Downton Abbey

By Sean O'Neal | August 15, 2012 | 6:24pm

Aux News Coming Distractions

Presented in a manner that is simultaneously aristocratic and typical of the thieving working class, here is a bootlegged trailer for the third season of Downton Abbey, its grubby, purloined nature offset by the rich, plummy laughter of the genuine British person who apparently taped it off his telly. Anyway, putting aside its unfortunate breeding, the preview offers plenty of the class warfare drama that fans have come to expect from the show. At one point Lady Grantham even says the word "drama"—explicitly in reference to the arrival of her mother, played by Shirley MacLaine, and how Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess seemingly struggles to refrain from retching over her being an American.

But it also applies to a lot of other dramatic, Downton Abbey-ish things: Matthew and Mary having more weepy, lip-trembling fights; Bates, still being sad and in prison; and, in what is probably the season's overarching storyline, the fact that the Granthams are apparently poor now. Will they be able to save the estate before dying of embarrassment? Will Bates ever get to be happy for one miserable moment? Will Matthew and Mary ever shut the fuck up and just be in love already? If you're British or know how to work the Internet, you'll find out starting in September; law-abiding Americans (gag) will find out in January on PBS.