Downton Abbey

If nothing else, HBO's lush but excruciatingly inert five-hour miniseries "Parade's End," which has been faithfully adapted from a quartet of novels by Ford Madox Ford, makes clear just how much of a 21st-century invention "Downton Abbey" truly is. Both dramas are about high-class problems of the British upper crust before and after World War I. But "Downton's" story arcs come and go with the speed and silliness of today's tweets. "Parade's End" is about one gentleman's domestic issues — he would like to...

Correction: An earlier version of this article misreported the cause of death for Lady Sybil Branson, a character on PBS's "Downton Abbey," as toxic plasmosis. She died of eclampsia. The online version of the story has been corrected. Editor's note: There are lots of spoilers in this article, probably about a TV show or two that you're not caught up on. Complain all you want. Last Sunday night, in the Eastern time zone first, and then with a ferocious momentum moving westward, a collective...

Correction: An earlier version of this article misreported the cause of death for Lady Sybil Branson, a character on PBS's "Downton Abbey," as toxic plasmosis. She died of eclampsia. The online version of the story has been corrected. Editor's note: There are lots of spoilers in this article, probably about a TV show or two that you're not caught up on. Complain all you want. Last Sunday night, in the Eastern time zone first, and then with a ferocious momentum moving westward, a collective...

Empty nesters Tony Gittens and Jennifer Lawson decided to stay put in their Adams Morgan rowhouse rather than move to smaller living quarters as they neared retirement. "This street has a sense of community, and we like the convenience of the neighborhood," says Lawson, senior vice president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting . The couple's desire to remain in the family home where they raised their two sons is common among the nation's 77 million baby boomers. According to a 2010 survey conducted by...

The romance. The intrigue. The big, beautiful country house. We can analyze the recipe for success of "Downton Abbey," the British television import whose Season 3 makes its breathlessly anticipated debut Sunday on PBS, until our cups of tea go cold. But one element that can't be overlooked, especially for those of a culinary bent, is the food. Rather than letting it serve as mere eye candy, creator and writer Julian Fellowes has worked crepes, puddings, roast chicken and other edible props into some of the series's most...

Regarding Kathleen Parker's Jan. 9 op-ed column, "The trouble with Honey Boo Boo" :   Let's not totally trash Honey Boo Boo's family. Her family members are so nice to each other. They helped a pregnant teenager. Dad Mike Thompson tears up talking about how much he loves his daughter, as well as the three older girls who are not his daughters. Compare that with the fictional, aristocratic two older daughters in "Downton Abbey" who betray each other. Kindness counts.   Lila Snow , Chevy Chase

"Downton Abbey," that phenomenally successful British drama series about a very specific sort of people enduring what amounts to the modern era's original first-world problems, is back on PBS's "Masterpiece Classic" Sunday night for a third season. It is greeted with huzzahs, which are deserved, but it is also met with the law of diminishing returns. Only a fool could overlook the sinkholes in last season's plots: Along with characters miraculously leaping out of wheelchairs and/or breaking into song, an unwanted fiancee...

World War I rages and things are getting grim at that fictional, many-roomed North Yorkshire countryside castle known to us all as Downton Abbey: Dashing distant cousin Matthew, the heir apparent, is doing battle in the trenches of the Somme. At home, the Earl of Grantham, his wife, daughters and their loyal staff bravely agree to let the castle become a rehab hospital for wounded British officers. For all the stiff upper lips, bad news nevertheless abounds. People are always walking into rooms...

Spoiler alert! It would be nice if in the future you avoided putting plot spoilers in the titles and URLs of your online content. " Lady Sybil's shocking death. Did it have to happen? " [Jan. 28] ruined a major plot twist of last week's episode of " Downton Abbey . " I find it fairly easy to avoid plot spoilers by avoiding articles that reveal information about television shows that I like, but it is actually impossible when the spoiler is in the title of the article.

Did you miss last night's "Downton Abbey"? Never fear. Here's the script. Warning: spoiler alerts! Open on Interior, the servants' dining room in the basement of Downton Abbey. Mrs. Hughes is in conversation with Alfred, the footman. Mrs. Hughes: Well, there's nothing for it. We'll just have to tell Mr. Carson. Carson [ walking by ]: Tell me what, Mrs. Hughes? Mrs. Hughes: It's Buttercup, the Earl of Grantham's yellow Labrador retriever. She's pregnant.

