Downton Abbey

I seem to be the only person on this planet who finds "Downton Abbey" dreadful. Why? After all, it seems to have everything going for it: beautiful scenery, well-drawn characters - in short, all those things that make dramas like this popular, just like those others with women who wear bonnets. I can't help thinking of Barbara Cartland and her novels - not that I've ever read any but I know of them - the Lord in the manor and the poor little scrubber of a girl in the valley below and how the devil of a cad seduces her against her will..... etc.
I can't help bringing Cartland to mind because it's all the same sort of thing isn't it? ("No" I can hear being yelled at me). Of course, it must be said, Julian Fellowes is in a different class, writing-wise, than Cartland. She wrote pot-boilers for middle-aged women who dreamt of being swept off their feet by a Lord or, Rudolf Valentino in mind, a sheik; he writes classy stuff.
But it is all the same trash, really. There's Lord Grantham lording it over everyone with a wife whom he doesn't love much; then there's his mother played by Maggie Smith doing a near Lady Bracknell imitation; then there are the ones "below stairs" and the relationships they have with each other and with the "upstairs" lot. It all makes me cringe. Was it ever like this? Yes it was. Would we like it to be like this again. No we wouldn't.... hold on, I can hear a million voices shouting "yes we would".
Keep it up Julian, you're carving a solid reputation for presenting the Edwardian scene in a way that the sentimental English public sigh about and wish it were here again in all its glory.
It's tripe.