Five ways Downton Abbey changed TV

NEWS.COM.AU
Clare Rigden
News Corp Australia Network

AS Downton Abbey closes its doors for the final time, we take a look at how this British costume drama achieved global acclaim.

1. It’s made stuffy costume drama cool again

Downton Abbey brought a format often only seen on networks like the BBC in Britain, and ABC in Australia, and made it accessible to everyone.

“I think one of the things that Downton has done, is explode the myth that period drama has to be highbrow or in the literary genre,” says Executive Producer, Liz Trubridge.

Even though the storylines are set in a bygone age, viewers can relate to what characters are going through. And having gorgeous sets and costumes makes it all the more fun.

“I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that Downton has taken a much-loved British genre — the period countryhouse drama — and given it a complete overhaul for the 21st century, borrowing from the compelling storylines of soap opera to the quality writing and production values of contemporary U.S. television shows,” says Executive Producer, Gareth Neame.

Shows like Mr Selfridge and Ripper Street — both successful series that have premiered in the past few years — owe much to their predecessor.


2. It’s showed the Yanks how it’s done

Downton is a British format that found an audience in the States — not the other way round. In the process it was a game-changer for US networks and producers, who realised there was an audience for this type of drama.

Fellowes admits the show’s success took him by surprise.

“That was a rather extraordinary moment: to realise you’d written a show that was reaching parts [of popular culture] that other shows don’t reach,” he says.

The series finale was watched by 9.9 million viewers in the US, and was nominated for an Emmy award every year it aired.

3. It’s epic in scale

Everything about Downton is on a grand scale, from the setting — beautiful Highclere Castle, where it’s filmed — to the costumes, set dressing, and even the storylines.

Downton’s six series span one of the most tumultuous decades in modern history. Everything from the introduction of electricity and the automobile, to the First World War and the Spanish flu is covered — and that’s just for starters.

Producers never shied away from tackling political and social issues too, talking about everything from the rise of fascism in the 1920s, to the establishment of the women’s suffragette movement.


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Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern have signed new three-year ‘Downton Abbey’ deals.

By Ghana News -SpyGhana.com

Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech and Laura Carmichael have signed new three-year ‘Downton Abbey’ deals.

Show bosses have handed the pair – who portray Lord and Lady Grantham in the ITV period drama – huge contracts in a bid to stop them leaving for Hollywood, and Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley), Allen Leech (Tom Branson) and Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith Crawley) have also put pen to paper on new deals.

A source told The Sun newspaper: “Downton’s charm is tradition so bosses were desperate to secure the show’s big names. All the major characters are now on big deals.

“It was also important to keep Allen. His role has grown considerably since he started as the chauffeur and you will see him more and more.”

Allen’s role on the show is to increase in the forthcoming fourth series with Tom growing closer to Mary following the death of her husband Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) from a car crash on Christmas Day (25.12.12).

The source added: “The relationship with Tom and Mary gets stronger as they’re unified with their grief.

“Tom understands what she’s going through and tries to help her through that mire of grief and sorrow.

“The show for Tom this year sees him find his place within that household.”

Several stars, including former ‘EastEnders’ actor Nigel Harman, have joined the cast following Matthew’s departure and Allen believes the new additions have brought a fresh feel to ‘Downton’.

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Life in the Downton Abbey mosh pit, plus Mr. Darcy

LEADER POST
BY ALEX STRACHAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS

The heckling started early, from the back of the room, where the white wine flowed a little too freely and a handful of Downton Abbey enthusiasts were getting a little too enthusiastic at seeing Lady Mary, Lady Edith, Anna Bates, Mrs. Hughes and Daisy Mason, in the flesh, as it were. It was The Ladies of Downton Abbey Night on one of the final evenings of the threeweek summer meeting of the Television Critics Association, and the combination of evening wear, lively conversation and bounteous quantities of Chardonnay was having its effect.

The coming fall season will see some of the most witless, lowbrow, low-class sitcoms ever to appear on the small screen. "You ain't seen nuthin'" one inebriated reveller shouted, "until you've seen Super Fun Night."

And whatever faults Downton Abbey may have had in its third season, anything is a tonic after being forced to sit through two weeks of network sitcoms like Super Fun Night, with its scene in which quasi-comedienne Rebel Wilson opens her party dress and exposes two flashing red lights over her breasts, in what's meant to be a sight gag. The Dowager Countess would not be amused.

Downton Abbey doesn't return to PBS's Masterpiece showcase until January, but the Public Broadcasting Service flew The Ladies of Downton - two-time Emmynominated Michelle Dockery and her Downton castmates Joanne Froggatt, Phyllis Logan, Sophie McShera and Laura Carmichael - to the U.S. West Coast from London, England, where filming on Downton Abbey's Season 4 is nearly complete.

The evening was bracketed by dinner-with-wine on one end and a cocktail party on the other, with an impromptu news conference in-between hosted by Masterpiece Classic's longtime executive producer Rebecca Eaton and veteran Downton Abbey executive-producer Gareth Neame, who is also producing The Hollow Crown, PBS's exhaustive, full-length co-production of Shakespeare's Henry IV, in outdoor locations in the U.K. and France.

Eaton opened her part of the evening by gamely working her way through several Masterpiece casting announcements, which were greeted from the back of the room by attendant shrieks of exaggerated joy and, at one point, someone mimicking a horse neighing, followed by the inevitable cry, "Frau Blücher!" Michael Kitchen will return as Christopher Foyle for a fifth season of Foyle's War - even though, Eaton noted dryly, "the war, unfortunately, is over.

"It's still called Foyle's War, though. It's now the 1950s. He is in London, and he is still solving crimes."

Masterpiece is co-producing a new ITV miniseries, Breathless, starring Jack Davenport - mere mention of Davenport's name provoked paroxysms of ecstasy from the back of the room - as a medical practitioner.

"It's set in the 1960s in London," Eaton soldiered on. "There are a lot of women. He happens to be an Ob/Gyn."

More shrieks of ecstasy, followed by one or two howls of mock indignation.

"So you can imagine the rest," Eaton said, dryly.

"We're announcing another miniseries," she continued, "miniseries being our meatand-drink on Masterpiece, a piece called Death Comes to Pemberley, based on the book by P.D. James. It's her version of what might have happened six years after Elizabeth Bennet married Mr. Darcy. We will air it in 2014. It stars Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth Bennet. You know her from The Bletchley Circle, as well as from Bleak House. Mr. Darcy. Who is Mr. Darcy? He is Matthew Rhys from The Americans."

The screams were instantaneous, and they were loud. Matthew Rhys! The back of the room went wild.

"Oh, you like that," Eaton said. "You like that. And who plays Mr. Wickham? Do you want to know?"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! "Or are you just going to ... Mr. Wick will be played by Matthew Goode."


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