Series Downton Abbey | Masterpiece | Official Site | PBS About the Show 2011 Downton Abbey, the award-winning series from Julian Fellowes, spans 12 years of gripping drama centered on a great English estate on the cusp of a vanishing way of life. Nearly six years ago, America fell in love with Downton Abbey‘s Granthams and their family of servants, and has followed them through sweeping change, scandals, love, ambition, heartbreak, and hope ever since. With Julian Fellowes’ crackling writing and its stellar ensemble cast led by Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey delivers wit, warmth, passion and a phenomenon that is, at its heart, utterly human. Support Provided By: Julian Fellowes On The Rules Of 'Downton' : NPR Julian Fellowes On The Rules Of 'Downton' Embed Embed Embed Embed Jim Carter as Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey. WGBH/PBS hide caption toggle caption Jim Carter as Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey.

WGBH/PBS Julian Fellowes may be the Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, but the English screenwriter, director and novelist says his background "was much more ordinary than the newspapers have made it." What he means is that he did not grow up with servants waiting on him hand and foot, as people have seen done for the Crawley family on Downton Abbey, the hit television series Fellowes created. More On 'Downton Abbey' 'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS The series details the lives of the Crawleys and the people who serve them in an upstairs-downstairs examination of social class in the first half of the 20th century. The world the Crawleys have always known is fast becoming anachronistic. By the time Fellowes, who also wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman's 2001 film Gosford Park, was growing up as a boy in the '50s, the bulk of the social upheaval dramatized in the series had already happened. This is one of the reasons he says his title does not necessarily indicate the grandness of his lifestyle.

That said, much of what he knows of that life he learned from relatives who both lived it and lived through the world events that changed it. His oldest great aunt, for example, is the model for Violet Grantham, played by Maggie Smith. "[My aunt] was born in 1880, you know," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies, "and she was presented in 1898 and married before the first war and all of that, and I knew her perfectly well. She only died when I was 21, so I was able to hear a lot of this stuff firsthand." It's the juxtaposition of the lives of the aristocratic family against the lives of the servants that defines Fellowes' work. Class is a defining and longstanding fascination for him. It began, he says, with his mother and father. Article continues after sponsorship "My parents came from different backgrounds," he tells Davies. "My father's was grander than my mother's, so my mother had ... to put up with the disapproval of my father's relations. And ... I saw it as a child when I didn't really understand what was going on, and I saw it later as an adult when I did. ...

From that grew a kind of interest, in a way, of the unfairness of class, the fact that it is so arbitrary in its selection ... and yet it shapes a life and creates entitlement." Interview Highlights On rules "We don't really like rules. We think, in some way, they are an infringement of liberty. But of course the good thing about rules is that you always know what you're doing, you always know what you should wear, you always know where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to get there, what you're supposed to do when you do get there, and, you know, we've lost that kind of security." On working with Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey "What I love about Maggie is that she has this extraordinary skill to bring many different aspects of a character into her delineation, but they never seem contradictory. She never turns into a different person. A lesser actor would, you know, find it difficult to be kind and cruel simultaneously, or superficial here but quite deep here.

But she manages to synthesize all these elements into a believable woman and, of course, she's very, very funny, so whatever you write for her always sounds much funnier than it was when you thought of it and, you know, all of those reasons make her very rewarding to write for." On writing Gosford Park for director Robert Altman Related NPR Stories 'Gosford Park' Writer Turns to 'Snobs' Feb. 16, 2005 "I went out and got every single Altman film I could find and gave myself a kind of weeklong Altman fest, and I understood his style and, quite deliberately, I wrote the film so that he would recognize it as one of his own films, despite the fact that the subject matter — you know, the English, the upper class, whatever you call them, and the servants and so on — was not his natural terrain.

Nevertheless, the style of the film, the way it was constructed, the multiplot thing, interlocking one scene which promotes maybe three or four stories and so on, that was all designed so that he would feel at home in this script." On the first time he became aware of the upstairs-downstairs dynamic "I remember one time when I was quite young ... I was staying in a house and I got lost and I went through the wrong door, and I was standing at the top of the staircase that led down into the kitchens and everything. And there was a tremendous row going on between what sounded like four or five, six people shouting. ... And I suddenly had such a powerful sense of the lives that were being lived by the people who worked there. Not, you know, only the family who lived there, but people who worked there were also, you know, enjoying life or hating each other or loving each other or whatever." DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross.

The masterpiece series "Downton Abbey" began its fourth season Sunday, and even if you haven't caught the "Downton Abbey" bug, we think you'll find its creator and writer Julian Fellowes an insightful observer of social class in 20th-century England. Fellowes grew up the son of a diplomat, with an aristocratic background, and he has a title himself, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford. Fellowes is an actor as well as a writer, and much of his writing has dealt with class distinctions and how they affect human relationships. His screenplay for the 2001Robert Altman film "Gosford Park" won an Oscar. "Downton Abbey," which has won a host of awards, focuses on an aristocratic English family and their servants in the early 20th century, when sweeping changes were breaking down old social barriers. Season 3 ended with the unexpected death of Lady Mary's husband Matthew Crawley in an auto accident. Season 4 began with the surprise departure of the scheming ladies' maid O'Brien, who left Downton to work with another family. I spoke with Julian Fellowes last January, before the start of Season 3.

Julian Fellowes, Lord Fellowes, welcome to FRESH AIR. JULIAN FELLOWES: Well, it's very nice to be here. DAVIES: I wanted to play a clip from Season 1. This is a moment at a table in the kitchen downstairs, where the servants are all having tea. And we hear - one of them is O'Brien, who's played by Siobhan Finneran, disparaging Matthew Crawley, he's a cousin of the master of the house, who's arrived on the scene and may inherit Downton, the whole place. We'll hear a shuffling of furniture as the servants spring to their feet because Lady Grantham, who's played by Elizabeth McGovern, has suddenly showed up in the kitchen and has overheard Ms. O'Brien, her own ladies maid, talking down Matthew Crawley. She rebukes Ms. O'Brien, and this leads to an interesting exchange after that among the servants. Let's listen. (SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISION PROGRAM, "DOWNTON ABBEY") (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SIOBHAN FINNERAN: (As Sarah O'Brien) I'm sorry, but I have standards.

