For the past several weeks we’ve been working our way through all six seasons of the PBS series, Downton Abbey. We finished the last episode of season six on Friday night and then spent all day on Saturday watching all three of the subsequent movies.  Seeing all of them in order was really satisfying.

The series is a period piece set in Downton Abby, a fictional Yorkshire castle during the first thirty years of the twentieth century. It’s built around the aristocratic Grantham family whose members are trying to preserve their ancestral home and way of life at a time when many of the ancient houses in the face of changing times are falling into disrepair and financial ruin.  

Interestingly enough, Highclere Castle, the real life location where the series is set, was itself in deep financial trouble when Julian Fellows, the creator of Downton Abbey first asked for permission to use it at a set for filming.  In the process, a series about saving a fictional castle ended up saving a real one.

This is a family saga starting with the sinking of the Titanic in which not one but two Grantham heirs perish, throwing the family line of succession into disarray because the current Lord Grantham had three daughters and no sons.  When it came to suitable heirs, daughters didn’t count, thus bringing a distant cousin and his mother, Mrs. Crawley, into the picture.

There are no gunfights and very little blowie-uppie stuff in the stories.  There’s shooting at hunting parties, yes, along with a number of scenes involving World War I, but that’s it.  The story is built solely on dialogue—on what people say to one another and how they behave. The costuming is impeccable, both for the well-to-do who exist in lush surroundings and for their servants who toil away in the background of the lush rooms but who work in a basement kitchen and sleep on cots in grim attic rooms.   

My favorite characters by far were the Dowager Countess Grantham, played by Maggie Smith, and Mrs. Crawley, played by Penelope Alice Wilton.  Seeing those two grand old ladies, sipping tea and exchanging barbed comments and insults while also creating an abiding friendship between them was a highlight of the show.

The characters are absolutely consistent from episode one, scene one, to the final bits of the finale movie.  The sibling rivalry among the three sisters rings absolutely true, and it doesn’t go away just because they get older.  Mary, the eldest, is a sharp-tongued snob; Edith is always trying to get over being second best. As for Syble?  She’s sweet but headstrong.

The lines between what’s right and what’s wrong are clearly drawn, and anyone who disregards those standards does so at their own peril. Interestingly enough, Tom, the Irish immigrant chauffeur who marries one of the boss’s daughters, eventually becomes the mitigating factor in many of the family conflicts because he’s the one who’s able to see both sides of the arguments.

As a writer, I was fascinated by Julian Fellowes’s ability to keep multiple story lines running at the same time—upstairs storylines and downstairs ones as well.  There are love stories that come to grief and ones that have happy endings.  The relationship between Lord Grantham and his American-born heiress wife, Cora, is one of mutual respect and enduring love.  

So, in case you’re interested and want to give this a try, the television series is available on Peacock and the three movies are on Netflix.

I think you’ll be glad you did.