Downton Abbey - Season Four

Season Four of this enormously popular and luxuriously beautiful series begins with Matthew Crawley's memory shockingly present in the minds of the grieving family. After making it through a war, the heir to the great house has succumbed to a car accident. Both the family and the servants will deal with this tragedy and other adventures as the end of the first Great War evolves into an era of fun, frivolity and decadence.

There are plenty of new cast members as gentlemen vie for Lady Mary's hand (Michelle Dockery). And that divide of classes that is so much a part of "Downton Abbey" is notched up when a cross-cultural romance comes in to play between a member of the great house's aristocracy and a sexy, black jazz musician.

Whether part of the Crawley family or part of the complicated substructure of servants that comprises the Downton Abbey community, characters fight to maintain a way of life even as they dream of a better one.

This is why we love this series: we can't get enough of those fiery passions burning beneath the well-ordered surface. But just like the war and Matthew's death, conflicts will arise that are beyond any one person's control.

The special features are particularly enjoyable. "The Downton Diaries" chronicle a day on the set with Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith), Sophie McShera (Daisy) and other members of the cast and crew. We get to see how they deal with sound recording issues, which scenes are the most uncomfortable to shoot, who wears a wig and who wears her own hair, and who needs help being strapped into her corset. It's an intriguing glimpse into those fascinating little production trivialities the company fights with for the 13-day long shooting of an episode.

I'd love to be able to tell you that I recognized all the marvelously clever design choices in the series (like how Lady Mary's black mourning dress echoes her white wedding dress,) but those amazing little details are explained in "The Making Of." We also get to meet the new cast in the special features.

Anyone who says (like John Hodgman) that this series is just a remake of "Upstairs/Downstairs" is completely ignoring the extraordinary design elements of this show.

You can't help but be overwhelmed by Lady Edith's stunning, beaded blue peacock dress in Episode 1. With this dress, this character is transformed as she goes to London to meet her married lover, Charles Edwards (Michael Gregson). The unpleasant wallflower, the dour, peevish girl that we've grown to know up to this point blossoms into the most alluring and risqu� flapper.

Lady Edith exemplifies a cultural revolution, the end of the war and the beginning of the roaring 1920s. It's remarkable to behold.

If you own other seasons of "Downton Abbey," the picture quality of Season Four will neither surprise nor disappoint. The 1080p (1.78:1 aspect ratio) encode looks splendid in well-lit scenes, highlighting those gorgeous design details. Unfortunately, it is full of large black areas with little detail in the dark scenes.

Downton Abbey: Season Four | Original U.K. Edition
PBS 2013
534 min
Not rated, Jan 28, 2014
Video: Codec: MPEG-4 AVC | Resolution: 1080p | Aspect ratio: 1.78:1 | Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1 | Region A
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Subtitles: English