Downton Abbey Returns With More High-Society Secrets–And Sex!

This could be the year that Lady Mary takes a lover — or, at the very least, takes control. In the Season 5 premiere of PBS’s smash period drama Downton Abbey the eldest Crawley daughter (Michelle Dockery) considers a gentleman caller’s indecent proposal as they converse in her bedroom. Her one caveat if she is to agree to the tryst: “No one must ever find out.”

After two years of mourning her husband, Matthew, Mary is ready to “embrace her life and embrace change,” Dockery says. She’s regained the regal air and acerbic wit inherited from her formidable grandmother, the Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith, who has won two Emmys for her withering repartee). As Mary explains in the season premiere, she not only wants a proper father for her toddler, George, but also someone she can commit to without reservation — “I intend to be as happy with my second husband as I was with the first” — and she wants to ensure they’re compatible in every way. To that end, she’s still juggling the two suitors who wooed her last season: the sincere-seeming Tony Gillingham (Tom Cullen) and the blunt-talking Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden). “She’s leaning toward one of them,” Dockery teases, “but both are handsome, eligible men.”

Whether either will suit Mary’s standards is far from decided. “The forging of a second marriage is a complicated business,” executive producer Gareth Neame says. And Mary’s not the only one contemplating a second chance at love. Lord Merton (Douglas Reith) continues to woo Matthew’s mother, Isobel (Penelope Wilton), and Violet plays matchmaker. “Romance,” Neame says, “is not entirely reserved for the young.”

Mary’s reignited confidence extends outside the bedroom. The budding businesswoman is intent on making the financially precarious Downton profitable, and her plans often conflict with the old-fashioned ways of her father, Robert (Hugh Bonneville). “Robert has a morality based on the responsibilities of a 19th-century landowner. It’s adorable, but it leaves him and the estate vulnerable,” says creator Julian Fellowes, who himself lives in a 17th-century English manor house. “From a historical perspective, Downton’s future is far from certain. The 1920s are the first wave of the great families and their great houses going under. Mary is more a creature of the modern world.”

Still, as modern as she tries to be, Mary knows from experience that shattering society’s taboos is not something to undertake lightly. Losing her virginity in Season 1 to a visiting Turkish diplomat — who then died in her bed — nearly derailed her plans after the secret was leaked by her resentful sister Edith (Laura Carmichael). To save her family embarrassment, Mary agreed to marry an arrogant newspaper publisher so he wouldn’t write the story. (In the end, he showed a gentlemanly streak and quashed the exposé.) Since Mary feels obligated to enter marriage with complete honesty, will the next man she chooses be as forgiving as Matthew was when he learned the truth?

Secrets run though Downton like a river this season. No one is hiding a bigger one than Edith, who had a daughter after a dalliance with her married — and now missing — employer, Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards). Only her aunt Rosamund (Samantha Bond) and grandmother Violet know that Edith gave birth to a baby girl, but even they are unaware that Edith has placed the child, named Marigold, with a local farmer and his wife. “She’s trying to find a way to be part of Marigold’s life while keeping it from her family,” Carmichael says. “If they find out, it would be shocking and shameful.”

“[Society] could turn a blind eye to a widow having an affair,” says Fellowes, “but it wouldn’t forgive a young woman who got pregnant by a man who couldn’t marry her.” Between Mary and Edith’s bad luck the first time each had sex, Carmichael jokes, “I think Julian is trying to send a message to young women.”

Young men in the Downton era may have more sexual freedom, but they’re still shackled by class. Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the Crawleys’ former chauffeur and widower of youngest daughter Sybil, is caught between his Irish nationalist past and his present as a privileged guest of his titled in-laws. “Tom is trying to find his place in the world,” says Leech, adding that his fiery socialist friend, teacher Sarah Bunting (Daisy Lewis), is helping him. “The difficult question for Tom is, to be his own man, will he have to leave Downton?”