And if anyone thinks I'm going to pull my forelock and curtsy to this Mr. Nobody from Nowhere. ELIZABETH MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham) O'Brien. Were you discussing Mr. Crawley? FINNERAN: (As Sarah) Yes, my lady. MCGOVERN: (As Lady Grantham) Is it your place to do so? FINNERAN: (As Sarah) I've got my opinions, my lady, same as anybody. PHYLLIS LOGAN: (As Ms. Hughes) Can I help your ladyship? MCGOVERN: (As Lady Grantham) This is the button went missing from my new evening coat. I found it lying in the gravel. But I was shocked at the talk I heard as I came in. Mr. Crawley is his lordship's cousin and heir. You will, therefore please, accord him the respect he's entitled to. FINNERAN: (As Sarah) But you don't like him yourself, my lady. You never wanted him to come...

MCGOVERN: (As Lady Grantham) You're sailing perilous close to the wind, O'Brien. If we're to be friends, you will not speak in that way again about the Crawleys or any member of Lord Grantham's family. Now I'm going up to rest. Wake me at the dressing gong. ROB JAMES-COLLIER: (As character) I don't think that's fair, not here in the servant's hole. FINNERAN: (As Sarah) I agree. If she was a real lady, she wouldn't have come down here. She'd have rung for me and given me the button, that's all. JAMES-COLLIER(As Thomas) This isn't their territory. We can say what we like down here. LOGAN: (As Ms. Hughes) Who says? JAMES-COLLIER(As Thomas) The law, and parliament. There is such a thing as free speech. LOGAN: (As Ms. Hughes) Not when I'm in charge. Don't push your luck, Thomas(ph). DAVIES: And that's from the series "Downton Abbey," created and written by our guest Julian Fellowes.

It's such a lovely scene, and what we hear here is the class lines are clear, the roles and clear, and yet they're changing. The series begins, what, in 1912. This was a particular moment in class relations in Britain, isn't it? FELLOWES: Well, I think it was attractive to us because it was a period of tremendous change in quite a short time. You know, between 1912, when they - we begin the first show and 1922, where we are at the end of Season 3, is only 10 years, and yet the changes in Britain were enormous between the sort of end of high imperial confidence and so on and then through the war years and finally into the uncertainty of the '20s when all sorts of things were being challenged. And, you know, these great revolutions of women's rights or workers' rights or whatever it is, they don't come out of nowhere. They are there early, and they're just below the surface, and then something like a war happens, and it makes everything come through. But, you know, you don't invent from nothing.

It hasn't quite come yet, but it's sort of fizzing away somewhere. And that's what a scene like that will tell you, that they're nearly at the end of always being second banana, and, you know, they can express that. DAVIES: Right, and then some among them say not so fast, remember your place. FELLOWES: Well, I mean, one of the interesting things about this kind of drama is that, you know, the family upstairs are, on the whole, all equal. They're certainly equal in terms of class and position, but, you know, they might accord respect to the father or something like that. But they're not at all different socially. That's not true of the people below the stairs who are working there. There is a vast social range between Carson the butler and Daisy the kitchen maid, and all of these ranks were sort of observed, you know, and you had these - I mean we can't do them all because heaven knows we have enough characters in locations as it is. But in a real house, you would have a special sitting room for the visiting valets and a special sitting room for visiting ladies' maids and so on.

On and on it went, the detail of this extraordinarily complicate structure. But, you know, that said, it was on the brink of starting to come down. DAVIES: One of the things that I love about the series is that as a viewer, I gradually become aware of the distinctions among the servants, and others, by the forms of address. You know, the aristocrats are referred to lord and lady or your lordship or your ladyship. The servants, even those of highest rank, are referred to by their last names only by the aristocrats, even when speaking affectionately. I mean, when - there's a moment when Lady Grantham is talking to Mrs. O'Brien, and she's - they're having a nice, intimate conversation, but she still calls her O'Brien. And then among the servants, some are called Mr. and Mrs., those of lower rank like the kitchen maid Daisy only by their first names. There were a clear set of rules and forms of address here, huh? FELLOWES: Well, I mean, we live in an era where there are sort of no rules for anything anymore. But of course the good thing about rules is you always know what you're doing.

You always know what you should wear. You always know where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to get there, what you're supposed to do when you do get there. You know, we've lost that kind of security. I think that that is one reason why, you know, the show appeals because it seems to show a more ordered and kind of ordained world. In fact, of course, that is largely a myth. It was a world where all sorts of, as I've said, things were bubbling just beneath the surface. But nevertheless in terms of your daily life, what you wore when you got up, what you called people, what you did next, I think it was sort of easier to follow the plot than in our own time. DAVIES: You know, a lot of your writing, both for television and film and your novel, involve distinctions of social class. Now you grew up the son of a diplomat with an aristocratic heritage, I believe. Did you have servants growing up? FELLOWES: No, I mean, I think my background was much more ordinary than the newspapers have made it.

I mean, you know, we had people who came in and did some cleaning, but I mean, who - plenty of other people have that. I think in a way why I became quite aware of class as a kind of life-defining issue was because my parents came from different backgrounds. My father's was grander than my mother's. And so my mother had to sort of put up with the disapproval of my father's relations, and I suppose from that grew a kind of interest in, in a way, the unfairness of class, the fact that it is so arbitrary in its selection and, you know, so nothing to do with merit, and yet it shapes a life and creates entitlement and all sorts of other factors that, you know, have a long-term effect on us. DAVIES: One of the things that makes "Downton" great and "Gosford Park," which is a movie I really love, is the intimate look at the servants, the life downstairs. Where did you become so acquainted with their lives and customs and rules? (LAUGHTER) FELLOWES: You know, I was lucky in one way. I mean, I was - I'm now kind of 150 years old.

