Sorry, PBS, the Brits Put Out a Far Better ‘Downton Abbey’ Trailer

These days there are trailers for everything. Not only for movies and TV shows but video games, books, perfumes, albums, wedding dress rehearsals, and even trailers of trailers. Somewhere in this trailer frenzy some people lose the art of the trailer. This time, it is PBS.

ITV, the British home of bi-coastal hit Downton Abbey put out a trailer for the upcoming third season of the show. Yes, another trailer! It mops the floor with the one that PBS put out just a few days ago. Both are a minute long and while the PBS version is long on exposition – explaining about new cast members, the arrival of Shirley MacLaine, and the Crawleys’ financial doom – the ITV version is long on action. We see everyone running, kissing, cuddling, dancing, jaunting across the wide lawn with a letter snatched in hand (which is the 1920 version of getting a text message), staring wide eyed at some unknown fright, unbuckling their pants, being discovered. What little snatches of dialog we see are more about creating mood an emotion than setting up a story. We don’t know exactly what is happening, but we want to watch it even more. That’s what a trailer is supposed to do. All of this over a classical music inspired version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” It’s, well, perfect.

ITV gets to air the show starting September 16 and the Americans are forced to wait until January. Thank god the Revolutionary War is long settled, because right now, the Brits are kicking our ass.