I am a sucker for those British costume dramas.

Oh yeah, if the tee vee guide lists something that involves the sort of accent formed by a stiff upper lip coupled with the straight jacket of Victorian manners, you can count on me being firmly plastered to the couch with a small but incredibly scenic rivulet of drool seeping from the corner of my half open mouth.

You can well imagine my bliss when I saw that the CBC is running the latest BBC adaptation of the Forsyte Saga.

So there I was last night, right at the sort of scene I LIVE for in these things--the quivering mouths, The Yearning Glances That Say It All, that moment when the man admits that he loves the family governess.

We were right at the point where she let him know that she fully intended to rattle his bones until all his teeth fell out and they started kissing those soft butterfly kisses that ratchet up to hot, soul sucking lip locks

AND THE FREAKING PHONE RINGS.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.

The spousal unit, being incredibly brave, picked it up and went to another room. There was murmuring which I did my best to ignore because we were in the crucial scene Where The Husband Confesses To The Wife He Has Never Loved That He Has Found Another.

People, we are talking mass quantities of trembling lips, pregnant pauses, welling eyes, and gorgeous Victorian clothes in an opulent setting. I LOVE THIS STUFF. I COULD EAT IT WITH A SPOON.

The spousal unit reappeared with phone in hand. He could not meet my eyes. "It's for you. It's your stepmother."

Oh man.

Now don't get me wrong. I genuinely like my stepmother, but we hardly know each other. She married my father 20 years after I left home and since I hate my home town and never go back there, we haven't seen a lot of each other.

Mournfully I slumped into my office. We made small talk about our mutually shared passion of gardening, and little events in our lives. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. After twenty minutes we ended our call.

I ran back into the living room just in time to see the words "Nine years later" scroll across the bottom of the screen.

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.

You cannot begin to conceive how much drool a despairing middle-aged woman can spray around a room with a good argh over the loss of a large portion of a British costume drama.

The spousal unit rolled his eyes at my technological ineptitude, at my complete inability to grasp The Magic That Is The Satellite Dish. "We can watch it again. It's playing in the western time zone shortly."

Which is just what we did.

And true to form, the episode ended with a rain-soaked Victorian maiden who has been ordered by her evil stepmother to make a loveless marriage.

I LOVE THIS STUFF. I COULD EAT IT WITH A SPOON.

Oh man, I can hardly wait for tonight's installment.

--Marn