BuzzFeed: "Downton Abbey Season 5 Begins With A Jolt"

Julian Fellowes’ costume drama begins its fifth year with a slew of domestic intrigues in place, as well as some new tensions. WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey Season 5 Begins With A Jolt," in which I review the fifth season premiere of Downton Abbey, which launches on ITV in the U.K. (Sorry, U.S. readers!)

Period drama Downton Abbey had begun to show signs of wear and tear, particularly in its fourth season, where the creakiness of the subplots began to match that of the house’s ancient stairs.

It was, simply put, not the best year for the drama, which had come off the narrative highs of its third season, including the highly emotional deaths of two linchpin characters, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay). But, in its fourth, Downton sagged into overt melodrama with storylines involving murder, blackmail, and the shocking and highly controversial rape of Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt). For a series that once had such great promise and potential, it felt like the life had been sucked out of the show somewhat as it was forced to restructure in light of those two high-profile departures.

Resurrecting my crackpot theory that odd-numbered seasons of Downton Abbey are far superior to their even-numbered counterparts (I’m looking at you, Season 2!), the fifth season opener of Julian Fellowes’ period drama — which airs Sept. 21 on ITV in the U.K. and Jan. 4, 2015, on PBS’s Masterpiece in the U.S. — offers a reinvigorated Downton, one full of downstairs intrigues and domestic drama. The first episode back is a bit of a whirling dervish: There are so many subplots that it’s almost impossible to account for all of them.

But rather than feel overwhelming, there’s a particularly pleasing rhythm to all of this narrative dance work, with scenes that are short on time but long on significance. Long-simmering plots come to the boil. The ongoing love triangle between Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), Lord Gillingham (Tom Cullen), and Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden) twists in a most unexpected direction, at least by the standards of the time. (It’s 1924, after all.) The relationship between James (Ed Speleers) and Lady Anstruther (a particularly aptly cast Anna Chancellor) is explored with clarity, humor, and a potential resolution. Isobel (Penelope Wilton) and Violet (Maggie Smith) are once again at odds — their temporary cease-fire marred by a new twist in their rivalry, this time over Isobel’s romantic prospects.

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BuzzFeed: "18 Gasp-Worthy Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 5 From The Cast"

Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech, Laura Carmichael, and Joanne Froggatt share details about the new season with BuzzFeed. Warning: SPOILERS ahead if you haven’t finished Season 4.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "18 Gasp-Worthy Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 5 From The Cast," in which I interview the cast of Downton Abbey about what's coming up on the fifth season of the British costume drama.

1. Reinvention is very big this season.

Judging from how often word “reinvention” itself came up among the cast members.
“There’s big social change in this season,” Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, told BuzzFeed. “You can tell by the clothes, it’s very, very modern. And Mary really embraces those changes. Reinvention is a good word.”

That spirit of renewal is perhaps nowhere more apparent than within the character of Lady Mary herself. “It’s the new Mary,” she said. “Because she’s through the grief now and she’s moving on with her life and embracing a social life again, and exploring things romantically and also taking on more responsibility with the estate. She’s really kind of growing up and growing into a different person this time.”

2. But that doesn’t mean Lady Mary will be choosing a new husband any time soon.

Yes, that means that the love triangle is still in full force and both Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden) and Anthony Gillingham (Tom Cullen) are back in Season 5. “They are on the scene,” Dockery said. “Mary doesn’t settle with anyone any time soon; she was never going to. That’s important, not just for the story, but for the audience, because Matthew [Dan Stevens] was such a well-loved character, and Dan, of course, so you can’t really have Mary marry someone immediately. She’s just feeling her way through things, really. She’s still being very impulsive. I love that about her, that she doesn’t always think things through. She’ll make a decision and she goes with it, and then often, she’ll regret it afterwards or think, in hindsight, she could have dealt with it better. I love that about her. It’s a very human quality.”


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BuzzFeed: "Veronica Mars and 8 Other TV Shows You Can Only Stream On Amazon Prime"

Looking to get caught up on Veronica Mars before the movie comes out on March 14? Turns out, the only place you can do so now is on Amazon Prime Instant.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "9 TV Shows You Can Only Stream On Amazon Prime," in which I run nine shows that you can only watch on Amazon Prime.

1. Veronica Mars

A long time ago, we used to be friends… and you used to be able to stream Veronica Mars on Netflix. But those days are long gone and on Jan. 9, Amazon Prime Instant announced that it had secured exclusive streaming rights to all three seasons of the UPN/CW sleuth series. And what perfect timing to get caught up (or refresh yourself) on all of the intrigues in Neptune: The feature film sequel opens on March 14, marshmallows.

2. Downton Abbey

Episodes of Julian Fellowes’ well-heeled period drama — which airs Stateside on PBS’ Masterpiece Classic and centers on the Crawley clan and their servants — can only be seen on Amazon Prime Instant these days. Downton’s first three seasons are available for streaming on the platform, while the series’ fourth just premiered earlier this week on PBS.

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BuzzFeed: "Season 4 Of Downton Abbey Is A Bit Of A Downer"

Has the bloom gone off this English rose? Warning: Minor spoilers ahead!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Season 4 Of Downton Abbey Is A Bit Of A Downer," in which I review the fourth season of Downton Abbey.

After the shocking events of last season’s bloody finale — in which heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) was unceremoniously killed off — Season 4 of Downton Abbey, which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece on Sunday, Jan. 5, sees an awful lot of restructuring in the wake of not one but two major character deaths. Yes, there are plots aplenty for both upstairs and downstairs as the series is now firmly entrenched in the changing times of the 1920s, when estates like Downton were in even greater jeopardy. When the series returns, the relics of privilege and luxury teeter unsteadily on a knife’s edge as the world advances without them. (There is an electric whisk in the kitchen!)

Season 4 of Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey picks up six months after Matthew’s death and finds a family deep within the throes of mourning: Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is a ghostly presence in the household, a black-clad widow staring out the window with unspeakable loss weighing on her slight shoulders. And the rest of the Crawleys are concerned about her, plagued by the question of whether to shield her from further hurt or bring her back to the world once more. While Mary and her also widowed brother-in-law, Fenian chauffeur-turned-Crawley hanger-on Tom Branson (Allen Leech) are thrown together in grief, their storyline oddly splinters after a few episodes. While I’m glad to see that the two aren’t forced into a ghastly romantic subplot together, as some fans may have hoped, there’s something strange about the way their familial plot fizzles out.