And so when I was young, I still had great-aunts and that kind of thing who had lived, to a degree, that life before the First World War. I mean, my eldest great-aunt, who is really the model for Violet Grantham, was born in 1880, you know, and she was presented in 1898 and married before the first war and all of that. And I knew her perfectly well. She only died when I was 21. So I was able to hear a lot of this stuff firsthand. Where I was tremendously lucky is I was interested when I was young. One of the problems, you know, when you don't get interested in things until you're much older is a lot of people are dead. And because I was interested as a teenager, there were still many members of the family who could talk about what life had been before the first and second wars, you know, and I was very glad to hear it. DAVIES: Julian Fellowes is the creator and writer of "Downton Abbey." More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're listening to my interview with "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes. We spoke last January. The Maggie Smith character in "Downton Abbey" is just such a delight. Tell us who she is, how she fits into the family. FELLOWES: Well, she really, as I've said, she's really based on my eldest great-aunt, who was quite a tough character, but she was no tougher on anyone else than she was on herself. In fact in real life she had quite a tragic life. Her husband died of wounds at the end of the First World War, and her only child drowned on active service in the second. So she had a lot to bear, poor thing. But she was tough and funny, and some of the phrases that - you know, what's a weekend and stuff like that, come from her. I remember in "Gosford Park" one question Maggie asked me, she said: I don't understand about the marmalade.

And I said, well, that was this particular aunt - because Lady Trentham in Gosford was also sort of based on her - and I said this particular aunt always thought that if a house ran out of its own jams and jellies then it was not being well-run, and it was sign of its weakness. Oh, she said, I've got it, I've got it. And she does that line so wonderfully. I mean, she looks into the jam pot and says ooh, bought marmalade, I call that very feeble. And what I love about Maggie is that she has this extraordinary skill to bring many different aspects of a character into her delineation, but then never seem contradictory. She never turns into a different person. A lesser actor would, you know, find it difficult to be kind and cruel simultaneously or both superficial here but quite deep here. But she manages to synthesize all these elements into a believable woman.

DAVIES: Well, we should hear one of these moments, and this is from the first season, where she and Lady Grantham, played again by Elizabeth McGovern, are sitting and discussing the difficult matter of finding a suitable husband for Lady Mary, the oldest of the Crawley daughters. (SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISION PROGRAM, "DOWNTON ABBEY") MAGGIE SMITH: (As Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham) How about some house parties? MCGOVERN: (As Lady Grantham) She's been asked to one next month by Lady Anne McNair. SMITH(As Lady Grantham) That's a terrible idea. She doesn't know anyone under 100. MCGOVERN: (As Lady Grantham) I might send her over to visit my aunt. She could get to know New York. SMITH(As Lady Grantham) Oh, I don't think things are quite that desperate. Poor Mary, she's been terribly down in the mouth lately. MCGOVERN: (As Lady Grantham) She was very upset by the death of poor Mr. Pamuk.

SMITH(As Lady Grantham) Why? She didn't know him. One can't go to pieces at the death of every foreigner. We'd all be in a state of collapse whenever we opened a newspaper. DAVIES: Can't get enough of Maggie Smith. That's her and Elizabeth McGovern in "Downton Abbey," created and written by our guest Julian Fellowes. Dinners are really something at the Crawleys. Lord Grantham dresses basically like an orchestra conductor. Was this done every night? I mean, didn't they ever just want to just dress down and eat leftover turkey sandwiches? FELLOWES: It was pretty well done every night. I mean I - there's a wonderful quote when Duff-Cooper asked his brother-in-law, the Duke of Rutland, he said - when black tie was just beginning to come in, in the '20s, but still white tie was normal in the sort of great houses, and he said to the duke: Don't you ever wear black tie? And the duke thought for a moment and said: When I'm dining alone with the duchess in her bedroom.

(LAUGHTER) FELLOWES: And, you know, that was his idea of letting it all hang out. But no, I mean, they were a formal people, those with the correct clothes for eating dinner. One of the difficulties when we wear those costumes is that most of us are dressing on our own. So we're in a wrestling match with studs and pins of this and that and links and so on, whereas there you were always being helped with it, as you would be in a film or on television. And that makes it different. I mean, in the '50s, Dior very much revived the sort of corseted, almost crinoline dress and so on, but it didn't last very long because it wasn't suited for getting into on your own. DAVIES: In Season 3, an American arrives on the scene, a real American here. I mean Cora, Lady Grantham, is an American but who has spent a long time in England as the wife of Lord Grantham. But her mother, who is played by Shirley MacLaine, arrives. Tell us a little bit about her and the role that she plays.

FELLOWES: Well, what I really wanted the audience to be reminded of, really, by Martha Levinson, played by Shirley MacLaine, is that Cora is not some ancient American aristocrat. She's not a Winthrop, you know, or a Stuyvesant or one of those founding-father families. She is the product of new money, quite a lot of it, but she's - that's who she is. But there were others, like Mary Leiter, who married Lord Curzon, who came from men who had made their own fortunes, and that is what Cora's come from. And the reason I want the audience to be sort of aware of that is Cora's story is really that she married into the system and swallowed it wholesale and got it all down, but now that the world is changing, and things are being challenged, in a funny way her original values are much more suited to the modern world than Robert's. You know, she has the American work ethic. She is not obsessed by rank. She is kind of much more free about accepting the changes that are coming, as you will be seeing in the third series. The future doesn't frighten her.

And so we have that kind of exemplified by Martha because we've got the two grandmothers now, Violet played by Maggie Smith and Martha played by Shirley MacLaine, but they're totally different. Violet is nostalgic for the past. She thinks everything was better in 1870. Her clothes reflect this, her manners and so on, whereas Martha believes in the modern world. She likes the way it's going. She wants to wear modern clothes and modern makeup and fly on a plane and just get on with the future. DAVIES: You know, I thought we would hear just a moment of their interaction. This is Maggie Smith and Shirley MacLaine, the two grandmothers, in a moment from season three. (SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISION PROGRAM, "DOWNTON ABBEY") SHIRLEY MACLAINE: (As Martha) Oh dear. I'm afraid the war has made old women of us both. SMITH(As Lady Grantham) Oh I wouldn't say that, but then I always keep out of the sun. How do you find Downton on your return?

