Downton Abbey creator and showrunner Julian Fellowes has been hired by NBC to script and produce a new period drama for American audiences.
TVLine’s Michael Ausillio has scooped the news that American fans of the British drama Downton Abbey may soon be able to enjoy another period piece from creator Julian Fellowes. The series, commissioned by NBC and titled The Gilded Age, is set in 1880’s New York and reportedly will focus on the “millionaire titans” of the time.
The Gilded Age is a step backward in time from the days of Downton Abbey and Fellowes’ miniseries Titanic, but it is a period which could easily be thought of as “the good old days” by the wealthy, well-heeled characters of those series. The late 19th century “was a vivid time,” Fellowes said, replete with “dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls, of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry; a time when money was king.” NBC describes The Gilded Age as “an epic tale of the princes of the American Renaissance, and the vast fortunes they made – and spent.”
The darker side of the Gilded Age (as suggested by its name) is closely connected to this preeminence of the dollar. Many Americans lived in crushing poverty at the time, while practices like child labor and worker exploitation were common and unionization was still illegal. Though Downton Abbey focuses primarily on the rosier side of the early 20th century, The Guilded Age will have the opportunity to expand its focus, and potentially feature characters on both sides of the enormous socioeconomic divisions in American society at the time.
Julian Fellowes will certainly be keeping himself busy in the year to come. Series 3 of Downton Abbey concludes on Christmas day with a two-hour special episode, and the show has been renewed for a fourth series, set to air in autumn 2013. Additionally, rumors still drift about a Downton Abbey prequel, telling the story of Robert and Cora Crawley, being planned for some time in the future.
As for Americans, season 3 of Downton Abbey premiers on PBS on Jan. 6.
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