I recently rewatched the last season of The Practice, then went back to rewatch from the beginning. The tonal difference was jarring. The show was really good in its early years, but jumped the shark abruptly when half the main cast left.

I watched the entire series, but the elevator death is all I remember too. Probably because it scared me from ever backing into an open elevator.

Rose didn't arrange it - she just knew about it. The arrangement was between O'Brien and Rose's mother themselves (as seen in last year's Christmas Special).

A presentation at the Palace wouldn't be quite such a big deal to Shrimpy, considering that he's on nickname basis with the Prince of Wales and can probably count on being invited to Buckingham Palace whenever he does return to England.

Hush! Reality has no place in Downton-verse.

Which makes it all the more likely that that was Bates's only coat.

And we're just supposed to take your word for it?

Ye gads, could this show get any more fairy tale-like? The pretty blonde girl gets to be the Belle of the Ball and dance with a Real Prince! Everyone is ridiculously wealthy and titled, including the chap who doesn't want to be either (Blake). The aristocrats get to party the night away, and the servants get to lounge…

Either that or he's just an idiot.

"Mary's Men"? You mean "Mary's Desire of Suitors" (TM).

Baxter and Barrow's story can be boiled down to:
Barrow: "I know something bad about you. Do what I say, or I'll tell!"
Baxter: *Doesn't do what he says*
Barrow: *Doesn't do anything*

And neither do poor tenant farmers, so hooray!

Knowing how Fellowes's mind works, I think we can say with 99% certainty that season 5 will involve a "I can't bear her being next door and not knowing I'm her mother" deal.

Liked for 'you can practically see the dollar signs pop up in her eyes'. Though technically, that should be 'pound signs'. ;)

The results are just in. The rocks are smarter, by several IQ points.

Anna explictly said that she was throwing out that coat because she had recently persuaded Bates to buy a new one. So the implication is that that was his only coat. I assume that one needs to wear a coat for more than 4 months in the year in northern England.

Did your ticket stub implicate you in a capital crime? Well, I hope not ;)… but Bates's ticket did. One would think he'd remember to get rid of any evidence connecting him to the crime.

He did mention a slight amount of backstory in his first or second episode - he talked about his parents and ethnicity.

The schoolteacher seemed promising when she was first introduced. I still think she might work out if they cut back on her abrasiveness.

Why Henry VIII? Marrying your dead sibling's spouse used to be fairly normal in the aristocracy - it was a good way to keep the property within the family. An example closer to the 1920s: Queen Victoria's daughter Beatrice was supposed to marry her late sister Alice's husband, but Parliament disapproved and put a stop…