the finest moment in television history pinpointed

henry-185

I saw for the first time recently the episode of Upstairs Downstairs where Richard Bellamy (m'Lord) is sitting in the morning room with Hazel and he says "as for the future: I have my doubts, but then tomorrow's a long way off". He is in profile, and his hair is white with age, though it looks vaguely like a wig that was worn centuries before by the aristocracy. I've always thought that the key to learning history is to find the points when one way of life changes, and that moment in Upstiars Downstairs showed me how those values and characters were not part of a distant past, but very real and wonderful people. I found myself feeling so at home with the situation in 'good old 165' that I have found no other more precious moment in a film or on television that is finer. What I mean by that is the kind of moment like at the end of Hannibal where Sir Anthony Hopkins says to Julianne Moore: "all you would need for that, Clarice, is a mirror".

All worth tears and smiles

score /10

henry-185 16 July 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1127842/