MACLAINE: (As Martha) Much the same, really, probably too much the same, but then I don't want to cast a pall over all (unintelligible). SMITH(As Lady Grantham) How could you ever do that? MACLAINE: (As Martha) Tell me, what do you think of young Lochenbar(ph), who has so ably carried off our granddaughter and our money? Do you approve of him? SMITH(As Lady Grantham) Not as much as you will when you get to know him. MACLAINE: (As Martha) Has he gone home to change? SMITH(As Lady Grantham) Oh no, we won't see him again tonight. The groom never sees the bride the night before the wedding. MACLAINE: (As Martha) Nothing ever alters for you people, does it? Revolutions erupt, and monarchies crash to the ground, and the groom still cannot see the bride before the wedding. SMITH(As Lady Grantham) You Americans never understand the importance of tradition. MACLAINE: (As Martha) Yes we do. We just don't give it power over us.

History and tradition took Europe into a world war. Maybe you should think about letting go of its hand. DAVIES: That's from Season 3 of "Downton Abbey," written and created by our guest Julian Fellowes. Of course one of the changes that comes to the Crawley family, the shocking development of one of the daughters, Lady Sybil, marrying the family chauffer, Tom Branson. (LAUGHTER) DAVIES: I don't know how likely this would have been to happen in 1912 or '14 or '15, but one of the things I love about the way it's portrayed here is that of course the aristocracy is shocked, and they have to come to terms with it. Some react differently. But then the chauffeur goes back to the house where he was a part of the service and has to interact with the other servants, who are so used to clear social distinctions, and he has changed. FELLOWES: I mean, I always like to base these things on a real story, and when people say oh that would never have happened, of course it did happen, just as love affairs between servants and members of the family happened.

They were very disapproved of, but they still happened. And this particular story is based on the daughter of an earl who ran off with the groom actually, it wasn't the chauffeur, it was the groom, but I don't think there's a great distinction in that. And they had to put up with it. I think it was very difficult, and of course they rather encouraged the couple to live in Dublin because it's sort of easier if they're out of sight. But, you know, families then like families now, when your children marry someone you would not have chosen for them, there is a moment where you have to decide am I going to quarrel with my son or my daughter and literally no longer have them in my life, or am I going to find a way to get on with this person. And I think most of us hope for the second, and that's really what the Granthams have to do. DAVIES: You know, "Downton Abbey" begins in 1912, when there are all these social trends that are causing the old order to begin to unravel.

Did your observation of kind of the disappearance of that way of life make you want to really explore the end of that period and the dissolution of the aristocracy? FELLOWES: I just remember one time when I was quite young. I was - I forget now - 17 or something like that, and I was staying in a house and I got lost and I went through the wrong door and I was standing at the top of the staircase that led down into the kitchens and everything. And there was a tremendous row going on between - it sounded like four or five, six people shouting and yelling and this and that and the other. And I suddenly had such a powerful sense of the lives that were being lived by the people who worked there - not, you know, only the family who lived there, but the people who worked there and that at some point I would explore that fairly simple emotional recognition that everyone's life is of 100 percent importance to them, and no matter who they are. And you know, I've been sort of, in a sense, exploring it ever since. DAVIES: Julian Fellowes is the creator and writer of the masterpiece series "Downton Abbey." Its fourth season begins Sunday.

I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR. Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. “Downton Abbey” TV review | Variety January 2, 2014 | 07:00AM PT The fourth season finds the show slowly recovering - and unearthing new melodrama - after Season 3's emotional departures The major-character deaths that rocked the third season of “ Downton Abbey ” have left series creator Julian Fellowes with considerable work to do as the fourth flight begins, and he responds with a slow-going premiere that quickly escalates in the second chapter.

Not all the new or new-ish characters are created equal (sorry, cousin Rose), but for those intoxicated by the program’s split-level charms, a new season of “Downton” is about as close to blue meth as PBS has to offer. Without giving too much away, the premiere finds Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) still reeling from the loss of her husband, while eventually beginning to take an interest in the future of the grand estate – to the modest chagrin of her father, Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), who has his own ideas (if history’s any guide, likely awful) about how the place should be managed. Thankfully, even with the casualties suffered, Grantham’s imperious mother, the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith, who should have been knighted for this role if she hadn’t already), returns in midseason form, once again tossing off one-liners with a droll, effortless ease that approaches grand larceny. “It’s the job of grandmothers to interfere,” she says at one point.

The Dowager’s combative relationship with Isabel (Penelope Wilton) – like Mary, still nursing emotional wounds from her son’s death – provides one of the current season’s great pleasures. As for the downstairs contingent, there’s no shortage of melodrama there either, most of it too vital to be teased. Though suffice it to say the swoon-inducing romance between gentleman’s butler Bates (Brendan Coyle) and maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt), having survived several tests, is going to face one more, in a manner that, once again, largely drives much of the story. The cast is so uniformly good, frankly, it’s tempting not to single anyone out, and Fellowes continues to juggle the dizzying assortment of plots with what appears to be effortless ease. That said, one can see him repeating himself in some of the flourishes as the season progresses. (As in the past, PBS has made all the episodes except the final one available, asking Yankee viewers to be patient and avoid the Twitter feeds of any friends in the U.K.

As a result, a return by Shirley MacLaine and guest stint by Paul Giamatti as Cora’s playboy brother in the finale weren’t previewed.) Already renewed for a fifth season, “Downton” has become its own kind of ratings annuity for PBS, providing the pubcaster with an infusion of vigor that has emboldened it to expand its menu of ambitious dramatic offerings, and once again proving genuine hits in the present environment can originate anywhere. As these episodes make clear, time is not on the side of “Downton’s” old-fashioned aristocracy, and the damage done to that way of life during World War I looms even larger juxtaposed with knowledge of the trials England is destined to face in the years ahead. For now, though, this annual escape into the early-20th century is an experience in time travel not to be missed – and Fellowes, if not always generous with his beloved characters, remains the most hospitable of tour guides.

