Since I know you are waiting with baited breath for the answer, let’s just get that out of the way straight off. YES, yes you should. Okay, I know some of your favorite characters have made premature exits and many of you gave up after the middling third season, but stick with me here. Downton has been working its way back up to its former glory since then and there is a lot to love in the Season 5 premiere (last Sunday for the US, last Fall for those lucky Brits). Take a walk with me won’t you?

We return to the Abbey this season in 1924 after the election of Britain’s first Labour Party Prime Minister. I’m going to assume none of you were alive then (any 91 year old readers out there?) so that probably doesn’t sound all that exciting, but amongst aristocratic England during that time this was a signal of the downfall of their class. Lord Grantham won’t have any of it. Teachers are being invited to dinner parties! Sexual mores are breaking! Even Mr. Carson is being asked to speak at an event commemorating WWI soldiers instead of Robert! Watching the changing times sweep into the lives of our prim and proper Crawleys is a delight and makes for quite the awkward dinner confrontations. I’ve always been a fan of the cutting looks from across rooms that Downton employs frequently, and almost no one is spared from judgement in the premiere.

 

I’ll admit it, Downton is still rather formulaic. Mary is still being courted, Thomas is still causing mischief downstairs, and Mosely is still embarrassing himself (the premiere is worth watching just for his cartoonish attempts at more robust hair). However, the show is still evolving enough to try new and intriguing plot lines. Daisy is taking steps towards an education, Edith has a secret daughter she visits, and even the Dowager Countess is getting in on the matchmaking games. Downton has often struggled with balancing all these disparate plot lines and connecting them to an overarching theme, but manages them deftly in the premiere while cutting off last season’s dead weight (primarily the Baaates’s scandal). There’s even a rather (SPOILER WARNING)…fiery moment in the premiere. You’ll never guess who saves the day.

 

You know, I get it. There’s much more thrilling TV out there and Downton is still just…THERE. I can’t deny it though, few shows are as good looking and as much soapy fun as this. Maybe we’ll get that stand alone show where Maggie Smith just makes witty retorts someday, but for now we still have this gem of historical fiction drama. I’m still watching. Won’t you join me?

 

If not, well, then I’ll just watch it with my bros.