mary comes to Crawley House to see Sybil, in the US it ends with matthew, Sybil, and Mary starting to leave the room, but in the UK version Mary stays behind a moment and there was some additional dialogue between her and Isobel concerning William's mother's continued decline. Not critical, but explains that odd William and Mary scene, and progresses the relationship between Mary and Isobel.

An earlier scene between Mary and William (before the one about his mother) where William was looking after Mary's horse was cut from the US version and the scene with William in the kitchen with Daisy where he says he's making a poultice for Diamond - Mary's horse - was shortened slightly.

A few scenes with the family were shortened in the US version, with some dialogue being omitted. For example, there's a funny exchange between Cora and Violet where Violet expresses concern about her maid's potential departure (Later, in another scene, which did air in the US, Violet tells Cora that her suspicions were confirmed, but it's the first we'd heard of the maid-leaving business); the scene with Matthew and Mary in the dining room is slightly longer: Matthew asks if she is "at all political" and reaches for some of the sandwiches; the scene with Branson and Sybil in the car, after the first "riot" is longer; in a scene at the breakfast table with Robert and the girls, he hands Sybil a letter - in the US, the first we see of it is Sybil walking down the hall with it behind her back; in the scene where Robert tells Cora about the news of Evelyn Napier, Cora makes some remarks about Rosamond always sponging food from Downton that were cut from the US version, as was Robert's line noting that Evelyn is going to be married to someone else (in the US, the first we hear of E's pending marriage is when Mary asks him about his wedding plans in London).

There are two scenes with Mr Carson and the letter he receives containing gossip about Mary (In the US, the first we see of it is when he hands it over to Cora). In the second scene, he's so preoccupied, wondering what to do, that he forgets to ring the dressing gong. Roberts refers to the lateness in the next scene - with Bates, in his dressing room - but this dialogue is cut in the US version (the scene instead opens with Robert asking Bates how the elections went).

There's a scene between Sybil and Gwen, in Sybil's room at night, where Gwen says her class isn't brought up thinking their dreams are bound to come true.

When the family is returning from London, we glimpse a lot more of the cleaning and cushion-plumping that went on as Mrs Hughes walks though for final inspection, as this scene opens episode 7.

There was a plot between Thomas and O'Brien concerning Bates and one of Robert's snuffboxes - all of the scenes related to this were deleted in the US version (though there is a (previously) cryptic reference to it in some later dialogue between the pair when they're discussing the theft of the wine). Not critical, but actually quite a funny subplot, and ties in to an early scene in which Bates admires the snuffbox collection when Thomas is showing him around Robert's dressing room.

Before Mrs Patmore goes to London, there is a short scene where she tells Daisy to doctor the food so that the family doesn't grow to prefer Mrs Byrd's cooking (in the US, since we didn't see this bit, the scheme appeares to have been Daisy own idea).

O'Brien receives a letter from a maid she met in London who relates the Bates/regimental silver story. Carson borrows the letter and passes it on to Robert. These scenes were not shown in the US, but the letter is later referred to, when Robert and Cason discuss the oddness of the circumstances.

There are also a several other short scenes below stairs that were cut from the US version.

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