TV Review: 'Downton Abbey' It’s ‘Downton Abbey,’ not ‘Downtown’: series creator explains its name | Toronto Star Television It’s ‘Downton Abbey,’ not ‘Downtown’: series creator explains its name Creator Julian Fellowes explains the origins of the hit TV series' name, which concludes this Sunday on PBS in the U.S. Phyllis Logan as Mrs. Hughes, centre left, and Jim Carter as Mr. Carson in a scene from the final season of "Downton Abbey." The series finale airs in the U.S. on Sunday. (Nick Briggs / The Associated Press) By The Associated Press Wed., March 2, 2016 NEW YORK—After six seasons, people get it: The name of that series is Downton Abbey. Not “Downtown Abbey.” In early discussions, there was a bit of confusion among the public. And for TV critics, inadvertently typing that second “w” was a constant risk from which spell check offered no relief. So why not a less risky title for the series — and for the fictional British estate that lent the series its name?

As Downtown, er, Downton Abbey concludes its magnificent run, we asked Julian Fellowes (who created the series, executive-produced it and wrote every word) to explain: Article Continued Below “I have always been rather an admirer of my great-grandfather, Professor John Wrightson, 1840-1916, who was an experimental agriculturalist,” Fellowes set forth in an email. “His eldest brother, Sir Thomas Wrightson, Bart., of Neasham Hall in Yorkshire, had done great things in the world of steel and their aunt was married to Lord Armstrong, the British Krupp of armaments, but John was more interested in farming. He had an estate in Wiltshire called Charford Manor and I thought of calling the series ‘Charford Abbey,’ but we decided it was too near Cranford, and so we settled on ‘Downton’ after Downton College of Agriculture which Wrightson founded in 1880 and which, for a quarter of a century, was at the forefront of agricultural innovation. “He had several children and his daughter, Georgiana, married Henry Shirley Morant Fellowes. They were my grandparents.

“I also used Eryholme, an early seat of the Wrightson family, as the house the Crawleys nearly left Downton for, and there were other references to the family.” Got it. Then we posed one more question for Fellowes, who, before Downton Abbey, won the 2002 Oscar for best original screenplay for the film Gosford Park: Why “Abbey”? “I called it ‘Abbey’ after Ramsey Abbey, a Fellowes house in Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire),” he replied. “I didn’t want to call it ‘Downton Park’ as, coupled with ‘Gosford Park,’ I think I would have been known as the Park Keeper.” The series finale of Downton Abbey airs on PBS’ “Masterpiece” on Sunday at 9 p.m. EST.

More on thestar.com: Julian Fellowes: The Creator of ‘Downton Abbey’ - The New York Times The New York Times Magazine |Behind the Scenes With the Creator of ‘Downton Abbey’ Search Continue reading the main story Photo Zoe Boyle plays Lavinia Swire, a new character in the second season of "Downton Abbey." Credit Emma Hardy for The New York Times Pulling into the driveway of Julian Fellowes ’s manor house in Dorset, in the west country of England, with its 50 acres of grass rippling and trees swaying, as if a director had just called “Action!” to the scenery (indeed, one massive tree was featured in the film “Emma,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow), I recalled the advice Fellowes once said his father gave him: “If you have the misfortune to be born into a generation which must earn its living, you might as well do something amusing.” Inside the house (“Two houses, really.

This side was built in 1633, this new bit in 1840,” he said) with its double-height foyer lined with family portraits, a dining room with a mile-long banquet table and a morning room where Thomas Hardy is said to have written, you might think it doesn’t get more amusing than this. Fellowes has lived here only nine years. The decades before that were often fraught with anxiety, even despair. He toiled as a midlevel character actor for 30 years with 12 rejected screenplays to his name until, incredibly, at age 52, he won an Academy Award for his first produced screenplay, Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,” in 2002. But Fellowes, now 62, is the rare sort who, having won a life lottery, did not kick up his heels and make a fool of himself. He has worked like the proverbial dog — or American — for his continued success, and if that means he is more to the manner bought than born, that is fine with him.

He followed his unexpected screenwriting breakthrough with more films — “Vanity Fair,” with Reese Witherspoon, “Young Victoria,” with Emily Blunt, and “The Tourist,” with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, among them. He also wrote the book for the musical-theater adaptation of “Mary Poppins” and the best-selling novel “Snobs.” Most recently, he created and wrote the wildly successful miniseries “Downton Abbey.” The multi­generational family costume drama kicks off during the final days of aristocratic England before the First World War, and stars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith and Elizabeth McGovern. It drew record ratings on British television last season; the rights have been sold in more than 100 countries. It scored big here too, when it ran on PBS’s Masterpiece last winter (the second season will begin on Jan. 8). The show received 11 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Miniseries or Movie and Outstanding Writing, for Fellowes. I was ushered into Stafford House, as it is called, amid waves of apologies about lunch being cold, not cooked.

A few days earlier, a bird’s nest that was lodged in the kitchen chimney caught fire, disabling the stove and filling the house with black smoke. Fellowes was joined by his wife, Emma, who is 15 years his junior, nearly six feet tall and bursting with energetic goodwill. It’s easy to see how Fellowes, at 39, fell in love at first sight, why he agreed to her wishes to have only one child, a son, Peregrine, now 20, because she herself was an only child, and why he stoically allows Emma’s mother to call him Evelyn, not Julian. It seems she had her heart set on her daughter marrying a man called Evelyn, so Evelyn he is. There are worse things. Continue reading the main story We sat at one end of the banquet table. Meg, a border collie, took the chair to Emma’s right. Humbug, a dachshund, was soon in Emma’s lap, his head and upper body submerged beneath her sweater. He stayed there, motionless, as she explained what it means to be a lady in waiting, as she is, to Princess Michael of Kent, representing her at functions or accompanying her to events.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story As she spoke, Fellowes ate contentedly. He liked his food, he liked his wife, he liked her stories. He wasn’t as keen on the interview — “It’s like holding in your stomach, you can only do it for a bit at a time” — so first he suggested we walk the grounds. I was directed to a small room off the kitchen, stocked with racks of Wellington boots. After eyeballing my feet, Emma chose a pair that fit perfectly, and off we set. Fellowes chatted amiably, glad to be in the countryside. Initially, I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just meet me in London at his Chelsea apartment. “Because it’s overtaken by Emma’s wardrobe,” he’d said. But it became clear during our day together that after a professional lifetime accumulating petty defeats, hurtful setbacks and outright failures, to finally have found a place for himself in such a spectacular setting is enormously meaningful to him. It is a wondrous gift to be a late bloomer, but the decades of fertilizer that nurtured those blossoms remain. The shadow of the B.G. era (Before “Gosford”) reasserts itself regularly.

