Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Like millions of people around the nation, Paper Monitor wakes up to the harsh reality that it no longer has anything to amuse itself with on a Sunday night. Yes, Downton Abbey - with its kooky plots - is off air until next September.
In the Daily Mail Jan Moir , saying that for all its barminess, she still loved every melodramatic minute.
Downton Abbey, she writes, "seems to have existed on some weird space-time continuum between the bustle and The Beatles".
But in the Times the absence of the period drama simply means that , according to the Thunderer column.
What a peculiar fantasy land we found ourselves in during Downton's second run... Wars, scandals and yet more rounds of Mary and Matthew's 'can't kiss won't kiss' go by. Yet no-one ages, except the dog. Perhaps in Downton Wonderland the plots run in dog years?"
But, while admitting that Sunday evening viewing requires a healthy dose of silliness, it says Downton was simply "cranked up too far".
For the Daily Telegraph, a "".
But it sounds a more positive note, dangling the tantalising notion that with the death of Matthew Crawley's fiance the way has been paved for romance to bloom between him and Lady Mary.
The simmering 'will they, won't they' romance could even boil over during the next episode - a Christmas Day special."
Along with the rest of the nation, Paper Monitor will remove its black armband of mourning and rejoice.