88 Time January 31/February 7, 2022
TIME OFF TELEVISION
Julian Fellowes conquered american Television
with Downton Abbey, transforming PBS’s sleepy Masterpiece
slot into appointment TV. So maybe it was inevitable that the
Oscar- winning screenwriter and Conservative peer of the
House of Lords would cross the Atlantic to meet his constitu-
ents. HBO’s The Gilded Age is the product of that sojourn.
As its title suggests, this lavishly made, eminently watch-
able but mostly uninspired period drama takes on Manhat-
tan high society in the late 19th century. Times are chang-
ing, just like in Downton (whose bittersweet eulogy for the
landed gentry has long been undermined by its extension
into an unkillable franchise). And with the self-made rob-
ber barons of the machine age invading their neighbor-
hoods, multimillion- dollar fortunes and gaudy aesthetic
preferences in tow, New York’s so-called old people, whose
families have wielded power there since it was New Amster-
dam, sense a threat to their social hegemony.
Addresses are of paramount importance to both crowds,
and The Gilded Age inhabits the upscale intersection of
Fifth Avenue and 61st Street. Widowed socialite Agnes
van Rhijn (Christine Baranski, serving Violet Crawley sass)
has lived there for decades, reigning over her meek spin-
ster sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon) and playboy son Oscar
(Blake Ritson). “We only receive the old people,” Agnes de-
clares. But she can’t stop a Beaux Arts palace from going up
across the street, to house railroad magnate George Russell
(Morgan Spector), his ambitious wife Bertha (a ferocious
Carrie Coon), Harvard- grad son Larry (Harry Richardson)
and daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), for whom the couple
longs to make an advantageous match.
Into this silent standoff stumbles
the obligatory ingenue, Agnes and
Ada’s niece Marian (Louisa Jacobson),
penniless in Pennsylvania following
her father’s death. She arrives at the
sisters’ home with a new acquaintance:
Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), a Black
woman with literary aspirations, whom
Agnes (a snob but not, by 19th century
standards, a bigot) hires as a secretary.
As willful, progressive young women in
a home governed by old customs, Mar-
ian and Peggy present another set of
challenges to the status quo.If Downton Is the greatest story
Evelyn Waugh never told, then The
Gilded Age kicks off Fellowes’ Edith
Wharton era. It applies his addictive
formula to a landscape that extends
beyond the walls of one house, infus-
ing big- budget costume drama with
soapy plotting. At its best, it sheds light
on how the social lives of Manhattan’s
most prominent families influence their
patriarchs’ world-historical careers.
But for the most part, it entertains
without illuminating. Fellowes re-
cycles too many of his favorite arche-
types, from the closeted gay couple
to the scheming servant. And while
he includes two households’ worth of
“below stairs” characters, their story
lines go largely undeveloped in the five
episodes sent for review. It’s as if their
presence alone is meant to satisfy some
sort of writerly noblesse oblige.
Downton Abbey, with its water-
cooler twists, brought the TV period
drama into the 21st century. Its suc-
cess paved the way for funnier, sex-
ier, more irreverent historical shows,
from Bridgerton to Dickinson to The
Great. (The Gilded Age fails to generate
enough heat to rival even Lady Mary’s
lethal affair with a Turkish diplomat.)
Now it seems that, like so many of his
characters, Fellowes is struggling to
keep pace with progress.THE GILDED AGE premieres on HBO on
Jan. 24REVIEW
Downton’s creator crosses
the pond and heads uptown
BY JUDY BERMAN
The
Gilded Age
kicks off
Fellowes’
Wharton
era◁ In Fellowes’
1880s New York,
change begins in
the drawing room