“Downton”: How PBS Got Cool

That’s the ridiculous headline on a Daily Beast story about how the success of “Downton Abbey” has brought PBS an increase in donations and “an unlikely place in the Zeitgeist.” As a regular PBS watcher, I’m thrilled that there’s been a beneficial “Downtown” bounce. But I can assure you the last thing I feel when I watch “Downton” is “cool.” As for the talk that it’s made PBS hip, I can only quote the inimitable dowager played by Maggie Smith (pictured): “One can’t go to pieces” every time a few more people watch public television.

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