The downstairs members of the household also live in dread of secrets getting spilled. Baxter (Raquel Cassidy), Cora’s maid, is being blackmailed by conniving underbutler Thomas (Rob James-Collier). He knows about a crime from Baxter’s past and is forcing her to spy on maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt) and her husband, Bates (Brendan Coyle), whom Thomas has hated since Bates got the coveted job of Robert’s valet. What neither Baxter nor Thomas know is that Bates is a suspect in the murder of Green, Lord Gillingham’s valet, who raped Anna last season. Could Bates have avenged his wife by pushing Green under a bus? “There’s a danger about Bates,” Fellowes says, “that goes back to his time in prison when he was falsely convicted of killing his first wife.” Even Anna worries about his possible guilt. “What happened still haunts them,” Neame says. “As a fan, I hope this couple will get back to the heart of their relationship, which is incredibly strong and warm.”

With all these stories in play, viewers are lucky that Downton Abbey, again up for top honors at the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in January, has already been renewed for a sixth season. And despite reports that Season 6 would be the last, Fellowes says he has no plans to shutter the estate just yet. He cautions, however, that he’s not interested in “aging up the characters” or dragging them into the depressing 1930s.

Of course, if it were up to PBS, the Crawleys and their staff would see the 1950s and beyond. “Each year has surpassed the last,” says Rebecca Eaton, who for 29 years has been the executive producer of Masterpiec, the programming umbrella under which Downton falls. The ratings for Downton‘s fourth season grew 12 percent from the third, and the Masterpiece franchise has risen more than 100 percent since before Downton‘s premiere. This year PBS gave Masterpiece 20 more hours to program. New series include Grantchester, about a clergyman in 1950s England, premiering January 18; and Wolf Hall, an adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning historical novels, debuting in April and starring Homeland‘s Damian Lewis.

Dockery, for one, plans to stay with Downton until Fellowes is finished. “I love playing Mary, and I love being part of a show that for all of us has been really special,” she says. “None of us ever imagined how huge a success it would become. Why would I want to leave that?”

The Year in Cheers & Jeers

Here are some highlights from our annual look at the best and worst of the year in television…

Cheers to Academy Awards host Ellen DeGeneres for putting Hollywood royalty at ease while entertaining viewers at home. Whether ordering pizza for the famished audience or getting the stars to pose for a selfie that broke Twitter, Ellen stole the show. Cheers aren’t enough. Give her an Honorary Oscar.

Jeers to Extant for not living up to the out-of-this-world hype. Halle Berry’s first starring vehicle on TV was met with great fanfare this summer. But her series—in which she plays an astronaut who discovers she’s pregnant after an extended solo mission—failed to launch. Bizarre elements like a robot child further muddled the concept, and the buzz quickly crashed down to Earth. Let’s hope Season 2’s takeoff is less turbulent.

Cheers to great, fully realized LGBT characters on Orange Is the New Black (with Laverne Cox), Transparent, How to Get Away With Murder, Shameless, Gotham, Glee, Faking It, Looking…and so many others. Finally, TV has caught on that not everyone is straight, white, or stereotypical.

Cheers to The Walking Dead’s Carol (Melissa McBride), who has evolved from domestic-abuse victim to warrior goddess of the zombie apocalypse. She single-handedly rescued her tribe from the Terminus compound while hewing to a survive-at-all-costs code. Between her and the record ratings, Dead is more alive than ever.

Jeers to TV’s infatuation with rom-coms. The gimmicky Manhattan Love Story was the fall’s first cancellation, and tepid A to Z barely made it to “C” before fading. We understand the desire to create the next How I Met Your Mother, but these series also have to earn our love. Originality would be a start.

Cheers to the “glimmer twins” of figure-skating commentary, fashionista scene-stealers Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir. Though broadcasting on the smaller NBCSN network, the pair received raves for their barbed banter at the Winter Olympics, which earned them a promotion to NBC’s A team after they worked their stylish magic at the Oscars and Kentucky Derby, too. Here’s looking at you, because how could we not?