This is true largely of Season 4 as well. Numerous plots are either resolved far too quickly or not at all, and slight mysteries are left dangling endlessly into Season 5.

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BuzzFeed: "Sherlock Is Back From The Dead And Better Than Ever"

The hotly anticipated British mystery drama returns with the revelation of just how Sherlock Holmes faked his death two years ago. Warning: Minor spoilers ahead!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Sherlock Is Back From The Dead And Better Than Ever," in which I review the spectacular third season opener of Sherlock ("The Empty Hearse"), which airs Jan. 1 in the U.K. and on Jan. 19 on PBS' Masterpiece.

Just how did Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) fake his own death?

When Sherlock picks up — two years after the action of the 2012 Season 2 finale, “The Reichenbach Fall” — the facts surrounding how the master sleuth pulled off the seemingly impossible are kept firmly under wraps for much of the ingenious 90-minute season opener, “The Empty Hearse” (which airs Jan. 1 on BBC One in the U.K. and on Jan. 19 on PBS’s Masterpiece).

This is not to say that viewers are denied a revelatory sequence in which the truth about just how Sherlock faked his own death is laid out. The taut sequence that reveals how he achieved such a feat is both simple, yet cunningly complex (not to mention quite spectacular), though I won’t spoil the outcome for anything on this Earth. However, the episode’s writer Mark Gatiss (who once again pulls double duty as Sherlock’s glacially cold brother Mycroft) rather smartly withholds the reveal until “The Empty Hearse” is almost concluded, creating an ongoing mystery that continues to swirl around the minds of both the viewers and several characters within Sherlock itself.

And throughout “The Empty Hearse,” those characters fantasize about just how Sherlock may have pulled off the stunt of faking his death, though the fantasies they depict often say more about the characters themselves than they do about the great detective. Forensic tech Anderson (Jonathan Aris) sees Sherlock as a swashbuckling daredevil, crashing through windows and planting kisses on co-conspirator Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey), a fantasy that sets up Holmes as someone inherently larger than life. (Which makes sense given the obsessive Carrie Mathison-style wall of clues he’s created in his flat.) Another character sees the entire exploit as a romantic bluff by Sherlock and Moriarty (Andrew Scott), a fantasy that plays to a very particular subset of Sherlock slash fiction.

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BuzzFeed: "25 Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 4"

The cast and crew spill some details about what’s coming for the Crawleys and their servants. Julian Fellowes’ British period drama returns to ITV in September in the U.K. and to PBS’ Masterpiece on Jan. 5 in the U.S. Warning: minor spoilers ahead!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "25 Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 4," in which I sit down with executive producer Gareth Neame and cast members Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Phyllis Logan, and Joanne Froggatt to glean some details about what's going on in Season 4 of Downton Abbey.

When Downton Abbey returns with its fourth season, it’s February 1922 and six months will have passed since the death of heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) — who perished after driving off the road shortly after the birth of his son, George — and the Crawley household is still in a state of mourning. But, fortunately, the mourning period won’t last all season, for life must go on for Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and the other members of her well-heeled aristocratic clan.
“Series 4 brings in humor, drama, grief, romance, backbiting between characters, and underhand happenings,” series star Joanne Froggatt — who plays lady’s maid Anna Bates — told BuzzFeed. “It’s got everything in there.”

Season 4 will also have to reassure the audience after the shocking deaths of not one, but two beloved characters, which came on the heels of the horrors of World War I and the Spanish flu in the second season. The show’s executive producer Gareth Neame said Season 4 contained the “spirit of rebirth,” both for the Crawleys and for the Julian Fellowes-created British period drama itself. “Clearly, there’s a change of direction,” said Neame, speaking to BuzzFeed earlier this week. “In Mary’s life particularly, because she is so much a central figure in the show and Mary and Matthew were so central. When we rejoin the show, several months have passed, just as several months have passed in real life for the audience.”

So what lies ahead in the fourth season of Downton Abbey? BuzzFeed spoke with Neame as well as cast members Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Joanne Froggatt, and Phyllis Logan to glean some secrets about what will happen in the halls of Downton.

1. When Season 4 begins, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is in a fragile state.

“Since Matthew’s death, Mary is really in such a living death at this point,” Neame told BuzzFeed. “She has completely given up on life and one of the central thrusts of the new season is really the rebirth of Mary and the way that her family and all the staff encourage her to turn back to life and find a new reason to carry on… As a beautiful, highly eligible young widow and mother of a baby son, there is a huge amount of potential of new stories for her.”

It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by many cast members as well. “At the start of Series 4, Mary is in a place of trapped grief,” Froggatt said. “She can’t bring herself back into the present. She’s just very closed off in her own pain. And so Anna is walking a bit of a tightrope with Mary to start off, because she sees that but, for the sake of her son George, she needs to come back into the present and start interacting with her child and not closing herself off from the world. She has to start to move forward in a way. It’s very difficult for Anna because she can only really hint at that to Lady Mary; she’s still within the constraints of being her servant and not allowed to overstep the mark.”

Dockery herself sees Matthew’s death as regressing Mary in many ways. “She’s reverted to that very cold exterior that she had in Series 1 and she says at one point that she’s not sure who she’s most in mourning for: Matthew, or the person that she was when she was with him,” Dockery told BuzzFeed. “That saddens her even more because she’s lost who she was; he brought out that sensitive, vulnerable side to her, the much more caring and loving side, and now it’s shattered. She had everything at the end of Series 3: she finally got her man, she gave birth to a son, perfectly wrapped up the legacy of the Granthams, and then she didn’t even realize that… her life had been turned upside down.”

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The Daily Beast: "Oxford's No. 1 Sleuth: Inspector Lewis's Kevin Whately on Morse, John Thaw, and the End of the Series"

Kevin Whately has been playing gruff, sensible detective Robbie Lewis on Morse and Lewis for 26 years. I speak to him about the possible end of the Oxford copper.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Oxford's No. 1 Sleuth: Inspector Lewis's Kevin Whately on Morse, John Thaw, and the End of the Series," in which I speak with Kevin Whately, star of Inspector Morse and Lewis (which returns to PBS' Masterpiece Mystery on Sunday) about playing Robbie Lewis for 26 years, whether this is the end for the Oxford-set drama, and what's next.

