{alltv} PBS 'Downton Abbey' preps return for second season

Monday, August 1, 2011

{alltv} PBS 'Downton Abbey' preps return for second season

PBS has set a Jan. 8 return for Downton Abbey, the acclaimed series about an aristocratic family and servants in an English country house that earned 11 Emmy nominations for its first season, including nods for best movie or miniseries, and actors Elizabeth McGovern and Maggie Smith.

The series picks up in 1916, two years into World War I, but other details are being kept under wraps. "People will live, people will die, marriages will be made, babies will be born," is all Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton will say. But housemaid Gwen (Rose Leslie), who got a secretarial job as last season ended, won't return.

"The original concept of the show was to begin with that (sinking of the) Titanic moment, and I suppose the outbreak of World War I felt like the next page of history," says executive producer Gareth Neame.

The first season ended abruptly, at the outbreak of war, and at the time it was unknown if a second season would be made. "It was literally the last moment, when things could never be the same again," says Dan Stevens, who plays reluctant heir Matthew Crawley, now a soldier. "I quite liked that it didn't have a conclusion."

This seven-week season will take viewers through the war's end, and unlike the first season -- from which PBS trimmed about 25 minutes -- all of the British footage will air intact.

Why have American viewers, even non-Anglophiles, embraced the series? "It's historically accurate, emotionally true, and it's a lot of fun," says McGovern, who plays an American-born countess.

Due on Masterpiece in November are Page Eight, written and directed by David Hare, starring Bill Nighy as a British spy, and The Song of Lunch, based on a poem by Christopher Reed, about the reunion of former lovers played by Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. And looking ahead, two other popular series are plotting returns, Sherlock (next May) and Upstairs, Downstairs in 2013.