The end of Downton Abbey, in which all the characters will wake up in some sort of afterlife reality and slowly meet up at a different abbey before going off into heaven (it’s a Lost joke), is fast approaching, and series creator Julian Fellowes is getting ready to move on to his next project—NBC’s American Downton Abbey, The Gilded Age. However, in light of Better Call Saul and revivals like the new X-Files, we know that shows that appear to be over are never actually over, and Fellowes acknowledged that in a recent Variety interview.
When Variety asked Fellowes how he feels as his show is ending, he at first offered the usual stuff about how far he and the people who work on the show have come over the years, especially with how famous some of the actors have become, and he says that he feels “rather sad” every time he realizes that he’s written a character’s last lines. However, he does clarify that he never feels as though he’s “done the wrong thing” by ending that show. That being said, he also admits that Downton Abbey could be brought back “as a movie or a play or a musical or a ballet,” which is probably good news for what we assume is the big crossover audience between PBS viewers and ballet fans.
Fellowes also expressed his sympathy to American Downton Abbey fans who will have to wait a few months to (legally) see the finale after U.K. viewers do, but it doesn’t sound like he’s anticipating any kind of solution to that. We’ll just have to be careful about spoilers on all of the popular Downton Abbey message boards.