Inspector Lewis is due for a vacation.

After more than 20 years playing Detective Inspector Robert “Robbie” Lewis, actor Kevin Whately has earned a well-deserved break from investigating murders beneath the Oxford spires. Introduced in Inspector Morse’s first episode (“The Dead of Jericho”), Whately’s Robbie Lewis was the Geordie sidekick of the late John Thaw’s erudite and perpetually cranky Inspector Morse before becoming the lead of his own spinoff, Lewis.

While Whately has a slew of roles on his résumé—he also starred in British drama Peak Practice and comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, as well as countless other projects, including The English Patient—Robbie Lewis is the role still most closely associated with the 62-year-old actor. He has played the gruff detective from 1987 to 2000 on Morse and from 2006 to the present on Inspector Lewis.

The much loved show returns for its sixth (or seventh, if you’re going by the ITV ordering), and possibly final, season on PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery on Sunday, a season that finds Lewis and his partner, Cambridge-educated Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), grappling with change, uncertainty, and possibly even a happy ending of sorts.

The Daily Beast caught up with Whately earlier this month during his protracted hiatus from Inspector Lewis to discuss the challenges of playing a role for more than two decades, the romance between Robbie Lewis and medical examiner Laura Hobson (Clare Holman), why he tried to turn down Lewis, and what’s next for the Oxford sleuth.

You've been extremely outspoken about your need for a potential hiatus from the series. What are the challenges of playing Robbie Lewis for 26 years?

Kevin Whately: Every now and then, you suddenly realize you've asked the same question probably 50 times before: “Where were you last night?” We have wonderful writers, but you can't think of a different way to do it, or a different corner to come out of, and you do need a break. I've just recently worked out that I haven't had a summer off for 31 years, which is half my life. So I want a year off for real. And it happened to coincide with Laurence [Fox] saying he wanted to come over and do pilot season over here, but he's actually doing a lot of fathering instead.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Season 4 Sets PBS Return Date"

PBS sets a January return date for the fourth season of Downton Abbey, and announces the return of Call the Midwife and the launch of dramedy Last Tango in Halifax.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey Season 4 Sets PBS Return Date," in which Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton talks about the return of Downton Abbey, which has (finally) set a U.S. return date in January 2014.

American fans of the Crawley clan can finally mark their calendars: Season 4 of Downton Abbey will kick off on PBS' Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, January 5, 2014.

Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton announced the official U.S. airdate for Season 4 of the award-winning period drama Tuesday at the PBS Annual Meeting. Downton's fourth season will run for eight weeks, from January 5 to February 23, 2014, roughly the time timeframe as its third season, which aired in the U.S. earlier this year. (In the U.K., Season 4 will air this autumn on ITV.)

"Masterpiece fans will not be disappointed: Julian [Fellowes] has done another brilliant job," Eaton wrote in an email to The Daily Beast, "this time, portraying the Downton family moving on from the tragedies of last season."

Those tragedies include the death of heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and youngest daughter Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay). The duo—along with Siobhan Finneran (who played devious maid Miss O'Brien)—will not be returning for a fourth installment of the Julian Fellowes-created Downton Abbey, the highest-rated drama in PBS history. A stunning 24 million total viewers tuned into Season 3 of Downton Abbey, and finale on February 17, 2012 was the top-rated show on television for the evening, beating all primetime broadcast and cable programming.

Season 4 of Downton Abbey will feature Shirley MacLaine reprising her role as Martha Levinson, along with several new actors joining the cast: Tom Cullen, Nigel Harman, Dame Harriet Walter, Joanna David, Julian Ovendon, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and Gary Carr, to name a few.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Breaks Records"

Season 3 of beloved British costume drama Downton Abbey has broken a number of ratings records, becoming the highest-rated PBS drama of all time, according to PBS. Plus, Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton reacts to the day-and-date broadcast issue.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey Breaks Records," in which I talk to Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton about the same-day broadcast issue and whether the show will be affected by the departure of Dan Stevens.

24 million viewers tuned in to watch the third season of Downton Abbey.

Just think about that for a second: 24 million viewers. In an age of increasingly fragmented television viewing, those numbers are even more staggering when you compare those figures next to say, a recent episode of NBC's Smash, which garnered roughly a tenth of that audience. Those numbers are huge for broadcast and cable, but considering that they're associated with a costume drama airing on a public broadcaster, even the Dowager Countess might choke on her tea upon seeing them.

In fact, Season 3 of Downton Abbey, which wrapped up its run last month, broke all records among households, according to finalized national ratings obtained from PBS, making Downton the highest-rated PBS drama of all time.

The third season of the British costume drama—which airs Stateside as part of Masterpiece Classic—had a season average rating of 7.7 and an average audience of 11.5 million across the seven week run. Compared to the second season, those ratings are up a stunning 64 and 65 percent respectively. Even more shocking: the overall cumulative ratings for Season 3 of Downton Abbey—that 24 million figure—show an increase of 7 million viewers from the sophomore season.

In fact, the controversial third season finale of Downton, which aired on February 17, was the highest-rated show on any network that night, posting a 8.1 national rating and an average audience of 12.3 million, numbers that placed it well above any other show on broadcast or cable that evening.

Online streams of the show share a similar story: On the PBS Video Portal and PBS mobile apps, Downton Abbey video content was viewed 13.9 million times since January 1, with full Season 3 episodes comprising the lion's share at 9.7 million views, an increase of 2.1 million streams from Season 2.

"We are so pleased with the loyalty and support U.S. audiences have shown Downton Abbey throughout this season," said Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton in a statement. "We look forward to more great drama and new challenges for the Crawley family in Season 4."

Reached via email for a comment, Eaton said that the success of Downton Abbey couldn't be reduced down to just one element. "I wouldn't pin this kind of success on just one thing,” she wrote in an email to The Daily Beast on Monday. “It is a combination of word of mouth, great reviews and massive press coverage, social media chatter, and award recognition. This is an audience that we've been building up over the last three seasons."

