Rebecca Eaton on the “Downton Effect”

In her book, Making Masterpiece: 25 Years Behind the Scenes at Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery! on PBS, executive producer Rebecca Eaton speculates on “the Downton effect.” Downton Abbey’s hugely popular success she attributes, in large part, to its creator and sole screenwriter, Julian Fellowes. But she also thinks the show’s success can be attributed to its moral purpose:

“Maybe we’re drawn to it because, unlike almost any other big, popular drama series currently airing in America, it’s a show about a community of people who are all, in straightforward and old-fashioned ways, trying to do the right thing. It has morality at its core.

Eaton compares Downton Abbey to big series on American TV–Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Sons of Anarchy, House of Cards, and Mad Men–and observes “how dark they are.” “Their “heroes” are deeply compromised and morally ambiguous, and the stories are often about corruption.”

Eaton is right about this, I believe. Beneath its surface appeal to our desire for opulence and romance, Downton Abbey returns its audience to a place where making something “right,” as Eaton puts it, is the defining endeavor of human existence.

For more on this theme see my “On Popular Fictions, Or How I Learned to Relax and Enjoy Downton Abbey,” as well as “The Good Sense of Sensationalism.

The photo of Highclere Castle is reproduced courtesy of Greg at Wikimedia Commons.