ITV renews Downton Abbey for a 3rd season!

Great news! While US fans (like myself) haven't even seen season 2 (it premieres here on PBS Masterpiece on January 8th, 2012 ...65 more days!) of Downton Abbey, and the UK fans are currently enjoying the second season with its final episode showing this Sunday, ITV has renewed Downton Abbey for a third season! It will consist of eight episodes that will follow the Crawley household into the roaring, post-war 1920s. The main (and supporting) cast including Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Dan Stevens, and as Isobel Crawley, widowed mother of Dan Stevens' Matthew Crawley, heir to the large estate of Downton Abbey is said to be returning too! Also, A Christmas special airs late next month! 

Now, if only I could see S2 already...I can't wait and is eagerly anticipating season 2 of DA!!! January 8, 2012 can't come fast enough!

Here's part of the article from The Guardian...

Downton Abbey: ITV confirms third series

ITV has confirmed there will be a third series of its popular period drama Downton Abbey.
Filming for a new series of the Julian Fellowes drama, set in 1920 and 1921, will begin in the new year, and be broadcast from September 2012.

Fellowes said: "I am extremely grateful to ITV for this. I have grown very fond of my Downton family and I certainly do not want to say goodbye to them quite yet."

The final episode of the second series, set just after the end of the first world war and starring Maggie Smith and Hugh Bonneville, airs this Sunday on ITV1. The third series will cover a period of 18 months in the lives of the Crawley family between 1920 and 1921.

Laura Mackie, ITV's director of drama commissioning, said: "We're absolutely delighted to be bringing Downton Abbey back for a third series, as we follow the inhabitants of Downton as they move into the roaring 20s.

"It's rare to find a drama that the audience connects with so strongly and we're extremely proud to have commissioned a series that has become such a phenomenon." Read full article.

Meanwhile PBS Masterpiece just release a new preview trailer for DA's S2 (probably to whet our appetites here in the U.S. while we wait)...

(source: PBS)

While I liked the clips used by PBS, I prefer the music in the ITV trailer for DA S2 below...

(source: speedtrls)