Still, said Eaton, no one at PBS or Masterpiece could have predicted that the show would become the highest rated PBS drama of all time: "No. None of us did. A good solid hit was in our sights, but one for the record books? No. Lucky us!"


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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Crashes" (Or My Thoughts on the Controversial Season Finale)

My take on the frustrating finale of Downton Abbey, which ended its spectacular third season with heartbreak. WARNING: Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen Sunday’s episode.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey: Why Last Night’s Season Finale Has Fans Seeing Red," in which I offer my thoughts about the controversial Season 3 finale, which aired last night on PBS's Masterpiece Classic.

He had to die.

There was no other way for Dan Steven’s Matthew Crawley to leave Downton Abbey other than in a body bag. As the heir to the grand estate and the title, it would have been impossible for sensible, responsible Matthew to shirk his responsibilities and head to America to start a career on the New York stage, or—to borrow from Monarch of the Glen, a Scottish Highlands-set drama that featured Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes as part of its cast—to go climb a mountain somewhere.

No, Matthew Crawley was not only wedded to Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) but to the great house itself, and there was no getting around the fact that, in order to accommodate actor Dan Steven’s desire to leave the show, Matthew had to be killed off in some fashion.

It’s the means in which Matthew was unceremoniously dispatched that I take some umbrage with, however. I raised this point in a vague fashion in my advance review of Season 3 of Downton Abbey back in January, giving the season a glowing recommendation while criticizing the heavy-handed finale.

After a season that was particularly top-heavy with death—the gutting demise of beloved Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay)—and disappointment, Matthew’s death threatens to topple the entire show with its melodramatic weight. And, let’s be honest, the minute that Lady Mary gave birth to a son, ensuring the continuation of the dynasty and a rightful succession (lest we be plunged right back into another entail drama like Season 1), Matthew was a goner. He had served his purpose, ensuring that the Crawley line would continue and that Downton Abbey—which he had absolutely and completely saved by dragging it and Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) into the 20th century—would not only remain in the family, but also turn a profit.

Matthew was, in essence, a stud bull. His only purpose was to father a son. With that act completed and Downton saved, what was Matthew’s future importance within the narrative? Other than potential squabbles with Mary—serving again to prove how headstrong she is—where would the drama have come from? His plots were tied up way too neatly for him to survive, in other words.

The rabid fans of Downton Abbey wouldn’t accept another actor playing the dashing and modern Matthew, nor would they have accepted a flimsy excuse for why Matthew had decamped to other climes. But what I found frustrating was how Fellowes orchestrated his demise, having Matthew run off the road by an errant milk truck after joyfully greeting his baby boy for the first time. It was maudlin and too predictable, especially compared to the way in which Sybil had just been sent out of the world a few episodes earlier. Sybil’s death rocked both the audience and the show itself, a brutal reminder of how far medicine and childbirth have come in the last 100 years and also how wealth and privilege don’t always insulate families from loss and harm.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Season 3: Julian Fellowes, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, and More"

UPDATED: I talk to Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame and nine cast members (including Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Thomas, Rob James-Collier, and many more) about Season 3 of Downton, which returns to PBS and Masterpiece on Sunday, January 6.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read the updated feature, "Downton Abbey Season 3: Julian Fellowes, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, and More," in which we talk broadly about Season 3 and break down some of the specific arcs from the third season, character by character. (Minor spoilers.)

Downton Abbey viewers are anxiously awaiting Season 3 of the addictive British costume drama—which arrives on Jan. 6 in the U.S., when it returns to PBS’s Masterpiece—searching for televised methadone to tide them over until Downton Abbey’s third season kicks off.

One problem: there isn’t really another show like Downton Abbey on television. Between the exquisite costumes and lavish sets (including real-life Highclere Castle), the now-familiar characters and turbulent plots, Downton Abbey has captured the imagination of a broad range of viewers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Season 3 of Downton Abbey will unfold over roughly two years, but unlike in previous years, Season 3 won’t be structured around historical events like the sinking of the Titanic, the start of World War I, or the Armistice.

“It’s not bookended in that way,” creator Julian Fellowes told The Daily Beast. “One of the reasons for starting with the Titanic is that it’s a piece of shorthand. If you start something with the Titanic going down, everyone in the world knows we’re just before the First World War. It’s symbolic, and you don’t have to waste any scenes on exactly where you are in history. But we don’t need that anymore. It’s really about the personal journeys, in a way, of the characters.”

Those journeys will reflect how the war changed the residents of Downton Abbey, both upstairs and below stairs, in palpable ways, picking up the action shortly after Matthew (Dan Stevens) proposed to Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).

“We go back about three months later,” Fellowes said. “We’ve lost no time at all. They’re still trying to decide how much of their life will survive, how much will go back to normal, and how much has been changed forever. Within the family, there has been certain change. Sybil is married to an Irish rebel chauffeur and living in Dublin, and that’s never going to go back to the way it was.”

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Season 3 Review: A Return to Form"

Downton Abbey is back, and I review the sensational third season—and the highly controversial finale—of the British period drama, which returns to PBS’s Masterpiece on Sunday. WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead!

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey Season 3 Review: A Return to Form," in which I review the third season of PBS's Downton Abbey ahead of its premiere on Sunday evening.

Downton Abbey is back.

For some, that’s incentive enough to tune in to the award-winning British period drama, which returns to PBS’s Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, Jan. 6, for another season of soapy intrigue with the Crawley clan and their servants. Other viewers, who like me were disappointed with last season, will take more convincing. They should take heart: Season 3 of Downton is a return to form for the show, recapturing the dazzling wit and sweeping romance of the now-classic first season.

I was intensely critical of Season 2 of Downton when it aired last year. The sophomore season lacked the deft plotting and nuance of the first year, to say nothing of the disastrous “Patrick Crawley” subplot or the miraculous recovery of paralyzed heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), who nearly leapt from his wheelchair to dance the foxtrot. Such miscues mired the show in histrionic soapiness, upsetting the delicate balance between domestic drama and social change. Downton, after all, functions best when it focuses on small moments—a missing snuffbox, a snow-swept proposal, a knock on a door—not over-the-top plot twists.

