I’ll watch anything with Christine Baranski in it. Baranski plays the “Maggie Smith” character–who gets the best lines– in Julian Fellowes’s (Gosford Park, Downton Abbey) HBO series, The Gilded Age.
Set in New York City in 1882, the 9-episode series focuses on the glamour and gaudiness of the rise of industrialism and “New Money.” Baranski’s character represents “Old Money” and the changes sweeping through the social system causes a lot of friction. Baranski and her fellow Old Money tribe resist the growing power of robber barons and wealthy industrialists.
The Gilded Age takes on equality, racism, homosexuality, and social mobility. Are you a fan of costume dramas like Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age? GRADE: Incomplete (but Episode One was a B+)
Never liked Downton Abby or Gosford Park so I will probably pass on this.
Steve, THE GILDED AGE is cut from the same cloth as DOWNTON ABBY and GOSFORD PARK–only with an American setting.
Evidently the series has been widely panned, although NPR and a few others gave approving nods. I guess I’ll see since Kitty is anxious to view this.
Jerry, the first episode spends its 90 minutes introducing the major characters and setting the various plots into motion. Diane and I liked it.
I think that if you watched “Upstairs, Downstairs” back in the day, you’re good for dramas featuring women in lovely gowns. I could never get into “Downton Abbey,” but I enjoyed “Gosford Park” (mainly for the acting rather than the story).
Deb, because of the Pandemic, THE GILDED AGE cast includes plenty of Broadway actors and actresses who were available because of the theaters being shut down. Marvelous cast!
What Deb said. It would have been better to take a true story from the era or an Edith Wharton/Henry James story than this one perhaps.
Patti, THE GILDED AGE has a Wharton/Henry feel to it, but with some contemporary aspects: racism, homosexuality, women’s rights, etc.
I can’t help but be reminded of CBS’s disastrous “Upstairs, Downstairs” rip-off, “Beacon Hill” from the mid seventies. Considering this show was supposed to have been an NBC series a decade ago there would be more than a whiff of staleness to it were it not for the fact that reanimating old IPs is the new norm for streamers and this seems a pretty formulaic Americanization of “Downton Abbey.” This seems likely to fail but I imagine it could also be something of a guilty pleasure sleeper.
Byron, there’s an audience for the UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS type of period drama. Yes, BEACON HILL fell short. But the popularity of DOWNTON ABBEY shows that a series like THE GILDED AGE has the potential to attract an audience.
This actually sounds very “Age of Innocence.” I certainly understand the appeal of these shows and would probably take a gander if it was on PBS. “Downton Abbey” was one of those shows I’d catch during bouts of insomnia-just engaging enough to distract me a little but I also didn’t mind if I fell asleep in the middle of an episode (which is pretty much my attitude at best, toward television). This is certainly a fascinating era of American history. Sad to think how most of those Gilded Aged mansions were torn down. I hope you and your wife enjoy the rest of the season.
Byron, some the excesses of the Gilded Age still remain for us to marvel at. The architecture defied imagination in some cases. I occasionally take a snooze during the CBS Evening News.
It depends, is the only answer. Certain dramas, certain periods, yes. Others, not so much. I liked DOWNTON for the most part but have zero interest in a fight between so-called “old money” snobs and nouveau riche Vanderbilt-type rich, while the middle class and poor are trodden into the dirt. I agree on Baranski, but even if we had HBO down here I would pass. Jackie will probably watch it (at least the first episode) when we get home. She does watch BRIDGERTON, which I avoid like the plague.
Jeff, THE GILDED AGE also shows the changes in social society and business in Old New York City in the 1880s. I find that story fascinating, too.
Haven’t started it yet but I’ll give this a try because of Baranski and the great Carrie Coon. I loved DOWNTON ABBEY for the first 2-3 seasons and stuck with it through the lesser second half. I keep telling myself I’m going to get to Baranski’s THE GOOD FIGHT but haven’t done it yet.
Michael, Carrie Coon plays a wealthy socialite who wants to be accepted by the Old Money crowd. She steals every scene she’s in! Baranski is Old Money and attempts to resist change that’s inevitable. I’m sure you’ll like THE GILDED AGE.
Seems several people here are kinda down on this, and without HBO Max we won’t be watching it, but it has to be better than all the guns and exploding cars stuff!
Rick, if you’ve seen one car chase, you’ve pretty much seen them all (except for the one in BULLITT).
THE FRENCH CONNECTION, in a sense SPEED, and casting back to some of the Keaton and Lloyd films…
I wasn’t quite old enough to want to sample BEACON HILL, but was already a Jean Marsh fan in the early U, D days…liked GOSFORD OK, but never found DOWNTON too engaging (though was amused that it, CBS’s THE GOOD WIFE which I would watch, and particularly A&E’s THE WALKING DEAD were *pulverizing* ABC, NBC and Fox in the Sunday night ratings. As the TV GUIDE PBS guy, I was amused in that compass as well).
I’d fallen asleep early Monday evening, and by the time I awoke, it was a half-hour into GILDED (adapting Twain and Fitts might’ve been interesting…) so I flitted around the dial a bit. The A&E takedown of Hefner wasn’t too surprising, alas, and apparently will have the slightest bit of overlap with Bell’s HBO series about Cosby as a malefactor.
Ha. Not Dudley Fitts but Charles Dudley Warner was Twain’s collaborator. Middle-aged moment, still sleepy.
Todd, Zombies almost always top TV drama and Reality TV.
I think the bloom might be off the corpses on the various WALKING DEAD franchises now. Though they, THE GOOD FIGHT and now this cousin of DOWNTON are all chugging along…all the things the three other biggest broadcast networks threw at them at the height didn’t leave as many descendants nor non-survivors on the field.
Well, come to think of it, one of the shows that got smacked down by DEAD, WIFE and DOWNTON was SCANDAL on ABC, and BRIDGERTON is a cousin of sorts there…
Todd, BRIDGERTON is a kissing cousin of THE GILDED AGE.
Happily, the New Hampshire PBS station was repeating ca. ’77 the late ’60s FORSYTE SAGA that NET, before PBS supplanted it, had first imported around the turn of the decade…not too much clothes-horsing, as I remember, but among the first adult dramatic series without a criminous nor fantasticated element I recall watching regularly, if we set aside the like of THE WALTONS.
Everyone wants to take todays ultra-PC thinking, apply it to the past, and then shake a righteously admonishing finger at it. Pah.
Rick, I’m not a fan of finger pointing (or shaking) but I do find it intriguing that THE GILDED AGE is willing to tackle homosexuality and racism in the 1880s.
Not as if chauvinisms of various sorts are a new invention. Among the oldest inventions, most likely.
I watched the first one and expected Baranski’s character to be saltier. It’s ok, hope to continue with it. I’m not a fan of Cynthia Nixon, but she plays a sympathetic character
Maggie, I’m not a Nixon fan either, but she seems to play Second Fiddle to Baranski…for now.