DOWNTON ABBEY - MINI-BLOG

 OK, I love Downton Abbey and have, up to now, been completely pleased with the whole thing.  But here comes Season 3 and Shirley MacLaine.

Please!!  You expect us to believe that Shirley is Lady Grantham's mother?  I don't buy it for one second that she could have raised Lady Grantham.

I love Shirley, but she is, oddly, just not right for this part.  Perhaps Kathy Bates, Dana Ivey, or even Rosemary Harris, or - better yet, Estelle Parsons, would be glorious in the part and give Dame Maggie a run for her money.

Hate to be a grinch, but there it is.