The original version of "Upstairs, Downstairs" stirs some nostalgia in me. I was in high school when PBS started airing the BBC soap opera about an upper crust British family and the people who served them back in the 1970s.
It was favorite Sunday night viewing for my mother, and I often watched with her.
So I was interested to see the three-part follow-up to the series debuting at 8 p.m. Sunday on PBS' "Masterpiece Classic" on Channel 10. It's set in pre-World War II London and brings back only one of the original cast members, series co-creator Jean Marsh, as Rose.
Actually, there's one other character from the original: the grand house at 165 Eaton Place where Britain's class differences played out.
There's a hint of fascism in the London air as a new wealthy family renovates the home where the Bellamy clan once lived. Rose runs an employment agency and helps staff the house, eventually coming back to her old workplace.
This filmed version obviously had a much larger budget than the videotaped original, which gives it a lusher, but less intimate feel. And the three episodes -- which aired on the BBC last December -- have to work more quickly than the original to establish personalities. Characters don't have as much time to develop.
But there are more episodes promised for the future.
In the meantime, you'll have no trouble jumping into the new "Upstairs, Downstairs," if you haven't seen any of the originals. It runs over the next three Sundays.
Here's a saucy little preview of the first episode for the BBC's original airing of the new "Upstairs, Downstairs" as a Christmas week special:
And a chance to catch up: The original "Upstairs, Downstairs" was a smart combination of soap opera, social commentary and history. Acorn Media has just released a box set of the original series retailing for $199 (although you can find it substantially cheaper if you shop around the Internet.)
I screened the first season of the show -- which includes some black and white episodes that didn't originally air in the U.S. run of "Upstairs, Downstairs," and was particularly impressed with the writing and character development.
Yes, it's a soap opera. But there are many levels to it that lift it above the average, and make it worth a look today. In fact, if you like the new series -- due on video from Acorn at the end of the month -- your appetite may be whetted to go back to the original.
Here's the opening of the first episode of the original series:
On TV: In addition to talk of Meredith Vieira leaving NBC's "Today" when her contract is up later this fall, there's talk that Matt Lauer wants to leave when his contract is up next year.
- Fox has ordered a second season of the animated "Bob's Burgers."
- NBC will burn off the five remaining episodes of "Chase" on Saturday nights starting April 23.
- The NBC-owned "Sleuth" channel is being renamed "Cloo," according to TV Guide. The silly name change is not unlike the renaming of the NBC-owned Sci Fi Channel as Syfy a couple years back.
The sexiest assistant in TV: Esquire Magazine has picked Katrina Bowden as its "sexiest woman alive." If the name doesn't ring a bell, she plays the office assistant Cerie on NBC's "30 Rock."
Esquire kindly offered this video if you can't quite connect a face to the name:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
