Downton Abbey observation and Crusoe

It's been interesting to watch posts filter through the last couple months since Downton Abbey was released in the US and has now aired on PBS (I think?) been released on DVD, and is apparently streaming on Netflix, and compare them to posts and conversations from pre-US release (whether it was watched in the UK itself or people who...uhm...lacked patience, or didn't know if it would be released yet. *whistles*) because there's this...theme, I guess, that seems to boil down to character preference alignment between Mary and Sybil (In general.  It certainly isn't universal.)  I think Sybil has generally always been the fandom favorite, but people who watched it pre-US release seem to think Mary is the most interesting of the Crawley women, regardless of which they liked more, whereas most who've watched what aired in the US seem to prefer Sybil all around.

For my fault, I like Sybil plenty, but find her the least interesting of the Crawley women.  She's very much a straightforward, modern heroine with spunk and "pluck," and is clearly written to appeal to audiences who want a gutsy proto-feminist to root for as she bucks the system.  Which, as we all know, is not something I have a problem with at all, but the other women in the family are, in differing ways, much more constrained and bound by the biases and rules of the time, both their own and the ones they're on the receiving end of, and so I find watching them much more interesting.  In particular, Mary and Edith would usually be antagonists who had to learn their lessons, as opposed to sympathetic, if frequently difficult, protagonists.  So it's kinda...Sybil is a romance novel heroine (If you've read relatively recent historical romances, you know what I mean, and I do not mean anything bad!), and Mary and Edith are Austen's Other Women as sympathetic protagonists.

In general, though I kind of...wonder if there's something that causes that divide, not that there's anything wrong with either "side".  I haven't watched my DVDs yet, but I'm told there are very few changes, andthat what changes there were were mostly formatting.  It could be partly cultural, but I think that the pre-US airing folks online who saw it had as many people who watched it on TV as who *whistle*-d it, but maybe not.

Meanwhile, for TV that only has being a historical drama in common with Downton Abbey, I picked up Crusoe, the series from a couple years ago based on Robinson Crusoe, for $10 at Wal-Mart a while back, and have been watching it the last few days.  I've never had an interest in reading the book and still don't, even though a copy came with the DVDs.  I have a weakness for cheap DVD sets, and pretty much always get enough entertainment out of them to be worth my money.  (The only exceptions are Surface, which was generally dull and sometimes awful, and a collection of Rock Hudson movies, where I only liked one of them.)  Anyway, Crusoe is generally entertaining in a "fun to multitask with" way, but it has a bad habit of being blissfully ignorant of the fact that it's pretty much drowning in white privilege.  (They had Friday speaking in an awful near-caricature way in the first episode that...well, I thought we were at least past that, and it thankfully much improved after.)  It's not bad, but not incredibly great, either.  But I'm equal parts surprised that it didn't take off, as shows focused on the eternal BFF-ness of 2 male leads are generally successes, and puzzled as to why someone thought it'd work as an ongoing, as the status quo is..very limited (about midway through, they clearly realized cancelation was looming and reworked it into and impromptu long miniseries or something) and the flashbacks to Crusoe's life pre-island, and then when we start seeing the people in his life back in England in the present are consistently way more interesting than the island adventures. 

Also, needs more Sean Bean and Anna Walton, and whoever plays Olivia.

cdrama: Paladins in Troubled Times/Da Tang You Xia Zhuan, ep 1

After bouncing off several wuxias in a row,  think I've finally found one that clicks.  I know nothing about the plot of this series so I'm not entirely certain what to expect and, like a lot of wuxia, the first ep has a lot of political setup.  But we already have a crossdressing heroine taking on a band of thugs in a tavern and on a secret mission, and a villain whose weapon of choice is a fan.  Uhm...his hair and clothes are similar enough to the hero's that I was confused when he first shwed up.  By which I mean "wait, weren't you sweeter and more naive and more conventionally goodlooking just a minute ago?  Oh, you're someone else."  Speaking of the hero, Victor Huang seems to be a good actor and all but, uhm, dude is older than me and looks it.  Hero is supposed to be closer to 20, I think.  (Maybe this is one of those that spans years and years?)

Anyway, no idea what the plot is aside from "young hero raised in seclusion runs headlong into politics, villains and ladies" but it looks entertaining  I bounced off the new Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, but like the other two Xhang Ji Zhong productions I've seen, Return of the Condor Heroes and Sword Stained With Royal Blood.  (Most recent versions of all three.)  It has plenty of hair fluttering in the wind while indoors already, and is visually along the lines of SSWRB.  By which I mean less FX and near-supernatural/outright-supernatural martial arts and more muted visuals with grea clothes and buildings and...not more realistic moves, necessarily, but wirefu instead of major FX.  Opening and closing credits promise much melodrama and Potential Epic Doom.  (I decided I was in the mood for extreme wuxia melodrama and Potential Epic Doom and considered Bi Chun Mu, but while I don't have an aversion to plots in which most of the cast ends up dead, I didn't feel like taking on one where the leads die inthe opening scene.)