DOWNTON ABBEY Exec Reveals Season 5 Details: 'Brilliant Story Line', 'High Stakes Drama'

In a new interview with TVLine, DOWTON ABBEY executive producer Gareth Neame revealed details of the highly anticipated fifth season of the historic drama series.

"In the new season, we have the high-stakes drama, the laugh-out-loud comedy and the romance," Neame shared. "We have all of the characters doing the things people love to see them doing, but we have a few really nice twists and turns as well."

The exec revealed that fan fav Dowager Countess, portrayed by the incomparable Maggie Smith, would be featured in a bigger than normal plot in the new season. " "She has a brilliant story line this season," he revealed. "It's Downton at its best, this story line. It's fantastic."

While he did not divulge further details, he did suggest that the story may involve another member of the Crawley family or even a new guest star. "[E]very episode, we'll be having some guest; people come in and out. The show is always a melting pot of the regular characters in addition to guests," he says.

Neame also talked about the strong recovery the show made following the loss of Dan Steven's beloved character at the end of Season 3. "When Dan Stevens decided to leave the show - and we tried very hard to keep him - we thought, "Well, OK, let's get on with it." That door was closed. And we suddenly thought, "Actually, this is the best thing that could have happened to us." I'm actually really, really glad it happened. It gave us such a new direction to travel in for the show. Everyone wants Mary to be happy and for her to marry again, but nobody would want that to happen too quickly because they want to respect the memory of Matthew. It's about timing all those things correctly, and I really like the way we juggled two, maybe even three, suitors in the last season. She's still not quite sure, and I think there's a good hook for the audience in the fifth season to see which decision she's going to make."

Read the interview in full here

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