The Wild Blog in the West

So here we are.  Another year of Downton Abbey aired and gone... this time with no notable deaths.  Last year at this time, I made several predictions as to how I thought Series Four would go.  This year, I'm going to check how I did and make yet another set of predictions.  Watch me go! Predictions For Series Four 1.  The Viewership Numbers Will Remain Strong.   That was definitely the case.  In the UK, the series viewership numbers slipped just the tiniest bit, from 11.7 million for Series Three to 11.5 million.  The Series Four premiere broke viewership records in the U.S. and the show did better against the Super Bowl than last year. 2.  Mary and Branson Probably Won't Get Together in Series Four, But in Series Five...   Another one on the nose.  Truth be told, it was a bit of a no-brainer.  It would have been wrong for Mary and Branson to become passionate in Series Four after each lost the love of their life in Series Three.  I'm actually surprised that Mary h

It's the Christmas Special, which means a super-sized Downton episode!  This one was both less tedious and less morbid than the previous one.  While there was threat of a scandal, at least no one died this time. Plot Synopsis So we jump ahead an entire year to the summer of 1923, and as expected, virtually nothing has changed.  Nothing except Edith going to Switzerland for eight months, having a baby girl, breastfeeding her herself, then giving her away to a Swiss family before heading home.  Nope, nothing other than that. Since apparently even Rose's brother and sister in England hate her, the Crawleys will be overseeing her presentation at court and the subsequent festivities.  The entire family heads down to London, save Branson, Isobel, and Violet, to the never-before-seen Grantham House.  The servants are all flustered, and Mrs. Hughes and Daisy make a late trip down because the housekeeper at Grantham House is ill and there will be a lot of guests for dinner.  Tha

I had to use that once.  Now I shall never speak of it again. This was the final episode of Series Four, before the Christmas Special that officially closes things out.  It was one of the better Series Four episodes, and one of the better Series finale episodes, at least since Series Two.  Nothing earth-shattering happened, but some plot lines wrapped up nicely and there were a few pleasant surprises. Plot Synopsis Lord Grantham is still away in America with Thomas, so Cora has the challenge of actually exerting herself for the upcoming village charity bazaar, which seems pointless because half of the people in the village hate the other half. Even with Thomas gone, Baxter dutifully collects gossip around the house to share with him.  She tries to get Molesley to spill what he knows about the Anna-Bates situation, but he doesn't bite.  Instead, he later asks Baxter if she would like to join him for coffee.  When she refuses, Molesley tells her pointedly that most of th

I was going to call this "Gone to the Pigs" or something of the like, but that was too silly.  Besides, while the pigs subplot was memorable, it was not the meat of the episode.  Pun intended. Plot Synopsis First, Downton Abbey is in a tizzy because Lord Grantham received a telegram from Cora's family in America, stating that they want him there right now .  For some reason, they think that having him testify before a Senate committee is a good idea, him being an upstanding English earl and all.  However, Bates does not want to leave Anna and begs for Thomas to take his place.  This simple request unleashes so much turmoil that one would think the nation had declared war again.  Before everything settles, Mary knows that Anna was violated, but not that Lord Gillingham's valet was responsible.  Anna refuses to disclose any more details to her. Before Lord Grantham leaves, Violet comes to wish him off.  If it's not clear by the way she coughs every other wor

Most of this episode was fairly quiet, like the last one.  However, this one had several good moments, and that's before the "secret" was revealed at the end. Plot Synopsis First, I'll get the never-ending love quadrangle out of the way.  Thankfully, this is the end and now Daisy can get a good plot line.  She begins this episode thrilled that Alfred is staying at Downton, only for her happiness to be dashed when Alfred receives a letter informing him that one of the accepted candidates dropped out, so he gets to fill the position.  When it's time for him to leave, he tells Daisy that he's sorry he hurt her, and that she will make a man very happy, just not him.  His honesty is refreshing, but couldn't he have said that a few months earlier?  How many months -- no, years  -- has this plot line dragged on?  Daisy manages to wish him luck, and they end on a good note. Later, Jimmy tries to take advantage of Ivy after they see a Valentino movie,

Sometime after writing my review for Serial Experiments Lain , I visited an IMDB message board.  One of the threads was "Which anime series are like Lain?", and one suggestion was Monster .  I will sometimes watch the opening episode of an anime series out of curiosity.  But Monster  was the first time I did it and was hooked. That is saying something, considering that getting hooked meant committing to a 74-episode series, far longer than any other anime I had watched.  But one episode led to another, which led to another, and before I knew it, I had finished the entire series in less than a week. The anime is closely based on Naoki Urasawa's manga series of the same name, which ran between 1994 and 2001 in 18 volumes.  The anime series aired in Japan in 2004 and 2005, then in the United States in 2009 and 2010 on the SyFy Channel. Plot Synopsis Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a Japanese man living in Dusseldorf, West Germany in 1986, at a time when Germany still exists in

That "some stuff happened" is all I can recall.  Various things happened to the different characters, but it's all a bit of a blur, with only a few distinct moments.  Alfred on Top Chef .  Bates threatening Mrs. Hughes.  The guy who brought Pamuk to Downton making a second appearance.  I would end the recap right there, but that wouldn't be fair, would it? Plot Synopsis Oh let's see... Edith may be pregnant, given that she claims that she is going to London to see to Gregson's affairs but instead goes to the doctor's office.  No one else in the family cares, and when Edith claims she knows how it feels to be an outcast in the house, Mary snarks at her.  Will those two ever have a real relationship? Some boring shit happens with Violet and Isobel -- I don't remember.  Something about Violet's new gardener watering in Violet's house and a letter on her desk going missing.  Whatever was the problem, it appears that everything is a-okay in