Star What? Here’s five reasons you gotta see the new “Downton Abbey”
The other Force awakens …
"Downton Abbey" returns for its sixth and final season on PBS on January 3rd. And on Thursday night, some 1,200 lucky fans got an early look at Episode 1.
(If you're not sure what "Downton Abbey" is, it's just like "Star Wars." If "Star Wars" took place on a veddy noble British estate in the 1920s, that is. And if instead of C3PO, there was Carson the superstarched butler dithering about everything).
To mark this big event, Georgia Public Broadcasting took over downtown's elegant 200 Peachtree building for "An Evening at Downton Abbey." It included a swank dinner where hundreds of guests paid anywhere from $200 to $500 apiece to hear from Jessica Fellowes, author of six insidery "companion" books to the series, and to feast on a fabulous cake made to look like Carson's classically "we are not amused" visage (It was made by Atlanta "cake artist" Karen Portaleo, who also made the fearsome Dowager Countess cake at last year's GPB event, which you can see here.)
The dinner was preceded by the sneak preview screening, which included hundreds of additional “Downton” fans who’d managed to snag one of the precious free passes from GPB weeks ago. Many in the room sported period gowns and flapper headgear, tuxedos or — in the case of at least two guys — kilts (perhaps it was a nod to that Downton episode several seasons back where the family decamped, servants and all, to a drafty Scottish castle).
Cheers broke out as the familiar Downton theme music swelled and one man even yelled, "Yay, Isis!" when the Earl of Grantham's (now dead) dog waddled across the screen during the opening credits. And truth be told, this first episode doesn't disappoint, somehow managing to cram blackmail, a murder investigation, lotsa sex talk and a "Norma Rae"-like protest speech into little more than an hour.
You can see it yourself at 9 p.m. on January 3rd. Until then, here are five non-spoiler type things to know about Episode 1, and what it all suggests about Season 6:
- It's funny: Really funny. Especially the one-on-one, super awkward conversations between Carson and Mrs. Patmore, the blustery cook played by Lesley Nicol (who charmed during an interview here last year). We've never known Mrs. P. to be at a loss for words, but then again, she's never had to go where she's trying to go here. Let's just say Dr. Ruth Westheimer has nothing to worry about.
- Unless Anna's onscreen, and then it's sad. Really sad: The first time we see the longsuffering ladies' maid, she's — what else? — crying. And, as usual, she's reluctant to discuss what's bugging her with her equally longsuffering husband, Bates, valet to the Earl of Grantham. Series creator Julian Fellowes only seems happy when those two are unhappy. But at least it looks like Season 6 will feature a better, more believable explanation for Downton's Debbie Downer to be so sad than her simply being unjustly accused of murder, as happened last season.
- "My Lord" is starting to sound more like Bernie Sanders: OK, maybe that's an exaggeration. Still, it was only recently that the Earl of Grantham was insisting the servants iron his morning newspaper and pouting that tuxedos at dinner were worse than "Casual Fridays." Now, though, he's padding around downstairs in the servants hall fetching his own midnight snacks and saying things like "Who lives like we used to?" without a hint of his usual self-pity. It's amusing, especially when he correctly guesses that that big cold thing downstairs is a refrigerator. But there's also lots of serious talk about downsizing in Episode 1, which begins in 1925, and it seems likely that this final season will feature a fair amount of permanent economic and societal upheaval both upstairs and down.
- Women can't have it all. Especially women named Lady Edith: When last we saw the poor little rich girl, her missing fiance had been killed by thugs in Germany and the baby she'd birthed out of wedlock had come back to live with her at Downton (while still pretending to be Edith's "orphan" ward). Seems like things haven't gotten much better at the start of Season 6 — when her aunt sweetly inquires, "Would you like a London life?" Edith grumps back, "I'd like a life." (On the other hand, Edith says it while standing in the fabulous London flat she's inherited from the dead fiance. Where, she humblebrags, she met Virginia Woolf awhile back. So maybe Lady Edith doesn't need a life so much as an attitude adjustment … )
- There's a kiss. A great, romantic kiss. It comes right at the end of Episode 1. And that's all we're going to say about that. Except for … It really makes you want to see Episode 2!