When we stood under the “Emma” tree, he laid his hand on the trunk with a tenderness you might show a child. It is rare to encounter a man his age so plainly defined by gratitude. Bob Balaban, a producer of “Gosford Park,” recommended Fellowes to Robert Altman to write the screenplay. “Altman asked him to try it, and maybe six weeks later Julian sent the first 75 pages,” Balaban said. “It was clear that he was brilliant and his knowledge of class society, the workings of it, was encyclopedic. This talented writer, moldering away as a relatively unsuccessful actor! That was a brass ring, and he took it. It’s part of the key to his current success, his work ethic. He doesn’t procrastinate. He doesn’t hide. He works like a demon.” For the first season of “Downton Abbey,” Fellowes created 18 main characters with almost as many story lines. He wrote virtually all of the first season and the entire 11½ hours of the second. The series begins in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic.

The Earl of Grantham (Bonneville) loses his cousin and his cousin’s son; the latter was betrothed to Lady Mary, the eldest of his three daughters, who cannot inherit Downton because she is female. The search is on for a new heir, and a distant male relative is found. Will Mary make life easy for everyone and just marry him? Certainly not. Very much like Matthew Weiner setting “Mad Men” at the brink of the 1960s, a decade whose social conventions were about to explode, so has Fellowes chosen the calm before the storm of World War I. He creates juicy plotlines peopled with emotionally intricate characters that viewers love to love and love to hate. Of course, nothing incites the British like success. As the ratings soared, viewers accused Fellowes of plagiarism (the cook who’s going blind sprinkles salt on a dessert instead of sugar, a detail he supposedly lifted from Jo in “Little Women,” who was a bad cook and not going blind). The press claimed he was such a “toff” that guests to his home were banned from wearing blue jeans to lunch.

(They are not.) The BBC produced an elaborate spoof of the show, starring Kim Cattrall, that has drawn more than 165,000 views on YouTube. At the base of the ruckus is Fellowes’s conservative politics. A lifelong Tory, he was appointed by David Cameron in January to the House of Lords, and much has been written about Fellowes’s glamorizing the class system in “Downton.” Paired with that were cries of artistic theft from none other than Jean Marsh, a star and co-creator of the newly revived (and flatly inferior) “Upstairs Downstairs.” It’s like saying that anyone who dares dramatize the Civil War after “Gone With the Wind” is both racist and an imitator. “I’m seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don’t think is unfair,” Fellowes said, settled in front of the fire in the drawing room. “It is a whole side of the society here that I find quite intriguing, and happily the audience has come along with me. I think one of the things we got right with ‘Downton’ was that we treat the characters of the servants and the family exactly the same.

Some of them are nice, some of them are not nice, some of them are funny, some of them are not, but there is no division between the servants and the family to mark that.” Photo Cast members of "Downton Abbey," from left, Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Rob James-Collier, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter and Dan Stevens. Credit Photo Illustration Drea Zlanabitnig Of the show’s critics, he said: “You could only represent it to their satisfaction if everyone downstairs was writhing in a state of permanent torment while everyone upstairs was vicious and violent, horrible and dishonest. The idea that both groups were just people trying to bash through their lives is alien to them.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story At the recent British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, “Downton” won for only directing and sound. Fellowes shrugged. “Of course I love winning things, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy it,” he said. “But I have understood that I’m not going to win them here.

It’s rather like with a girl, there is a moment when you’re young when you just have to look into the glass above your basin and say, ‘You are not going to get her; move on.’ I think it’s the same, really.” It has been a long road to equanimity for Fellowes, who was born in Cairo, the fourth and youngest son of Peregrine, a diplomat. A recurrent bout of tuberculosis derailed his father from becoming an ambassador; he became an executive for Shell instead. “I think he had a lingering sorrow that the career he adored was taken from him,” Fellowes said. “If he had been an invalid all his life, he could have borne it, but the truth is he stayed perfectly healthy and died at 86, so it was all for nothing.” To have a father so thwarted seems to have made his son work harder. Fellowes graduated from Ampleforth and Cambridge and ran with the upper classes, though he saw himself as something of an outsider, the “bottom of the top,” as he once put it: “I wasn’t handsome, titled or rich.

I was always the man who was asked because they were short of boys or because someone had dropped out, and I think that allows you to be a sort of fly on the wall, because nobody’s paying you any attention.” He observed plenty and tried putting that knowledge to work as an actor. While a student at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, he earned money by writing romantic and historical fiction under pseudonyms. After graduating in 1973, he discovered that working-class actors like Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay were the ones getting serious, career-making roles in new plays at the National Theater.

His upper-class accent and, he maintains, his conservative beliefs relegated him to West End comedies and revivals, playing butlers and lords: “There was an assumption that if you came from my background, you couldn’t have much to say.” By 1981, Fellowes gave up on storming the National and moved to Los Angeles, where he spent two years playing minor roles — he was the chauffeur in “Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess,” starring Lynda Carter — and finally found himself poised for his big break: replacing Hervé Villechaize on “Fantasy Island.” “They decided that a really good idea would be to replace him with an old English butler,” Fellowes recalled. “So they looked around, it was in pilot season, and discovered there were two pilots with old English butlers. And someone said, ‘Wait a minute, instead of having an old English butler, have a young English valet.’ This idea of course was greeted with shrieks of delight. So the search was on for a young English valet, and I went right up to the top meeting, and then what happened is they decided they’d do better with an old English butler.

