NOT using the panel discussions of the most
recent World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in August 2016 (to which
I was invited and had a friend pay my membership! [Thanks, Paul!] but was
unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail
against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy
of the Program Guide. But not today.
The entire premise
of the incredibly popular historical drama (that my wife and I just binge
watched over the past four weeks…) concerns the impact of TECHNOLOGY on PEOPLE…
Think of it! The
entire six-year-long series of eight or nine episodes each year (aired in the
US in mid-winter!) covered the years 1912 to 1926, OPENS with the sinking of
the Titanic. The most technologically advanced ocean liner in its time, it was
also the most technologically advanced form of transportation of its time. It removes the heir-apparent of a
decidedly ordinary, aristocratic family and their servants.
From there,
technology runs totally RAMPANT all over them!
Medical advances
(cataract surgery, hospital consolidation), weapons advances (gas and
airplanes), communication advances (the telephone and records), agriculture
advances (breeding and farming methods), MORE transportation advances (the CAR!!!!!),
pedagogical advances (people who teach from a knowledge base rather than
because of a degree), – even social advances (women’s rights) constantly trample
the cast into the ground.
Sometimes
LITERALLY. I asked my wife shortly before we finished the series what the body
count was for the show. We didn’t know, but I found out: the two heirs who died
on the Titanic, Ambassador Pamuk, William, Lavinia, the FIRST Mrs. Bates, Lady
Sybil, Matthew, Alex the Rapist, Mr. Gregson, Isis, Charlie – oh, and the 41
million who died in WWI, as well as the 1503 on the Titanic, and 20-50 million
who lost their lives during the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919.
Rough estimate
then: 41,000,000 + 35,000,000 + 1503 +12
= 76,001,515 dead on Downton Abbey.
The fact is that the
number was almost certainly due to technological advances – or the lack
thereof. If you removed the technological advances, then the story would
collapse in on itself.
I’m not kidding.
Downton Abbey is SCIENCE FICTION at its best in that it showed repeatedly the
impact of technology on BOTH individuals and Human civilization.
Need more
convincing?
The entire series
would have failed miserably if the two heirs of Downton Abbey hadn’t been on a
ship. The Titanic was cutting edge technology from stem to stern (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic)
and was, as we all know so well, touted as “unsinkable”. It had also been built
to be the fastest ship (as well as the most luxurious ship) on Earth.
The continuing
failure of medicine to control viruses brought about the deaths of millions
during the pandemic – but specifically killed Downton’s heir’s fiancé and throwing him into the arms of the daughter
of the Earl of Grantham…and then he was killed in a car accident. Medical
procedures both cured and complicated the lives of the people there; jazz music
spread by both recording and wireless caused endless complications with the “teeny-bopper”
Rose; and the increased ease of transportation allowed not only Tom to flee
England for America, but brought Cora’s interfering mother from America to
England.
Off stage and in a
slightly different age, the introduction of the wireless in the 1920s along
with the continued development of transportation methods, led to the
involvement of a future King of England with an American divorcee and the
necessity of him speaking on the wireless to all of the British Empire as they
flew into a second war with Germany – in THE KING’S SPEECH.
I’ll stop here and
rest the defense of my premise: DOWNTON
ABBEY is Science Fiction at its best!
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