There was a right to-do over this week's Downton Abbey episode when it screened in Britain - and it wasn't over Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's turn as Dame Nellie Melba. This was, depending on your tolerance for dames playing dames, perhaps, either an inspired piece of casting or a load of old twaddle. In other words, you are either a Downton fan or you think it is a load of old twaddle.
It has always been a load of twaddle, but it is now rather older twaddle and the seams of this costume drama are wearing very thin.
So when Anna Bates was raped by a visiting footman - a sumptuous (and sumptuously boring) house party was the excuse for the visit by both the rapist, and the opera singer - its creator and writer, Julian Fellowes, was accused of poor taste for the sake of ratings.
Perhaps Downton fans feel they are above poor taste. In which case what on earth are they doing watching season four of a series in which, in the first, Lady Mary did something unthinkable in her bed - or had something done to her; it was never quite clear - with a Turkish diplomat who dropped dead with shock at the discovery that English aristocratic ladies have pubic hair? I made up that bit about the pubic hair, but it wouldn't have surprised me; nothing much does on Downton Abbey. Golly, it's boring. It's exactly as one imagines a house party at a real life Downton Abbey, in the olden days, would have been like: endless cups of tea and dinners with dull conversations that go on for hours.
As for the rape of poor Anna - she's married to that misery guts, Bates, which seems punishment enough for any character. The howls included those from viewers who seemed to be doubly outraged because it was Anna who got raped. She's probably the most loved character, after that old bon mot dropping, scene-stealing, Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess.