NBC hires Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes to create America's own Downton Abbey, for America

Hoping to prove that neither England nor PBS have a monopoly on wealthy people in corsets embroiled in soap opera scandals, NBC has drafted Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes to recreate that sort of heightened costume drama Stateside with The Gilded Age, an "epic tale of the princes of the American Renaissance, and the vast fortunes they made—and spent—in late 19th-century New York." Indeed, it was a fun, sexy time for America, with Fellowes saying he hopes to capture an era full of "dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls, of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry …  a time when money was king." A time when the Vanderbilts and Astors built gigantic mansions for their horses to live in. When whale oil was replaced with kerosene, which led to endless wild parties where society's finest would get together and not slaughter whales. That time.

Anyway, NBC has yet to indicate when The Gilded Age might air or even begin production—and Fellowes is obviously busy with the just-renewed, original Downton Abbey—so in the meantime, you'll just have to continue making your overdubs of Downton Abbey with hilarious New York accents. You're still doing that, right? You should send us some.