When Dan Stevens left “Downton Abbey” at the end of last year’s Season Three, taking his character Matthew Crawley with him, Stevens said he didn’t see many more dramatic places for Matthew to go.
A lot of “Downton Abbey” fans, and let’s remember we are talking about the most-watched series in PBS history, disagree.
My wife is among them. She is on record announcing that she will never forgive Dan Stevens.
Maintaining permanent resentment, however, was not an option for Julian Fellowes, the writer of “Downton Abbey,” and producer Gareth Neame.
They soldiered on and wrote a Season Four, which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. and has the unenviable task of creating, in many ways, a new “Downton” world.
A world that, for those tens of millions of fans, will be measured against the memory of the first three seasons, which are already encased in amber.
Can Fellowes create another scene that stirs the same passion as Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) saying goodbye to Matthew at the station as he boards a train for the trenches of World War I?
Nick Briggs
Dan Stevens as Matthew Crawley and Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary in "Downton Abbey." Stevens and his character left at the end of last season.
Dockery herself acknowledges the challenge. She thinks Fellowes has met it.
“When I first heard Dan was leaving, it was a bit unsettling,” says Dockery. “But it’s also an opportunity to do other things.
“For Mary, it sent her back to that rather cool side she showed in the first season. I have to say I enjoy playing that.”
Stevens’ departure has two immediately obvious and profound effects on Season Four.
First, it rearranges almost all the relationships on the show. Beyond the fact Matthew’s love affair with Mary was the romantic centerpiece of “Downton Abbey,” the good-natured Matthew also became a bridge for numerous other characters.
He connected Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and chauffeur turned son-in-law Tom Branson (Allen Leech). He connected Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith) to his modern mother Isobel (Penelope Wilson).
He also served as a bridge between generations, gently working to catapult a resistant Lord Grantham into the 20th century.
Nick Briggs
In Season Four of "Downton Abbey," Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) continues her romance with magazine editor Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards).
All those functions now must fall to others.
Second, his absence opens up a big block of screen time, and in a cast as large as this one, getting extra minutes is like winning the “Downton Abbey” lottery.
Laura Carmichael, who plays Lady Edith, was already getting more time and a more complex story last season, and that continues in Season Four as she pursues her romance with London magazine editor Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards).
Once the homely sister who was jilted at the altar and who her parents felt would be “the one who will take care of us in our old age,” Edith took Violet’s tough-love advice and moved on.
She outraged her father, and delighted Matthew, when she wrote columns for The Times of London calling for women’s suffrage. She began traveling to London on her own and dressing in the style of the day.
“It’s been quite a ride for Edith,” says Carmichael. “She’s discovering just how exciting the world can be for a young girl.
“I think she would have been content living in the world where she grew up. But when that didn’t seem to be an option, she found the new one, and she’s still getting a sense of how different it is.”
Nick Briggs/AP
Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess Violet continues to offer witty retorts in the new season of "Downton Abbey."
Carmichael suggests Edith may take some of her cues from the other major character who died last season, her sister Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay).
“Sybil was always the rebel,” Carmichael notes. “I think that after she died, Edith took her as an inspiration.”
All three Crawley sisters have had complex story lines and also played increasingly vital roles over the decade the show has unfolded, 1912-1922.
“It was obviously a time when the world was changing,” says Dockery. “The war, the emerging role of women.
“But our characters didn’t just change because of the world around us. You see our own evolution, too. When the series started, we were like petulant children. Then we grew up.”
“Downton Abbey” stood out from the beginning as a series where women weren’t just shuffled around like pawns despite living in a male-dominated world.
While the Dowager Countess’ one-liners get much of the attention, she has also offered reason, common sense and a periodic old-fashioned scold.
Nick Briggs
Sophie McShera returns to the kitchen as Daisy in Season Four of "Downton Abbey."
While Carson the butler (Jim Carter) nominally runs the downstairs, he wisely depends on head housekeeper Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), another repository for kindness and common sense.
“More than Carson, I think Mrs. Hughes sees that things are changing,” says Logan. “She’s practical. She favors some of it.”
Logan declines to nominate Mrs. Hughes for sainthood, though. “To tell you the truth,” Logan says with a laugh, “I think she’s kind of a busybody.”
No, the leading candidate for sainthood the first three seasons would be Anna (Joanne Froggatt), lady’s maid to Lady Mary.
While Anna is no Pollyanna, she’s kind and fair-minded and spent the first three seasons negotiating land mines to eventually marry and settle down with Lord Grantham’s valet, John Bates (Brendan Coyle).
“To me, Anna is the heart of the show,” says Neame. “She’s the character you’d most like to have as a friend.”
Asked if Anna and Bates will finally be able to settle down and enjoy a happy life together, Froggatt lets out an almost involuntary burst of laughter.
“I’d like to think that will happen,” she says. “Of course, along the way a few things will happen.”
That’s a good general description for Season Four of “Downton Abbey,” whose deep pool of dramas will not dry up in the post-Matthew age.
Anna and Bates. Edith and Gregson. Lady Mary and the ghost of Matthew. Thomas and life in the world he once scorned. The future of the estate. Not to mention whatever schemes evil downstairs Thomas (Rob James-Collier) has up his well-starched sleeves.
Season Four may not be starting in exactly the world my wife wants, but sometimes you just have to go with the world you’ve got.
dhinckley@nydailynews.com
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