Which isn’t to say that Season 3 lacks surprises. Alternately humorous and heartbreaking, Downton’s stunning third season packs several narrative punches into PBS’s seven-week run. Hopes are dashed, losses mount, and the most bitter change comes uninvited to Downton Abbey. That’s to be expected in a serial like this one, where stasis is the enemy of the narrative. Creator Julian Fellowes appears to be aware that the characters must change and grow, and so must their circumstances.

Indeed, Downton’s central conceit, keenly felt this season, seems to be the collision between the traditional and the modern, between those attempting to remain entrenched in the past—such as Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and his ever-vigilant butler, Carson (Jim Carter)—and those looking toward the future. But change always comes at a price, and calamity has a way of forcing drama, after all.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey: My Tea with Mrs. Patmore"

Sipping a cup of Earl Grey, Downton Abbey’s feisty cook spills on the upcoming third season, a potential romance for her character, posing for German Vogue, and more.

"Downton Abbey: My Tea with Mrs. Patmore," in which I sit down for tea with Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol to discuss Season 3—which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece Classic on January 6—and a potential romance for Mrs. Patmore, posing for Bruce Weber, and the Mrs. Patmore doll.

No, Mrs. Patmore cannot cook. It’s a question that is frequently asked of Lesley Nicol, the 59-year-old actress who plays the uppity cook on PBS’s sumptuous costume drama Downton Abbey.

“There’s a thing in the U.K. called Celebrity MasterChef,” Nicol says, sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea at the London Hotel in West Hollywood. “I’ve been asked several times to go on that. I keep saying, ‘No, you have to be at a certain level before you even think about that, and I’m not there at all. When you look really hard, I’m doing a bit of seasoning, but I make sure I don’t do anything that will look really wrong.”

Over a lengthy afternoon tea service, she tells me a story of a disastrous dinner she cooked for her husband, to whom she has been married six years (“He came to me later on in life,” she says), an attempt to make a prawn risotto that backfired magnificently when she opted to substitute arborio for brown rice.

“This is where being a proper cook is an issue,” she says, laughing. “Before he was around, it was quite understood with my friends that if they came for dinner, they would probably have to finish cooking it because it wouldn’t be ready. I haven’t gotten any better.” Still, she says, “when it’s made with love, it tastes good, doesn’t it? The first meal my husband ever made me was a chicken curry. I have never tasted anything so delicious in my life.”

And Mrs. Patmore, it must be said, loves her job. “She cares very much,” says Nicol, perusing a tower of scones and finger sandwiches. “You don’t ever see the dishes very close up, but they are wild and wacky, some of them, particularly this last season because they’ve had a lady come in to create and design them. What they would taste like, I don’t know, but they look amazing.”

Nicol looks little like her character. On a cloudy Los Angeles afternoon, her hair cascades down to her shoulders, and there is not a single trace of the starched uniform of the stately home’s downstairs brigade, or of the corset she endures for hours at a time.

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The Daily Beast: "Alex Kingston's Journey Through Time"

Alex Kingston reprises her role as River Song in Saturday’s Doctor Who and travels back in time for the new season of Upstairs Downstairs. I talk to the former ER star about River, Downton Abbey, historical lesbians, and more.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Alex Kingston's Journey Through Time," in which I talk to Kingston about Doctor Who and "The Angels Take Manhattan," Upstairs Downstairs (which returns to PBS' Masterpiece on Oct. 7), Downton Abbey, River Song, historical lesbians, and more.

Upstairs Downstairs isn’t typically known for its salaciousness.

The costume drama’s legendary original run—between 1971 and 1975 on ITV—kept the characters’ sexuality more or less off-screen, but the recent BBC revival series, which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece on Oct. 7, has taken a more overt approach to human sexuality than its predecessor, with one character—Claire Foy’s Lady Persephone—painted as a notorious Nazi sympathizer and professional party girl who hops into bed with just about anyone.

Season 2 of Upstairs Downstairs introduces a lesbian to the staid 165 Eaton Place of 1936 in the form of Alex Kingston’s Dr. Blanche Mottershead, an archaeologist and resolutely modern woman whose romantic past is tinged with bittersweet loss. When her former lover, Lady Portia Alresford (Emilia Fox), now married with children, writes a steamy roman a clef about their time together, Kingston’s Blanche is exposed and 165 Eaton Place is once again plunged into scandal.

“She will shake up the equilibrium in the house a little bit,” Kingston told The Daily Beast. “And by the end of the series, she has done just that.”

For Kingston—who starred on medical drama ER for seven years and who reprises her recurring role on Doctor Who this Saturday—it was Blanche’s sexuality that lured her to the project.

“That more than anything hooked me because I thought it would be quite interesting to play,” said Kingston, 49. “In a curious way, it was almost easier for women to be physical with other women then, because men and society didn’t take it seriously ... It was thought of as a little dalliance that didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t exactly a threat to the patriarchy and to the world that men had created ... or as much as a societal threat that it became later, actually.”

The series doesn’t shy away from depicting the romance between the two women, showing them embracing and in bed together, as well as in several sexually charged scenes. (It led the Daily Mail to write, as a headline, “Pass the smelling salts, Hudson! The lesbian bedroom scenes that would NEVER have appeared in the original Upstairs Downstairs.”) Kingston’s Blanche is positioned as a whiskey-drinking free thinker whose career choice—looking at the relics of the past—is juxtaposed with her view toward the future. It’s no accident that she appears in the series just as the world teeters on the brink of World War II.

“The Second World War radically changed how society live, what family meant, and what women’s roles were,” Kingston said. “Blanche is right on the cusp of all of that. She had created a career for herself, as an archaeologist sought out by the British Museum for her expertise ... in comparison to Lady Agnes [Keeley Hawes], who really didn’t know who she was or what her function was, other than looking rather beautiful in the house and producing babies for her husband. Blanche is not prepared to be that woman.”

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The Daily Beast: "Best Drama Race: Will Mad Men Make History?"

The race for the Emmy Awards’ top drama prize is fierce (hello, Downton!).

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Best Drama Race: Will Mad Men Make History?" in which I assess the field to see whether Mad Men will make history with a fifth win.

