‘Downton Abbey’ season 4: Even without Dan Stevens, show sets premiere record

Who said that “Downton Abbey” was going to fall apart without Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay in the cast? The ratings came out on Monday morning for the season 4 premiere, and it was clear almost immediately that ITV had something major to celebrate.

Including figures from the +1 catch-up channel (which airs programming with an hour’s delay), the show’s 90-minute premiere drew an impressive audience of 9.5 million viewers. If you were to adjust this proportionally and the same percentage of Americans that watched this show, we would be talking about how it was the most-popular show in the country by a wide margin. That’s just an example of how many people in Britain took the time out to dive into the stories of “Downton Abbey”. It was the most-watched premiere episode to date, and it sets the stage for a season of strong viewing figures.

The reviews were not all positive for the premiere, which we do not get given that we personally found it to be rather fantastic and much the same show that we have always seen in terms of performances and themes. Then again, we assumed that the fickle press were eventually going to turn their backs towards the newer, hipper story, and maybe this is the beginning of that.

There are seven episodes remaining this season to go along with the annual Christmas special; click here if you want to watch a preview for the installment airing on Sunday night, and we’ll have some more dish to share throughout the week. Eventually, we will see some of the new suitors for Mary and some of the other characters, but they have not quite arrived just yet.

Photo: ITV