For more years than I can remember, PBS has been on the receiving end of their fair share of parodies. Some good, some bad. Some, however, are too good not to share. The brilliant silver lining thing about being the butt of a parody is that you have something worth parodying. Enter Downton Abbey. This […]
Read more
As Julian Fellowes’ Titanic premiered on ITV1 last night, some in the leering press leading up to the broadcast continually referred to the Julian Fellowes project that, essentially, killed time between Downton Abbey 2 and Downton Abbey 3 as Downton Abbey at Sea. Call me crazy but I see absolutely nothing wrong with that comparison […]
Read more
Not that I’m being greedy or anything, but with all the particulars that are involved in ITV1’s announcement Monday both in front of and behind the camera, I need to see this now…and it needs to be a part of PBS’ Masterpiece series. The upcoming ITV1 commissioning of Blake Morrison’s best-selling suspense thriller, The Last […]
Read more
By creating Downton Abbey, you’ve now written the most successful British costume drama since the 1981 television serial version of Brideshead Revisited. How does Julian Fellowes, the creator/writer of what is now considered by the Guinness Book of Records as the most critically acclaimed English-language television show of 2011, occupy his time between the end […]
Read more
With Downton Abbey currently in production on series 3, the Daily Mail headline reads “Drama at Downton Abbey as Dame Maggie Smith looks set to quit the show“. The text reads like a soap opera as it is being ‘reported’ that the Dowager Countess has ‘panicked the bosses’ by not signing a new contract. It’s as […]
Read more
While we’ve been tracking what Downton Abbey writer, Julian Fellowes, is up to next, one can’t help but wonder what’s inside ITV1’s bag of tricks that will, hopefully, build upon the success of the series that has taken the world by storm? Easy. A simple 10-part drama profiling the place that, in 2010, won the […]
Read more
As we close down another BBC Showcase, time to take a quick look back at our time in Liverpool. With over 2500 hours of comedy, drama, natural history and documentary from the BBC catalogue available to view, just over 40 hours of screening were logged over the past 4 days looking for that hidden gem […]
Read more
It’s that time again for the annual BBC Showcase where myself and about 600 of my closest friends around the globe get the opportunity to screen what that Beeb has in store for the worldwide television landscape in the next couple of years. After 20 years, we leave the lovely (at this time of the […]
Read more
Aside from the massive anticipation of the first Maggie Smith/Shirley MacLaine battle of the mothers-in-law, the internet is already abuzz with thoughts on series 3 of Downton Abbey. While the U.S. is only 3 days removed from Sundays series 2 finale, Julian Fellowes sat down with The New York Times to reflect back on the […]
Read more
Post Downton Abbey Rule #1: One must keep busy in between series 2 and series 3. Post Downton Abbey Rule #2: Pay attention to Rule #1 or one will succumb to severe separation anxiety. This holds true not only for viewers of the runaway UK/US hit television series, but also for those both in front of […]
Read more