PBS' 'Downton Abbey' to return for a 5th season

NEW YORK (AP) — "Downton Abbey" will return for a fourth season in January, but now PBS is announcing the series will be back for at least one more after that.

"Masterpiece" executive producer Rebecca Eaton says Downton fans can "rest easy knowing that a fifth season is on the way."

The celebrated British costume drama focusing on the elite Crawley family will air its fourth season on "Masterpiece" beginning Jan. 5. Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern and Jim Carter are among its stars.

The series, set in the Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era - with the great events in history having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy.

Such events depicted throughout the series include news of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in the first series; the outbreak of World War I, the Spanish influenza pandemic, and the Marconi scandal in the second series; the Interwar period and the formation of the Irish Free State in the third series; and the Teapot Dome scandal in the fourth series.

Downton Abbey has received critical acclaim from television critics and won numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. It was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed English-language television series of 2011. It earned the most nominations of any international television series in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, with twenty-seven in total (after two seasons).

Earlier this year, more than 24 million viewers watched the third season of the series in the U.S., making it the most-watched drama in PBS history on both ITV and PBS. It subsequently became the most successful British costume drama series since the 1981 television serial of Brideshead Revisited By the third series, it had become one of the most widely watched television shows in the world.

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Published - The Gayly, November 10, 2013 9:20pm