Can Mad Men could do the impossible on Sunday and win a fifth Emmy Award for Best Drama? After walking away with the statuette four years in a row, all eyes are on AMC’s Emmy darling, which could make history with a five-time win.

Currently, Mad Men shares the record for most Best Drama wins with such notable programs as Hill Street Blues, The West Wing, and L.A. Law, all of which were crowned victors four times. But a win at Sunday’s 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards would make Mad Men the undisputed drama record-holder, no small feat for a show that is about to go into its sixth season—reportedly the show’s penultimate—and whose loyal viewers are considerably dwarfed by HBO’s and Showtime’s entries.

Mad Men’s fifth season found Don Draper (Jon Hamm) rediscovering himself as a newlywed after his surprising proposal to his secretary, Megan (Jessica Paré); Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) facing his mortality; Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) selling herself to become a partner; Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) leaving the firm; and poor Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) taking his own life in the office. Often polarizing, Season 5 of Mad Men was a challenging and gut-wrenching season of transformation for its characters, and a lyrical and haunting experience for many viewers.

It’s Mad Men’s toughest road to the Emmys podium. This year’s competition is fierce; so fierce, it seems, that there isn’t a single broadcast network drama competing for the top prize. (Stalwart CBS drama The Good Wife is the most obvious omission.) Instead, Mad Men’s competitors come almost entirely from cable, with AMC sibling Breaking Bad, HBO’s Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, and Showtime’s Homeland all represented.

And then there’s Downton Abbey, the British costume drama that transformed itself into a phenomenon this year. The Julian Fellowes–created show—which depicts the lives of the wealthy Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era—airs on PBS’s venerable Masterpiece, the 41-year-old anthology series that has suddenly become a mainstream success story thanks to its wise and prescient investment in Downton.

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The Daily Beast: "Inside Downton Abbey Season Three" (SPOILERS)

Desperate for Downton Abbey ahead of its return? You've come to the right place.

"Inside Downton Abbey Season Three," in which I sit down with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, executive producer Gareth Neame, and members of the show’s sprawling cast—including Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Joanne Froggatt, and Brendan Coyle—to discuss what’s coming up on Season 3 (which launches on Sunday in the U.K. and January in the U.S.), including star-crossed romances, financial drama, the arrival of Shirley MacLaine, and much more. (Read Part 1 of this interview, in which Fellowes & Co. discuss the show’s 16 Emmy nominations and Season 2, here.)

Downton Abbey viewers are anxiously awaiting Season 3 of the addictive British costume drama—which arrives on U.K. television on Sunday (although not until Jan. 6 in the U.S., when it returns to PBS’ Masterpiece)—searching for televised methadone to tide them over until Downton Abbey’s third season kicks off.

One problem: there isn’t really another show like Downton Abbey on television. Between the exquisite costumes and lavish sets (including real-life Highclere Castle), the now-familiar characters and turbulent plots, Downton Abbey has captured the imagination of a broad range of viewers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Season 3 of Downton Abbey will unfold over roughly two years, but unlike in previous years, Season 3 won’t be structured around historical events like the sinking of the Titanic, the start of World War I, or the Armistice.

“It’s not bookended in that way,” creator Julian Fellowes told The Daily Beast. “One of the reasons for starting with the Titanic is that it’s a piece of shorthand. If you start something with the Titanic going down, everyone in the world knows we’re just before the First World War. It’s symbolic, and you don’t have to waste any scenes on exactly where you are in history. But we don’t need that anymore. It’s really about the personal journeys, in a way, of the characters.”

Those journeys will reflect how the war changed the residents of Downton Abbey, both upstairs and below stairs, in palpable ways, picking up the action shortly after Matthew (Dan Stevens) proposed to Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).

“We go back about three months later,” Fellowes said. “We’ve lost no time at all. They’re still trying to decide how much of their life will survive, how much will go back to normal, and how much has been changed forever. Within the family, there has been certain change. Sybil is married to an Irish rebel chauffeur and living in Dublin, and that’s never going to go back to the way it was.”

“Cora is, in a way, less afraid of change than Robert,” he continued. “She’s come from a different tradition. Her father was an American self-made businessman. She’s not an American aristocrat, so she has a totally different feeling about all this ... As far as she’s concerned, she doesn’t care if things are going to have to change. You’ve got all those different tensions because the security of the pre-war world has gone.”

According to Hugh Bonneville, the mood has changed in the third season, following both the war and the Spanish flu, both of which claimed the lives of some of the show’s characters.

“It’s still a period of mourning,” Bonneville said. “There’s a sense of Downton re-finding its feet and perhaps trying to keep the focus back on the family and keeping the outside world at bay. They’re trying to re-bond as a family, both upstairs and down.” [MUCH MORE TO COME...]

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The Daily Beast: "Morse Code: PBS' Knife-Sharp Lewis Returns"

Murder among the dreaming spires? I explore the enduring charms of Masterpiece Mystery’s Oxford-set crime drama Inspector Lewis, which returns to PBS for a fifth season on Sunday.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Morse Code: PBS' Knife-Sharp Lewis Returns," in which I take a look at both Inspector Lewis and Endeavour from within the context of the legacy of Morse and their role within what I'm calling an Oxford crime trilogy.

In a television landscape populated by countless iterations of CSI and its ilk—crime dramas where the emphasis is on forensics as crime-solving technology rather than in old school policing—Masterpiece Mystery’s delightful Inspector Lewis may feel like an odd man out. But in the case of Lewis, which returns to PBS on Sunday for a fifth season (or sixth, if you’re going by the U.K.’s numbering system), that’s a good thing indeed.

The show, based on characters created by Colin Dexter, is now itself a long-running spinoff of the long-running mystery drama Inspector Morse, which featured John Thaw as the titular detective—wary of authority and enamored of opera, real English beer, and his Jaguar—who was ceremoniously killed off in 2000. (Thaw himself, who played Morse between 1987 and 2000, died in real life in 2002.) And last Sunday saw the American broadcast of the pilot episode of a new spinoff, Endeavour, which stars Shaun Evans as a young version of Morse, an Oxford dropout who returns to the spired city in 1965 as an inexperienced police constable, where he runs afoul of his commanders in pursuit of the killer of a 15-year-old local girl. (Endeavour has been recommissioned by ITV for four feature-length episodes, but no decision has yet been made by WGBH’s Masterpiece Mystery about its future Stateside.)

