“Downton Abbey: Season 4” U.S. Premiere in January 2013

Stateside fans of Downton Abbey, rejoice! PBS announced today the date of the mega-hit series’ Season 4 premiere!

Yes, miladies and my lords, the Crawleys will be gracing our screens once again when Downton Abbey: Season 4 premieres on Sunday, 5 January 2014, on PBS Masterpiece Classic.

With Jessica Brown Findlay, Siobhan Finneran, and Dan Stevens having left the cast, we can only anticipate with stiff-upper-lip glee what writer and creator Julian Fellowes has in store for us.

Will Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) have a new suitor in family friend Lord Gillingham (Tom Cullen, World Without End)? Will Green (Nigel Harman, EastEnders), the new valet, pick up where O’Brien left off with the fiendish shenanigans? And who is this jazz singer Jack Ross (Gary Carr, Death in Paradise), aside from being the first black character of the series?

And will even more viewers become Downtonites and help break last season’s rating records for PBS? Season 3 of Downton Abbey was PBS’ highest-rated drama of all time, and the series finale drew an average audience of a whopping 12.3 million viewers, beating all other prime time programs and smashing all ratings records for the public television network.

We’ll find out in 236 days.

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