I have to admit that this is the very first episode of DOWNTON ABBEY that I have ever seen. This is mostly due to the fact that I live most of my time in a country where it has not yet been broadcast. On first viewing, I have to admit a terrible feeling of déja vu. Having grown up on UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS in the Seventies, I feel that DOWNTON ABBEY largely steals most of its ideas from that earlier series - especially its focus on the contrasting lives of masters and their servants. DOWNTON ABBEY has its plus points: a clutch of good performances led by Maggie Smith as the old dowager, Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham and Jim Carter as Carson the butler. The story-lines are the stuff of soap opera, where history matters less than personal issues; this is what renders the series so compelling. There are some irritating aspects: the script contains some unfortunate anachronisms (no one in the mid-twentieth century would have referred to their nearest and dearest as "loved ones"), and there are the obligatory heritage film shots of the family home with cars pulling up and driving away, and the rolling Yorkshire landscapes (this type of shot was clichéd even in the Eighties). But the characters are memorable, and the script contains sufficient hooks for viewers to keep watching week after week to see what happens. This is really what separates a good from an average historical drama series.