‘Downton Abbey’ season 5 premiere: Big Laura Carmichael story leads to big PBS ratings

Is the “Downton Abbey” phenomenon over in the United States? Far from it. While the series seems to have reached its commercial peak, that does not mean that it is necessarily on the path to a huge decline.

The season 5 premiere of the show drew a total of 10.1 million viewers on PBS Sunday night, which is down just 100,000 from the season 4 premiere. This is a huge win for the show by our estimation, especially when you remember here that there were times when season 4 sagged, and started to get a little bit boring. Therefore, it was understandably to be a little worried about where things were going to go moving into this season, but without spoiling anything, we feel like American audiences are going to be very pleased with the direction that the show takes moving forward.

Sunday’s premiere turned out to be a huge episode for Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael), mostly as she worked to adjust to life now without her daughter around. Everything culminated with a fire, which we feel is in some ways representative of her state in life at present.

PBS does an interesting thing with this series, as it continues on airing new episodes all year without much interruption. It is one of the only programs bold enough to air opposite the Super Bowl and the Grammys, but then again, it can afford to. After all, it’s not like it has any particular advertiser to worry about. The network’s all about public funding and the support there.

We’ll have some further scoop on “Downton Abbey” very soon, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for even more great scoop from that!

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