‘Downton Abbey’ season 4 spoilers: Exec also looking towards cast’s future

With the majority of the work on “Downton Abbey” season 4 now firmly in the can, just about everyone affiliated with the series can start to look ahead a little bit into the future … including some of the people who work on it.

For the writers and producers, work starts much earlier on production than everyone else, given that there is so much more to plan for. You have to get  scripts ready for filming, locations secured, and so many other details. When you have a period drama like this, almost everything has to be secured before filming starts.

In giving you a sense of what Gareth Neame has planned, and his optimism for the future of the show, just take a look at his comments below courtesy of the TCA event:

“I’m now eying the fifth season and what those stories potentially would be. I think the show has a lot further to go. We want to make it and we want to make the show people around the world love. When we feel it’s had its time, hopefully we’ll know that before you guys do.”

Ideally, we would like to see the show go until about the sixth season, and then meet its end then. This would take the series into potentially the early part of the 1930s, and show some of the real period of change in Britain where the ways of the past are no longer applicable. Beyond that, we’ve already seen one war, and we’re not particularly interested in seeing more of another.

How many years do you think that “Downton Abbey” can go on, and still be effective as a piece of entertainment? If you do want to read about what Michelle Dockery and others are saying on the future of the show, just be sure to take a look at the story here.

Photo: ITV