Kat with a K

Tonight on PBS: Downton Abbey

If you like British TV and/or costume dramas, you really don't want to miss Downton Abbey, premiering tonight on PBS's Masterpiece Classic.

Watch the full episode. See more Masterpiece.

I haven't seen a screener or anything, but so many critics whose opinions I respect have raved about it that I feel completely comfortable telling you to watch it. It's a family drama set in pre-World War I England, on a big estate, so there's drama with the servants as well as the main family. Like so many great British dramas, it centers on "a crisis of inheritance," this time amid the vanishing Victorian way of life. But really, since June Thomas has seen it and I haven't, you should read her review here. And then watch. I will be.

P.S. There's a vicious rumor going around that they cut a bunch out of the series for the American version. This is not true! It got started because the play time is shorter because they took out the commercials. So worry not.