Cheers to the bonnie of a treat that is Outlander. Lush, lusty, and perfectly cast with Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe as star-crossed soul mates, the lavish, faithful adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s time-traveling book series was the hottest Saturday night date we’ve had in centuries.

Fan Favorites Awards 2014

And the winners are… TV Guide Magazine‘s fourth annual Fan Favorites Awards drew nearly 600,000 votes in 11 categories (the full list of winners is at the bottom of this story). Leading the way was the new Starz series Outlander, which took top honors as Favorite Drama and Favorite Duo…

She’s a married World War II battlefield nurse unexpectedly swept back in time to strife-torn 18th-century Scotland. He’s a chivalrous Highlander. Together, they’re television’s hottest couple. The passion between Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) has made Outlander, the romantic adventure saga based on Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novel series, a hit for Starz, drawing an average of 5 million multiplatform viewers per episode since it debuted last August. We talked to the leads about feeling the fan love.

You were insulated from all the buzz while shooting in the remote Scottish countryside. What did you think of the fans once you encountered them last July at San Diego Comic-Con?
Balfe: They’re extremely quiet and really shy. [Laughs]
Heughan: They’re amazing. During the screening of the premiere,
they recognized every line from the books and were talking amongst themselves!

What makes Claire and Jamie such a compelling couple?
Balfe: Individually, they’re very strong characters—but they don’t try to tame each other. They encourage each other to be the best they can be.
Heughan: They have quite a journey and face some really tough challenges. It’s fun to watch them go through that.

And then there’s the sex. The most-watched episode of the season was “The Wedding,” in which your characters consummated their relationship. Can fans expect more steamy love scenes?
Balfe: Oh, for sure! They are deeply connected. They have a very passionate relationship in all aspects.
Heughan: The wedding night was about them beginning to discover each other. It’s the very start of the relationship. The second part of the season develops their relationship—but the show gets darker.

Darker how?
Balfe: Claire is trying to adapt to the specific code of morals and justice of this time. It causes really dangerous situations for her and Jamie. The political workings cause a rift between them. But they battle through it. That’s what’s so great about them.

The midseason finale ended with Jamie poised to rescue Claire from sadistic English army captain Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies). Will Black Jack continue to be a threat?
Heughan: He’s at the forefront of the second part of the season.
Balfe: He doesn’t go away easily!

And will Claire continue to struggle with trying to get back to her 20th-century husband, Frank (also played by Menzies)?
Balfe: Being in the clutches of Black Jack, with Jamie coming to rescue her, it all comes to a head. Claire has to decide what she wants.

The second half of Season 1 doesn’t return for another four months. How can fans deal with withdrawal?
Heughan: If you’re like me, you find yourself a bar and just stay there.
Balfe: Reruns are good.

What are the most memorable gifts fans have sent you?
Heughan: Jamie spends a lot of time getting beaten up and hurt, and I just received a wonderful T-shirt that has a picture of Jamie labeled with all his injuries and scars. It’s really accurate!
Balfe: I got a beautiful handwoven scarf—a tartan designed and registered especially for me. It was the most incredible gift I’ve ever gotten.

Outlander returns for Season 2 on Saturday, April 4, 2015.

Fan Favorites Awards winners:

Favorite Drama: Outlander

Favorite Comedy: The Big Bang Theory

Favorite Actor: Nathan Fillion, Castle

Favorite Actress: Stana Katic, Castle

Favorite Reality Competition Show: The Voice

Favorite Horror Show: The Walking Dead

Favorite Sci-fi/Fantasy Show: Arrow

Favorite New Show: The Flash

Favorite Duo: Claire & Jamie, Outlander

Favorite Villain: Regina/Evil Queen, Once Upon a Time

Favorite Guilty Pleasure: Syfy movies

Dynamic Duo: The Flash and Arrow Team Up for Epic Crossover

If you hadn’t noticed, comic books are no laughing matter on TV these days. AMC’s The Walking Dead is TV’s top-rated show; Fox’s Batman prequel, Gotham, is a bona fide freshman hit; Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a solid performer for ABC; and CBS is eyeing a Supergirl series to call its own. When it comes to heat, well-drawn heroes would seem to have it.