Morse’s partner from the original series, Kevin Whately’s Robbie Lewis, was promoted to Detective Inspector and his own show in 2006. Like its predecessor, Lewis revolves around police investigators attempting to solve murders in Oxford, where town and gown sit uncomfortably side by side. In Lewis, the gruff Robbie Lewis—widowed after a hit-and-run driver killed his wife—is joined by the reserved, erudite Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), a Cambridge-educated copper who dropped out of the seminary to pursue police work.

Rather than follow the conventions of the chalk-and-cheese pair of cops who are constantly rubbing each other the wrong way, Lewis and Hathaway have settled into a comfortable amiability. Lewis’ existence—microwaved dinners eaten standing up, an ongoing simmering flirtation with forensic pathologist Dr. Laura Hobson (Clare Holman)—underscores a haunting loneliness, an unwilling return to bachelorhood in the face of loss.

In many respects, Hathaway is more similar to Morse than to Lewis: he’s knowledgeable about the finer things in life—poetry, philosophy, mythology—and the mysteries of religion. In Oxford, where the suspects are often university students or dons, it pays to have a partner who knows a thing or two about Nietzsche or Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. (Yet Hathaway is shifty and awkward around women, an issue that Morse, who frequently engaged in some rather spectacularly inappropriate flirtations with female suspects and witnesses, never had.)

But it’s the Lewis Carroll expertise that plays a role in this Sunday’s episode, “The Soul of Genius,” which revolves around a series of murders related to Carroll’s monolithic nonsense poem, which itself is about the quest to find something inconceivable and unknowable. In Carroll’s poem, the seekers fade away into nothingness once they capture their quarry; in a show that’s essentially a police procedural about the apprehension of murderers, that’s a weighty existential statement about Lewis and Hathaway’s own purpose. The Snark, within both Carroll’s narrative and that of Lewis, becomes itself an emblem of obsession, with multiple characters attempting to find hidden meaning in the cryptic clues embedded within the text.

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The Daily Beast: "Gillian Anderson is Back!"

Gillian Anderson, famous for The X-Files, stuns as Miss Havisham in Sunday’s Great Expecations. She tells me about turning down Downton Abbey, her British accent—and possibly playing Scully again.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Gillian Anderson is Back!" in which I talk to the former star of The X-Files about whether she's open to reprising her role as Dana Scully, playing Miss Havisham, turning down Downton Abbey, her accent, and her new television project, The Fall.

Gillian Anderson is no stranger to strange worlds.

The former star of The X-Files, which became a worldwide hit and spawned two feature films, Anderson has, for now anyway, traded in Dana Scully’s FBI-issued handgun and severe suits for the tight-laced corsets and flowing frocks of such period dramas as Bleak House, The House of Mirth, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, The Crimson Petal and the White, Moby Dick, and Any Human Heart, in which she played a deliciously conniving Wallace Simpson, complete with a false nose. But it’s Anderson’s jaw-dropping turn as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, which airs Sunday evening on PBS’s Masterpiece Classic after a three-night run in December on BBC One, that erases any trace of Scully’s bravado.

An Anderson role in a period piece seems de rigueur these days: she was also very nearly in ITV’s critically acclaimed costume drama Downton Abbey, but turned down an offer to play Lady Cora Crawley, a role that went to fellow American Elizabeth McGovern. “They’re still mad at me,” Anderson told The Daily Beast. “Every time I see [creator] Julian Fellowes, he says, ‘Why?’ I’m very finicky.”

It’s no surprise that after her legendary turn as the emotionally haunted Lady Dedlock in Andrew Davies’s 2005 adaptation of Bleak House, which earned her Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominations, Anderson has a fascination with severe or extreme characters. In Great Expectations, adapted from the Charles Dickens novel by Sarah Phelps and directed by Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones), she stars as the malevolent and tragic Miss Havisham, whose blackened heart leads her to destroy the innocence of young Pip (Douglas Booth) and Estella (Vanessa Kirby), and doom whatever chance of love either has.

There was much grumbling in the British press about Anderson being the youngest actress to play Miss Havisham, who is traditionally portrayed as a skeletal old woman still dressed in the tattered vestiges of her wedding gown, clutching at the last shreds of her youth, while already standing in her grave. (Helena Bonham Carter will play the role in a feature film version of Great Expectations, out later this year.)

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey: How PBS Got Cool" (Again)

At The Daily Beast, my colleague Maria Elena Fernandez and I examine how PBS got cool: the massive success of Downton Abbey has brought PBS an increase in donations, funding for Masterpiece, a boost in ratings for other programs, and an unlikely place in the zeitgeist. (Plus, RuPaul on Downton's appeal.)

You can read my latest feature, entitled "Downton Abbey: How PBS Got Cool," in which Fernandez and I talk to Rebecca Eaton, RuPaul, PBS SoCal, WNET, and PBS executives, and The Soup producer Matthew Carney, among others.

Patton Oswalt obsessively live tweets it from his weekly viewing parties. Katy Perry is using it to distract herself from her marital woes. Roger Ebert has stepped outside the movie realm to praise it in his blog. Saturday Night Live spoofed it. Mob Wives star Big Ang Raiola recited favorite quips for Us Weekly. The Onion equated watching one episode with reading a book. And Wednesday night The Soup will celebrate it with a special parody starring RuPaul and drag queens Raven and Shangela.

Could all of this fuss really be about a PBS show? Quite right. Masterpiece's Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning hit, Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes, a TV ratings success and cultural phenomenon, has catapulted the public-television broadcaster with the stodgy reputation to the cool kids' table.

“We don’t know how to handle that over here,” said Mel Rogers, CEO and president of PBS SoCal, the PBS member station that serves greater Los Angeles. "We got accidentally popular.”

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The Winds of War: An Advance Review of Downton Abbey Season Two

It's no secret that I'm a devotee of lavish British costume drama Downton Abbey, which recently wrapped its second season run on ITV in the U.K. and which finally heads across the pond this weekend, where it will again air as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic skein.

