PBS is making a fifth trip to the 'Abbey'

BEVERLY HILLS — Come winter, PBS is heading back to the Abbey.

The fifth season of Masterpiece's biggest hit, Downton Abbey, will arrive on PBS on Jan. 4. It will have already finished its British run by then — but now and then the Downton folks are determined to keep a tight lid on spoilers.

Which means that pretty much all you're going to get out of someone like Joanne Froggatt, an Emmy nominee for her role as Anna, is generalities. She and a few of her fellow cast members were on a panel talking to members of the Television Critics Association late Tuesday.

"There is what we all hope for and expect, which is drama, love, comedy. There's all of those elements still there really, really strongly. And I'm really proud of Season 5. …There's new. There's old. There's those stories we want to find out about, and there's new stories happening, as well."

Like, for example, "the unicorn farm no one expects," jokes Allen Leech, who plays Branson. "It's right out of left field."

They will tell us this: The show picks up six months after last season's finale, with Anna still shaken by her rape and harboring doubts about her husband. As she should, someone points out, considering he's a murderer.

"How dare you!" Froggatt jokingly replies.

This year, Froggatt says, Anna and Bates are "both keeping secrets from each other in order to protect the other person. So it comes from a place of love and respect, but still there's this thing between them that they both know they're not quite being honest with each other, and they can sense it."

In her "heart of hearts," Froggatt says, Anna doesn't think Bates is a murderer — in part because she's not aware that her husband knew Green was the rapist. "However, she has this doubt, and it just doesn't leave her. It's something that sort of haunts her in Season 5."

So, who will Mr. Bates murder this season? "Again, how dare you!"

As for Anna's employer, Lady Mary, played by Emmy nominee Michelle Dockery, she'll continue to bounce between two suitors.

"She's embracing her new life, really," says Dockery. "I think she's through the grief now. And I kind of see (Season) 5 for Mary as the new Mary, in a way. And so with that, she's got a bit of her bite back that we had in (Season) 1, which I've enjoyed playing. It was lovely to do (Season) 4 with playing all of that emotion and everything, but this is a lot more fun."

For those, however, who are hoping that the fun will include a romance between Lady Mary and Branson — so-called "shippers" Leech calls "Brarys" — the actors have bad news. The two characters will continue to grow closer as friends and confidantes, but love is not in the mix.

That's fine with Leech, who is just happy to still be in the show. Leech was originally hired for three episodes, but Branson eventually grew into a love interest for, and then husband to, Jessica Brown Findlay's Lady Sybil. When Findlay departed and Sybil died, however, Leech says, "I thought that might be it for me, as well. … In no way did I expect that I'd still be here, but I'm still delighted that I am. And I'll be honest. I'm expecting to meet a truck on a narrow lane."

While Mary and Branson were bonding last season, Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) was searching for the missing lover who left her with child. At the end of the season, she gave the baby away to the estate's pig keeper, just one more blow for a character who seems to have suffered more than her share of setbacks and gets more than her share of insults.
As does Carmichael, a very pretty woman who is often asked what it's like being the show's "ugly duckling."

"I find it so weird. I mean, it's just a character you play. … Particularly in the beginning, she wasn't soft or kind or attractive in that way. So it's always very weird to respond to it. I don't feel sort of targeted. And people always say, 'They make you look awful.' And I'm like, 'I think that they work quite hard in the morning making me up.' "

Oh, and as for those Internet theories that Edith is actually Rosamund's daughter? Carmichael says no.

Death has stalked Downton more than once, leading some to wonder whom it will call next. ("You're expecting Downton Abbey: Red Wedding, aren't you?" says Leech.) But producer Gareth Neame says the people behind the show "don't underestimate how beloved these characters are" and won't kill them off at random.

Despite the show's popularity and Emmy recognition, the last season did have its share of critics. Neame has heard the complaints. He just doesn't agree with them.

"When I look back at (Season) 4, I actually think it was one of the strongest seasons that we have ever had. I think one of the difficulties with some of the earlier seasons — for example, Season 2 — and having to cover the war, it sort of slightly took us out of our environment. Characters left the home and went elsewhere, and we had to try and cover those things. There's something very core Downton about Season 4. It's all very rooted. I'm not saying everything we've done is perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. We certainly would. But Season 4, I'm very pleased with."

Now let's hope we can say the same about Season 5.