Downton Abbey is now a weird parallel universe of the royal family. Except with less action

Are you following the world’s most watched aristocratic family? If you recall, they recently took into their ranks a member of the middle classes. The family, headed by a matriarch, is as dysfunctional as any other. But they do live in a palatial home and have a coterie of servants. Their sense of fashion is unerring. There are worries about the future and about inheritance. A boy, George, has been born. Downton Abbey — now a global phenomenon — caters to our insatiable curiosity about the royal family. The more we see of Queen Elizabeth, Charles, William and Kate at processions, and so forth, the more it leaves us wanting. How do these blue bloods actually live? Downton takes us there. The costume drama has been compared to Upstairs, Downstairs, even to Brideshead Revisited. But it’s actually The Windsors: Behind Closed Doors.

Wily ITV! Back when Downton first appeared on our screens — around the time the royal wedding was announced — the TV channel must have sensed the zeitgeist, the international appetite for a soapy series on the British nobility and its posse of plebs.