And the only thing hotter than a do-gooder is a pair of them—in leather, no less—which is why the two-night crossover event on The Flash and Arrow (airing December 2 and 3) has everyone involved with the shows so fired up. “There is something really special about assembling two [casts] to work together,” says Grant Gustin, star of The Flash.

That excitement isn’t reserved solely for The CW’s comics-derived shows. “We feel blessed to be part of a renaissance for these kinds of characters,” says Greg Berlanti, an executive producer of both Arrow and The Flash. “When you watch Constantine and Gotham, it makes you feel part of a larger world. People are looking to find competition among the shows, but we’re all so proud to be a part of this.”

After spinning The Flash off from a two-episode Arrow arc that introduced Glee veteran Gustin as nerdy forensic scientist Barry Allen last season, Guggenheim, Berlanti, and fellow executive producer Andrew Kreisberg (now The Flash’s showrunner) almost immediately began plotting this convergence. While other shows have waited to make sure their spawn had legs before merging the two (see The Vampire Diaries and The Originals), the trio had no qualms about bringing Stephen Amell’s emerald archer Oliver Queen and Gustin’s lightning-fast Allen back together so soon.

“Crossovers are part of their DNA,” explains Berlanti, citing the frequent back-and-forths among the shows’ DC Comics source materials. Besides, it’s not as though the characters don’t already share connective tissue: Scientists Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), now on The Flash, visited Starling City last season to work on an antidote to bad-guy Slade Wilson’s supersoldier serum; Queen appeared in the Flash pilot; and Arrow’s tech expert, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), checked in with the S.T.A.R. Labs gang on The Flash in October. “We felt that there would be an expectation to keep the Arrow and Flash worlds colliding sooner rather than later,” Berlanti continues, “and if we waited until the back half of the season just to prove a point that the shows could survive without each other, then we would be depriving the audience of something we all wanted to see.”

Not that they needed to worry about the new show being a Flash in the pan. A hefty 6.8 million viewers tuned in to the first episode (live and on DVR within the first week) to see Gustin race around in red leather, making it the most-watched episode in The CW’s history. No, the biggest challenge to this TV team-up was the logistics of an undertaking more daunting than anything Arrow’s villainous Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) could hatch.

“We had to do a lot to make the schedules work,” Guggenheim says, adding that there was “no financially responsible” way to do this crossover. Hours went long, budgets were blown, and the actors often had to film scenes for both shows in one day (thankfully, their soundstages share the same Vancouver lot).

To come up with scripts that worked together as a cohesive story and as closed-ended arcs that could stand alone for each series, the producers implemented a writing-staff exchange program: Arrow’s Ben Sokolowski and The Flash’s Brooke Eikmeier cowrote the Flash teleplay, while Guggenheim worked with Flash writer Grainne Godfree on the Arrow installment. “I give a huge amount of credit to both casts and crews,” Guggenheim says, throwing in extra praise for the first-year team working on The Flash. “It’s one thing for a show in its third season to attempt something like this, because everything is clicking and moving on all cylinders.”

According to Amell, “There is no way to sugarcoat it: We had to jam another episode into the 23-episode schedule for each of our shows.” Joined by Gustin in his spacious, two-level trailer complete with overstuffed leather couches, the Arrow star brews coffee for his guests while a slideshow of his 1-year-old daughter, Mavi, runs on a big-screen TV. Despite the superheroic efforts asked of both actors over the last two weeks, they are chatty, upbeat, and clearly satisfied with the results. “The schedule was not ideal,” Amell adds. “But the episodes are going to be really good, and the fans are gonna love it.”