Of course, if I had known the ways of Hollywood better, I would have seen that was absolutely inevitable. “But the Hollywood experience was very interesting for me,” he added. “I had friends there, and often they would ask me to read a script. They’d say, ‘I’ve been offered this, what do you think?’ and I got into analyzing scripts and how they work.” When Fellowes returned to London in 1984, he was cast frequently on television. In 1989 he met Emma, and they married the following year. “One of the things that you’re not really in control of — apart from everything — is your smell,” he said. “Different things in your life make you smell different, and a combination of coming back from Hollywood with a much more directed sense of what I wanted and then meeting Emma and being, I think, a less anxious person in consequence, was not coincidentally when I started to get more interesting work.” He spent nearly five seasons on a sitcom, “The Monarch of the Glen,” and had some small film roles. He also wrote successful adaptations of “Little Lord Fauntleroy” and “The Prince and the Pauper” for the BBC.

Then came “Gosford Park.” His anxiety went from “will I ever make it?” to “might I lose everything?” Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I think I’m more fearful of the future now,” he said, sipping his tea. “I always feel that there’s some giant hand about to lean in and snatch it all away from me, saying, ‘That wasn’t meant for you.’ Emma has this completely different quality of living in the present. It’s just been very helpful to me to live with someone who doesn’t think, Oh, my God, what if it all stops tomorrow? Of course it’s absurd to live your life dreading some unspecified disaster.” Yes, but lifelong habits are hard to break. He nodded. “There is always a ghost of you if things hadn’t worked out,” he said glumly. “This sad figure trying and trying and trying.” He mustered a smile. “Anyway, it did work,” he said. “He’s gone away.” At least for the moment. In addition to completing the second season of “Downton,” Fellowes wrote a four-part miniseries about the Titanic that was filmed in Budapest. It is to appear on British television next season, for the centenary anniversary.

Watching him now, this intelligent, agreeable man, natty in his tweed jacket and tasseled loafers, relaxing by the fire, I found it hard to imagine the angst he experienced in his youth about his looks. He nodded. “I used to be very much dominated by having no looks, but I’ve now grown into the age when nobody has any looks. So the playing field has been rather leveled off.” I asked about Gwen, the maid who wanted to be a secretary in the first season of “Downton,” who eventually got her wish in the last episode. That was the good news. The bad news is she’s off the show. That’s certain to upset a number of viewers. Photo Julian Fellowes on the set of "Downton Abbey," at Highclere Castle in Berkshire, England. Credit Emma Hardy for The New York Times Fellowes looked amused. “We want constant novelty, but we also want everything to stay the same,” he said. “It’s childlike. But if we get it right the show runs. If not, it doesn’t.” I mentioned how much I loathed Thomas, the evil gay footman. He shook his head.

“It’s hard to be gay in 1912,” he said. “It’s illegal. If anyone finds out, you go to prison. So for me, him being gay means you slightly stay your hand. He’s not just horrible. To get any kind of emotional life going, he’s got to take his life in his hands every time. That seems to me to be a sympathetic thing.” Well, maybe. He laughed. “I don’t believe that most people wake up and think, How can I be horrible today. In their brain it is a legitimate response to the bad treatment they have received or some bad situation they perceive. It’s rather like when you’re an actor, it’s always a mistake to play the audience’s opinion of your character. If you’re horrible, let them decide without you. I think I’m kind of on everyone’s side.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story When the Earl of Grantham explains his stake in the survival of Downton Abbey, he says, “It is my third parent and my fourth child.” Doubling for Downton is Highclere Castle, where the show is filmed.

To see it come into view, set on 1,000 acres in Berkshire, is to truly understand his meaning. It is glorious. The morning was rainy, and despite it being late June, the wind was sharp. It was just as cold inside the castle as out; every actor in costume donned floor-length down coats between shots. The rush was on to finish the season’s last two episodes, because Highclere is open to the public during the summer. One episode was being filmed on the main floor; the other, upstairs. (None of the kitchen or servants’ quarters scenes are shot here, because those parts of the house have been modernized; a full set was built in London.) As Fellowes made his way upstairs and down he was greeted as “Julian,” even though he is technically the Baron Fellowes of West Stafford and should be addressed as Lord Fellowes. “Most of my friends in the business are by definition socialists,” he said. “I don’t ever see any need to be hysterical about the difference. For me the key difference is how to manage an economy and how involved government should be in one’s daily problems.

I believe it should be more at arm’s length.” Near the coffee urn, he was set upon by cast members, so I stole a few minutes with Liz Trubridge. She is the series producer, who in the absence of a show runner, an American invention, is the person who executes each of Fellowes’s scripts with the same care he would. Or at least that’s her goal. “Julian is very lovely until he doesn’t like something, and then he’s not backward in letting you know,” she said. “He has such a way with words, and he certainly can use them to great effect when he wants to. He’s a historian as well as a writer. We had a scene in which Sybil baked a cake for the first time as a surprise for her mother. We shot the cake on the table with plates, forks and napkins. Julian was very upset about this. He said the upper classes would eat with their fingers.” She sighed. “Apparently it was true.” The show employs a historical adviser who agreed. No forks. “Even if a majority of people don’t notice or care, we try to get things right,” she said.

“It’s a minefield, isn’t it?” When it was time for lunch, Fellowes and I were driven through torrential rain to a clutch of trailers. Maggie Smith was off that day, so hers was free. We headed inside with Hugh Bonne­ville, who seemed to have an easy relationship with Fellowes. When I told Bonneville that I had spent the previous day at Fellowes’s house, he inquired dryly, “The burnt one or the other one?” The two talked about show-business people they knew, one of whom no longer seemed to be working. Instantly, Fellowes’s shadow of melancholy enveloped him. “What became of him?” he asked morosely. “What becomes of us all? You open a restaurant in the provinces somewhere.” He winced. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Bonneville got up to make a pot of tea. How many stars in America would do that, I asked Fellowes, who finally smiled. “Do you want some pudding?” he asked hopefully. Eton Mess was on the menu. I wasn’t sure what that was. “Strawberries, cream and meringue, all mashed up,” the unit publicist interjected.

