‘Downton Abbey’ season 5 ratings finally rise for big Laura Carmichael episode

For the first time in several weeks, there is some pleasant news to report when it comes to the fifth season of “Downton Abbey” over in the United Kingdom: The ratings are up!

Specifically, the ITV series drew an average audience of around 7.9 million viewers for an episode that saw big moves for Edith (Laura Carmichael) and Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) in particular. (Go read our review of you want spoilers; we’re trying to keep the ratings articles clear of them for now.) This is a slight increase of over 100,000 viewers from the previous episode of the show, which suggests that the bleeding has stopped, and the numbers have finally leveled off.

With that being said, this is still down from the equivalent broadcast last season, and we do still firmly think that we are set up for an announcement in the months ahead that season six will be the series’ last, and we also ultimately think that it should. We’ve gone over this a good bit in the past, but the one additional thing we’ll add here is that we want the show end with most of its cast intact; given that you are likely losing Lily James (Rose) after this season, you don’t want to get in a position where so many of the other important faces related to Downton also say goodbye, with Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay gone already.

The fifth season of “Downton Abbey” will also be premiering on PBS in America next year, and we anticipate some big ratings coming in there, as well.

Stay tuned, as we’ll have some further news related to “Downton” throughout the week. Also, if you want to get even more TV updates on all we cover at CarterMatt sent right to your email inbox, be sure to sign up today! (Photo via ITV.)