Good news, overly patriotic fans of stuffy British period dramas: No longer will you have to turn to our friends across the pond for your gorgeously shot, class-obsessed depictions of staid cultures taking tea on the brink of sudden, uncontrollable revolution. Variety reports that NBC has given a series order to The Gilded Age, a new, American-set period piece from Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes.
Set in 1880s New York, the show sounds as close to a Stateside Abbey transplant as you might reasonably hope to get, charting the rise of social activism, new money snobbery, and constant cultural upheaval, all through the lens of very pretty people living in very pretty houses that we all secretly wish we could own. (And honestly, if you never watched Downton Abbey, you can get a pretty good sense of the tone here from the fact that one of the characters is described as “rakish and available.”)
Fellowes has been working on the new series since 2012, well before Abbey finished its eventual six-season run. The Oscar and Emmy-winning writer called finally writing the series—which is set to premiere with a 10-season start on NBC next year—“the fulfillment of a personal dream,” expressing his sincere appreciation for this tumultuous time in American history.