Teased at the end of Arrow’s November 19 episode, the crossover revs up on The Flash on December 2 when Oliver and Co. hit the road for Barry’s Central City in search of maniacal George Harkness, aka Captain Boomerang (Spartacus alum Nick Tarabay), who is using the deadly weapons for which he’s named to exact what appears to be revenge against the government agency A.R.G.U.S. Once there, they reluctantly help Team Flash battle its own nemesis, a metahuman named Rainbow Raider (Paul Anthony), who projects emotions onto his victims, often with violent results.

Titled “Flash vs. Arrow,” the first hour finds Oliver and Barry not just clashing over their individual crime-fighting techniques, but also each other. “There is a legitimate fight sequence between Arrow and Flash,” says Guggenheim, who declines to spoil the reason for the pair’s beef. “In fact, in both episodes, you see that, even though they are on good terms, there is still conflict. They are two very different guys.”

Likewise, the two shows have vastly different tones, which gave the Arrow cast a chance to leave Starling City’s grim vibe behind for a bit. “The Flash universe is lighter. It is a completely different energy,” says David Ramsey, who, as Oliver’s usually stern right-hand man, John “Digg” Diggle, scores some of the crossover’s funniest moments after meeting Central City’s speediest citizen. “The whole metahuman thing freaks him out,” Ramsey says. “He asks if Barry does everything fast, like does he go to the bathroom fast? That actually comes out of Diggle’s mouth!”

The short-term blending of these families also allowed the producers to bring a little of Arrow’s moodiness to the more colorful Flash. “There is a revelation regarding Oliver that is one of the biggest bombs we have ever dropped [on the shows],” Kreisberg says.

The following night, on Arrow’s “The Brave and the Bold” (the title is an homage to DC’s classic team-up comic book series), the darkness really settles in when Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco visit Oliver’s hometown. “We say goodbye at the end of the Flash episode, but Felicity asks Caitlin for a favor,” says Panabaker. That involves running tests on a DNA sample linked to the arrow that killed Oliver’s fellow crime fighter Canary/Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) in Arrow’s season premiere—but Valdes confesses that Cisco and Caitlin also have an ulterior motive for the road trip. “She tries to mask it like we have a few days off from S.T.A.R. Labs,” the actor says with a laugh. “But Cisco simply goes, ‘We want to see the Arrow cave!’ He’s geeking out.”

Not for long, however. Once the teams reunite and resume the search for Captain Boomerang, “something significant happens in the middle of the episode to someone we care about,” Guggenheim teases. “And the Flash characters are like, ‘Whoa, this is very serious.’ It reminds them that, even though they have this element of fun and games—they give their villains nicknames—the stakes are very real and very serious.”

On the heels of that ominous development, “you get to see all of the heroes working together,” says Colton Haynes, who plays Arrow’s street kid–turned-vigilante Roy Harper. Staging their pre-mission powwow at the Arrow’s lair makes for a crowded but happy set. Rickards and Panabaker work on a scripted joke-laden exchange about Oliver’s workout schedule as Valdes and Gustin each film bits on the famed salmon-ladder apparatus. Air blasters scatter loose papers to punctuate the effects of Barry’s windy entrances and exits, while the convivial chatter among the assembled cast members during their breaks sounds like a group of old friends, not folks who have worked together for only a couple of weeks. That’s a good thing, since the discovery of a vital piece of evidence in Sara’s death is set to impact everyone on the canvas and could inform any future joint adventures. “Both shows are changed as a result of the crossover,” Guggenheim says. “There will be long-lasting repercussions.”

Like maybe a newfound bromance between our often combative heroes? “When we wrap up this crossover, Oliver and Barry are on the best terms they’ve ever been on,” Gustin says, while Amell all but guarantees that our heroes will hang out again. “By the end,” a smiling Amell says, “I’ve done the equivalent of buying him a toothbrush and leaving it in the bathroom.”

What a straight shooter.