Downton Abbey

My friend and I managed to get tickets to the Premier screening of Downton Abbey on Tuesday night in London. The show is amazing, brilliant writing and acting. They also had a panel discussion afterwards which was very interesting. We were also lucky enough to meet 2 members of the cast who were in attendance at the event - Joanne Froggatt and Rob James Collier !

Wont give away what happens in the first episode but it is very good and I liked all the characters.

This is the ITV press information for the series which starts on ITV1 Sunday at 9pm.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/presspacks/downtonabbey/default.html

Id definitely recommend watching it. Its also nice to see ITV doing lots of promotions for this including trailers and break bumpers on ITV1, billboard adverts etc

Stalker!

Hope it does well for ITV - they're long overdue a new returnable series and this does seem one of their more promising recent commissions. I'm assuming it's an original production rather than an adaptation (and therefore probably a one-off series).

LOL! Well it had been quite a long time since I met Rob - he seemed to remember us tho, my friend moreso than me because she has met him more times than me when he was in Corrie He seemed happy with the support tho.

Of course us being there had nothing to do with the fact we were hoping he would turn up!

I agree ITV are long overdue a drama series like this. Yes it is an original commission.

I did already start a Downton Abbey thread yesterday which is on the first page!
http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/topic31471
But as your not ginofish I'll let you off!

Ooops Sorry! Must have been Rob still on my mind and i didnt check!

Anyway, lots of people I know are saying they were going to watch so I hope its going to be a hit.

A few things I did pick up in the discussions at the premier were that most of it was filmed in Highclere Castle but the servent quarters and kitchens were filmed at Ealing studios in London. They also used a village in Oxfordshire for town scenes. Also they wanted to create a drama for this era because so many have been set in the 18th and 19th century they thought a drama from early in the 20th century would be something more exciting for the viewers to see as its not more than 100 years ago (set in 1912).

Well like I said no problem - I suppose we should use this thread as it has more comments evn though mine was 1st!!

Well I've read a few reviews online tonight and I don't think I've come across one negative one. The most negative thing was that the 1st episode has to introduce certain things that a modern person might not know so is a tiny bit slower that it could be, but that they expected it to be a 10/10 by the 2nd week, when that didn't need to be done. ( hope that makes sense)

Hope it does well to - ITV could do a different drama rather than crime !!

Seems they have put a bit of money into this and a lot of ad's. Up on quite a few billboards through my town and in a double page spread in a couple of the newspapers today.

Yeah they really seem to have pushed the boat out with the promotions for this. Usually its things like X Factor and Im a Celeb that get break bumpers as well as trailers. There is a poster of Downton (inc Rob!) in my village and several in and around my town!

They had to introduce around 18 new characters in the first episode (which runs for 66 mins the producer said, 90 minute slot inc the adverts) so it might take a while to remember everyone aside from the main ones. The other 6 episodes are 1 hour in length (inc adverts)

Did anyone watch last night? What did you think? The adverts every 10 mins were very annoying but I enjoyed it 2nd time around!

Apparently it got over 7 million viewers, not sure how good that will be?

Downton Abbey had 7.7m viewers including HD and a 30.0% share.

So really quite good. Especially as STV opted out.

Very good for ITV drama these days - let's hope future episodes can sustain interest.

Edit: Out of interest, how does Law and Order: UK do these days ratings wise?

The number of adverts being discussed on ....

WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK/MEDIA

Some of my friends who I asked (made!) watch it said they gave up half way through. I guess it takes a while before it gets going. Others really enjoyed it tho.