The Gilded Age

[olivermoss]

It's a new series from the guy who created Downton Abbey.

The pilot is so paint by numbers you know what is going to happen in every scene. It even has that thing where you can tell who main characters are going to be because more work has been put in to make their costuming suit them perfectly.

Cons - Okay so idiot me thought 'Gilded Age' was Great Gatsby era. I swear I learned that Great Gatsby was about how rotten the gilded age was in school and it's been stuck in my head since. Since I am in a prohibition era fandom, I thought watching another show in the same setting would be amusing.

Pros - Hey, canon gay!

IDK if I will keep watching. There is a young lady who is uncommonly pretty, but was left with nothing by her parents. Both a rich man and a poor man have come to her aid and ... like I swear I read 5 books like that in high school lit class.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I bailed after 20 minutes and didn't make it to the canon gay. Who was gay?

[olivermoss]

One of the aunts has a son, you may not have seen him yet. Anyway, the son has a secret boyfriend.

[muccamukk]

I guess that's better than it taking Thomas 15 seasons and a movie to get a kiss.

[olivermoss]

There is a kiss and everything!

I only made it a few seasons into Downton. I think I liked the first season and not much after that?

[muccamukk]

I was watching with my parents, and made three seasons, I THINK, then hate followed the spoilers.

I'm pretty sure that Fellows has the rarely sung line from "All things bright and beautiful" about a lord in every manor and a bagger at every door as a tattoo.

I find that he says he spent over a decade immersing himself in the history of the period, but he also can't remember the name of the Reconstruction pretty telling.

[hannah]

Someone I follow on Twitter couldn't get into it because there wasn't period-appropriate amounts of animal dung lining the streets. Totally threw him out of the story.

[olivermoss]

Since the streets aren't paved and can't be cleaned, that threw me a little, too. The MC just running across the street in a ballgown like it wasn't a problem was a bit weird even if you don't consider poop.

[highlyeccentric]

I have also heard that about Gatsby. Some investigation suggets that it's an extremely common phrase in student projects... Some poking around in googlebooks suggests that this is an over-simplification from descriptions in critical works, eg, Harold Bloom here:

Gatsby's West Egg (present-day Great Neck) is the domicile of nouveau riche Americans who made their fortunes during the booming years of the United States stock market and lived like Gilded Age robber barons.

Some further investigation suggests that Fitzgerald ORIGINALLY plotted the book as set in the gilded age, but shifted it to a more contemporary setting.

[olivermoss]

Huh, interesting. Every time I hear that term I think Art Deco. Though it's weird to think about The Gilded Age and Prohibition Era happening at the same time, but my brain always goes to Great Gatsby. At there is a reason my brain does this!