“Hence the mess.” We drank the good, strong tea as the dessert arrived, and Fellowes’s spirits lifted. The weather seemed to be clearing. But no sooner had we hit the muddy ground than a production assistant held up his arm. “Stand by for rain,” he shouted. Whatever could he mean, I asked Fellowes, who was already dashing to a nearby car. I looked up and saw it, off in the distance, a great wall of water moving straight toward us. I jumped into the back seat beside him, and as the driver pulled up to the shaky shelter of a makeshift canopy, the rain hit hard. Fellowes ducked back into the castle, just in time. Alex Witchel (a.witchel-MagGroup@nytimes.com) is a staff writer for the magazine. She writes the Feed Me column for the Dining section of the Times. Editor: Sheila Glaser (s.glaser-MagGroup@nytimes.com) A version of this article appears in print on September 11, 2011, on Page MM20 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Dear Abbey.

Today's Paper | Subscribe 'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS : Monkey See : NPR 'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS Embed Embed 'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS 'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS Embed Embed Dame Maggie Smith plays Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey. Nick Briggs/Masterpiece hide caption toggle caption Nick Briggs/Masterpiece Everything you need to know about Downton Abbey, which aired in the UK last year and begins its run on PBS on Sunday night's Masterpiece Classics, can be found in the early reaction of a maid at the titular estate to news of a major tragedy: "It's worse than a shame," she says. "It's a complication." That's what the series is about: that feelings and humanity are important and real, but they tend to take a back seat to avoiding "complications" — things that upset the order with which both the Crawley family and their servants live their lives. Sadness is bad, but chaos is worse.

On Sunday's All Things Considered, Guy Raz talks to Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning writer of Gosford Park, who created and wrote the series, which was a smash with audiences and critics both. It features, among others, Dame Maggie Smith, for whom Fellowes says he wrote the part of Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham. (After all, if you're going to write the part of the Dowager Countess of Grantham, you might as well write it for Maggie Smith and aim high.) Article continues after sponsorship In addition to Smith, the cast includes Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham, Robert Crawley, and Elizabeth McGovern as his American wife, Cora, from whom he got a lot of his money. Fellowes gives a wonderful and wry explanation of American heiresses and their significance at the time — just before World War I — when the story takes place. He points out that "in Europe, to get an heiress, you need everyone else in the family to die," which made European heiresses rare, whereas American heiresses could be created by any rich person dividing up wealth among children.

Ultimately, Fellowes says, he created the highly successful series precisely by avoiding the trap of trying to figure out how to please every demographic. Because the quest for the safest possible bet for something everyone will like tends to lead to disaster. "You wind up with Son Of Easy Rider," he says, "which no one likes." Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley) and Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley) wear a variety of fabulous hats in Downton Abbey, which begins airing Sunday night on PBS's Masterpiece Classic. Masterpiece hide caption toggle caption Masterpiece It's worth noting that there's been a dust-up about whether PBS is substantially cutting Downton Abbey for American audiences — some reports have claimed that it's being cut down from eight hours to six. This, please be assured, is not true . It will run roughly six hours on PBS without commercials; it ran eight hours in the UK with commercials. And there were a lot of commercials. In fact, there were enough that the heavy load of ads was its own news story . On a personal note, I absolutely loved this series.

Loved it, loved it, from lines like "Wake me at the dressing gong" (when it will be time for dinner, naturally) to withering insults expertly delivered by Smith, who really knows her withering insults. I am often not a period-drama person; if anything, I require convincing when it comes to tales of bustling skirts and servants on a large estate. But here, in the story of the Crawleys — Robert and Cora, their three very different daughters, and their staff — you'll find touching scenes of friendship and romance, genuinely giggle-inducing banter, and fabulously executed takes on soap staples like jealousy, scheming, star-crossed lovers, medical emergencies, and, of course, The Keeping Of A Terrible Terrible Secret. I'll put it this way, if you want to know whether I was gradually sucked into it: the notes I took early in my viewing of the series say things like, "Mr. Bates struggles with some of his duties." My later notes say — and these are real quotes from me theoretically talking to myself — "Oh no, don't do it!," as well as "OMG RUFFIANS." True story.

Sneak Peek: Downton Abbey Final Season Teaser Sneak Peek: Downton Abbey Final Season Teaser October 17, 2015 – 7:11 AM – 0 Comments A Will & Grace Revival Picked up By NBC for Fall 2017 The beginning of the end is almost here with the release of the trailer for the sixth and final season of Masterpiece’s Downton Abbey. The video is short but sweet, with quick looks at what Anna and Bates are up to, we get a glimpse of Mrs. Hughes and Carson holding hands as they walk into the sea, and is that Lady Mary in a wedding gown? It’s hard to believe that it’s over, but Lady Mary sums it up best: “It’s been such a long road, can this really be the end?” MORE: Photos of Downton Abbey’s Final Season The conclusion of the series, according to executive producer Gareth Neame was a group decision. Neither PBS, who broadcasts it here in the U.S., nor ITV, who airs it in the U.K., wanted to cancel the show. “There’s no question we could have made a Season 7 or 8,” Neame says.

“I’m sure they would have been fantastic, but it’s about leaving a little bit earlier than you might. Nobody goes into a TV show really expecting to still be there six years later, but, I think, had we finished at five, that would have been shortchanging a global audience. And, perhaps, if we tried to eke it out to Season 8, we’d start running out of ideas. So maybe we’re leaving a little bit earlier, but, I think, on a really high note.” As for rumors of a Downton Abbey movie in the works, which would help assuage our longing for more time with the Crawleys, at this point, it is just rumor. “I guess there is speculation about whether we’ll ever make a Downton movie, and we might,” Neame says. “It’s something that we’ve talked about, but there’s no firm plans about that at all.” And while the idea of the end of Downton Abbey may find us reaching for a tissue, the good news for those of us in the U.S.

is that now Julian Fellowes, who created and wrote the entire Downton Abbey series, will have the time to work on his long-awaited NBC show The Gilded Age, which will be set among the upper classes of New York society in late 19th century. No date on that as of yet. The final season of Masterpiece’s Downton Abbey premieres on January 3, 2016 of PBS. Leave A Comment Uh-oh! Empty comment.It looks as though you’ve already said that.You seem to be logged out. Refresh your page, login and try again.Whoops! Sorry, comments are currently closed. You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down. Login

Question: Who created and wrote the TV series `Downton Abbey'?
Answer: JULIAN FELLOWES