Get Your Drop Waists Ready! Downton Abbey Is Getting a Fourth Season and It's Set in the Twenties

Happy news for Downton fans above and below the stairs! The British costume drama has been renewed for a fourth season that will drag the Crawleys kicking and screaming (because they’re doing the Lindy-hop) into the roaring twenties. We Yanks (at least those of us who are too ~~internet illiterate~~ moral to stream the episodes online) have yet to see season 3 — it premieres January 6 on PBS — but the season has already been shown in full in the U.K. where it’s drawn in stellar ratings.

While we may have not seen the most recent season of Downton Abbey, it seems safe to say that a renewal, especially one that will bring the show into an era as stylish (sigh, think of Mary’s costumes) and exciting (sigh, think of how gay Thomas can get) as the 1920s, is a safe bet. Sadly, however, there is one Matthew Crawley-shaped cloud that’s threatening to rain on our fancy British parade — Dan Stevens, the actor who plays Matthew, has suggested that he might not come back to the show. Dammit, Dan! That is such a first season Matthew Crawley move.

(Speaking of Matthew, remember how when he first showed up, he was kind of a drip, but then his legs stopped working and he had those dark circles under his ice blue husky eyes and suddenly he became super, super hot? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d miss him if he were gone.)