Who is watching Downton Abbey tonight?

If you’re not familiar with the series, you could do worse than this season one primer from Forever Young Adult.

Stuff I’m looking forward to seeing:

• More Maggie Smith as Dowager Countess Grantham.
• The will they or won’t they between Matthew and Lady Mary (if he was smart, he’d go for one of her sisters instead. I think Mary is awful).
• Matthew is going to have to fight in WWI. What will happen?
• Are Thomas and O’Brien going to get a real comeuppance for all their scheming?
• How involved is Lady Sybil going to get in the suffragette movement?
• What will happen between Bates and Anna?

I hear that a season three is also a done deal, though when it will air in the States, I don’t know.

All of this has made me want to read [amazon_link id=”0199549893″ target=”_blank” ]The Forsyte Saga[/amazon_link]. I tried out [amazon_link id=”B004H0ZHD4″ target=”_blank” ]Upstairs, Downstairs[/amazon_link] (the 1970’s series rather than the new one), and I admit I didn’t like it much. Also on my list: [amazon_link id=”0140232028″ target=”_blank” ]The Buccaneers[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0312658656″ target=”_blank” ]The American Heiress[/amazon_link] (which I found out in Britain has the much better and allusive title of My Last Duchess; I hate it that things are so often “dumbed down” for Americans).