In the last year or so since we last saw the Crawleys, viewers from all walks of life have discovered the irresistible joys of the sublime Downton Abbey, reveling in the spirit of unpredictability and historical detail that Julian Fellowes' creation has in abundance, as well as memorable characters, a winning blend of pathos and humor, plot twists, and star-crossed romances. Not since Upstairs, Downstairs has a period drama seemed quite so tangible and relevant, at once timeless and thoroughly modern at the same time.

Season Two of Downton Abbey is set two years after the end of the first season, as Britain--and Europe as a whole--is enmeshed in the First World War. On the winds of war, change has come to the stately house, and neither master nor servant has emerged unscathed as members of every class must adapt to their circumstances, which become greatly altered as the season wears on. (For more on what specific characters are up to in the second season, you can read this Daily Beast feature that I wrote in August, in which the actors and Fellowes tell me what Matthew, Mary, and the others are up to in Season Two.)

Just as the first season found Downton invaded by technology and new ideas as the Edwardian period came to an end, this condition-of-England story finds the war literally entering the halls of Downton as the house becomes a convalescent hospital for wounded officers and the Crawleys adapt once more to the tumult of transformation. Whether they bend or break under the strain is one of the major subplots of this second season, which revisits several major storylines from the first season--the doomed romance between heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), the possibility of happiness between valet Bates (Brendan Coyle) and housemaid Anna (Joanne Froggatt), the machinations of Thomas (Rob James-Collier) and Miss O'Brien (Siobhan Finneran), the tension between Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) and chauffeur Branson (Allen Leech), and the secret that Mary harbors, to name but a few--while introducing several new characters and new plotlines.

Tonally, this new season is vastly different than the one that came before. While we're given a few moments of domestic mirth that harken back to the early days of the first season, this is most definitely a war epic, with scenes of horror in the trenches of the Somme contrasting sharply with the dining room banter between Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith) and her clan. There's a seriousness and darkness which permeate the second season. Pivotal matters--the whereabouts of a missing snuff box, for example--from the first season now seem woefully trivial in the face of war, death, and a lost generation. Which means that the stakes are now far higher for the Crawleys and their servants in Season Two of Downton Abbey, where the things that go missing are far less replaceable.

I've had the opportunity to see the entire British run of Season Two and the PBS version, which makes some (very) minor cuts in order to fit them into their allotted timeslot and which combines the first and second episodes and the seventh and eighth into two two-hour installments. (There are, as with Season One, no missing episodes, no matter what the British press might insinuate and I don't believe that any of the verbal grenades, tossed off so magnificently by Smith, are eliminated.) There is also the matter of the Christmas Special (so-called because it aired on Christmas Day in the U.K.), which will air here as the final episode of the season. (Fans foolish enough to illegally download the "Christmas Special" will be in for a rude awakening: it's set after the events of Season Two.)

After watching all of Season Two of Downton in the fall, I was lucky enough to watch that gorgeous final episode on Christmas Day, and I can easily say that it's the best installment of the entire season, a gripping and triumphant episode that not only ties together the plot threads of the second go-around but also tantalizingly sets up the direction for the third season and pays off some of the somewhat meandering plots from this one.

Which brings me to some of the issues I had with Season Two. I'll preface this by saying that Downton Abbey is a full head and tails above the rest in every respect, even when it (momentarily) falters, and that I love this show dearly, with an obsessive zeal that means that I'm watching with laser-like intensity. With regard to Season Two, there is a sense of soapy repetitiveness to some of the storylines that can, at times, bring the pacing to a screeching halt. Kitchen maid Daisy (Sophie McShera) gets saddled with a storyline that feels as though she's doing the same verbal two-step for six episodes straight. Likewise, the romance between Bates and Anna--one of the best elements of the first season--feels almost maudlin when every time they express how happy they're about to be, their dreams get dashed on the cobblestones. The effect feels rather like the start-stop-start-stop of a stalling engine, with neither storyline able to get out of neutral and move forward with any sense of momentum.

However, both storylines are serviced better in the finale/Christmas Special than they were throughout Season Two, with that episode providing closure--in both a narrative and emotional sense--to both story arcs. I don't want to spoil any major plots here (the series is far too good to come to it knowing everything that's going to happen), but I will say that the final episode resolves both in a promising and intriguing way that's truthful to the characters and their situations. It also removes the faint whiff of character assassination that's coming off of Robert (Hugh Bonneville) after the last third of episodes. Again, I don't want to give things away but I was puzzled as to why Fellowes would chose to go this route, just as I was unsure as to why the self-righteous Isobel (Penelope Wilton) had been transformed into such a shrill harpie in the second season and the entire point of a potentially historically-accurate but painful fraught episode that revolves around the letter "P," and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael).

Which isn't to say that I disliked the second season, because I certainly didn't, but after the dizzying heights of Downton's precise and perfect first season, the second season does suffer slightly in comparison. However, these are minor quibbles in a season that's also filled with some superlative performances, particularly from Stevens, Dockery, Bonneville, and others. The new characters, including Zoe Boyle's Lavinia Swire and Iain Glenn's Sir Richard Carlisle, fit into Downton Abbey beautifully, providing a new sense of heightened tensions within the drawing rooms and broken hearts of the Crawleys. Both provide the latest obstacles to the potential union between Mary and Matthew that the series has been hinting at since its very first installment and Boyle in particular is to be praised for making Lavinia wholly sympathetic and almost saintly in many ways. Many shows would have gone the route of making Lavinia easy to hate, but Fellowes and Boyle imbue Lavinia with a refreshing innocence and steadfast devotion that makes her quite easy to love.

And that's what we're left with in the face of war: how love unites us and keeps us going, even in the most difficult of times. But it's not always romantic love that keeps the home fires burning; it's also love of one's job and pride in one's work (I'm thinking of Jim Carter's devoted butler Carson here) and familial love, as well as love of a particular place, even when it seems as though things are changing forever. With Season Two of Downton Abbey we're invited to see the resilience of the human spirit and heart amid troubled times. But hope, as they say, springs eternal as well. And within Downton Abbey, the future--or the past--has never looked better.

Season Two of Downton Abbey begins Sunday, January 8 on PBS' Masterpiece Classic at 9 pm ET/PT. Check your local listings for details.