If nothing else, HBO's lush but excruciatingly inert five-hour miniseries "Parade's End," which has been faithfully adapted from a quartet of novels by Ford Madox Ford, makes clear just how much of a 21st-century invention "Downton Abbey" truly is. Both dramas are about high-class problems of the British upper crust before and after World War I. But "Downton's" story arcs come and go with the speed and silliness of today's tweets. "Parade's End" is about one gentleman's domestic issues — he would like to...

I got home from a church event on Sunday evening, in time to watch the season three finale of "Downton Abbey" on PBS, but I stuck to my guns about catching up on previous episodes first. But on Monday morning, The New York Times had two articles about the finale and I couldn't stop myself from reading them. So now I know that two key characters get killed off — because the actors playing them wanted to move on from the show. Does that mean watching the older season three episodes is pointless?

The third season of the megahit PBS series "Downton Abbey" wraps up on Sunday (Feb. 17), capping another must-see run of ruin and redemption at Lord Grantham's stately English manor. Yet some are still left puzzled over the absence of what should be a leading Upstairs player in this colorful cast: God. Writing last month in the flagship evangelical magazine Christianity Today, Todd Dorman wondered why — despite the heart-rending melodrama and all the "divine trappings" that gild the...

Did you miss last night's "Downton Abbey"? Never fear. Here's the script. Warning: spoiler alerts! Open on Interior, the servants' dining room in the basement of Downton Abbey. Mrs. Hughes is in conversation with Alfred, the footman. Mrs. Hughes: Well, there's nothing for it. We'll just have to tell Mr. Carson. Carson [ walking by ]: Tell me what, Mrs. Hughes? Mrs. Hughes: It's Buttercup, the Earl of Grantham's yellow Labrador retriever. She's pregnant.

Spoiler alert! It would be nice if in the future you avoided putting plot spoilers in the titles and URLs of your online content. " Lady Sybil's shocking death. Did it have to happen? " [Jan. 28] ruined a major plot twist of last week's episode of " Downton Abbey . " I find it fairly easy to avoid plot spoilers by avoiding articles that reveal information about television shows that I like, but it is actually impossible when the spoiler is in the title of the article.

Unabashedly positioned to appeal to the audience of " Downton Abbey ," Fay Weldon's entertaining new novel peeps into the drawing rooms and bedrooms of an aristocratic London mansion in the fall of 1899, with a few glances at the kitchen to maintain its " Upstairs Downstairs " pedigree. (Weldon wrote the pilot episode of that perennially popular series, but she is better known for her many novels, including " The Life and Loves of a She-Devil . ") This formula seems to appeal especially to Americans: We love to wallow in...

Happy Christmas, Anglophiliacs! Because they've come early, here to Washington in all their Masterpieced, alabastered, glory. Lady-Grantham-I-mean-Elizabeth-McGovern. You have the most beautiful skin in the universe. I want to eat your face. It's Thursday night at the British ambassador's residence. Sir Peter Westmacott has loosed among his several hundred ecstatic party guests six cultural imports: the cast of " Downton Abbey . " You know. That show about class and...

The winners at Sunday's 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences: Drama Series: "Mad Men," AMC. Actress, Drama Series: Julianna Margulies, "The Good Wife," CBS. Actor, Drama Series: Kyle Chandler, "Friday Night Lights," DirecTV/NBC. Supporting Actor, Drama Series: Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones," HBO. Supporting Actress, Drama Series: Margo Martindale, "Justified," FX. Writing, Drama Series: Jason Katims, "Friday Night Lights," NBC. ...

Shepherd Mead struck pay dirt when his humorous handbook, " How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying " (1952), was transformed into a smash hit musical, first on Broadway and then as a film starring Robert Morse. Loosely based on Mead's own experiences in advertising, both book and play track the improbable rise of J. Pierrepont Finch from window washer to chairman of the board of a New York corporation — all in one week. After the wild success of "How to Succeed in Business," Mead left advertising to become a full-time...

Regarding Kathleen Parker's Jan. 9 op-ed column, "The trouble with Honey Boo Boo" :   Let's not totally trash Honey Boo Boo's family. Her family members are so nice to each other. They helped a pregnant teenager. Dad Mike Thompson tears up talking about how much he loves his daughter, as well as the three older girls who are not his daughters. Compare that with the fictional, aristocratic two older daughters in "Downton Abbey" who betray each other. Kindness counts.   Lila Snow , Chevy Chase