Downton Abbey Season 3 Trailer Arrives Just In Time For British Premiere

In the beginning there was Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey and they were competitive but good. The former had dying monkeys, Eileen Atkins, and lesbian River Song.

They had a lot of back and forth because River Song was an archeologist and her girlfriend was married and a jerk and a writer and then they broke up and she hung out with her niece in law and they joined the military together AND IT WAS CANCELLED.

The latter had all of the plots of the original Upstairs, Downstairs and Maggie Smith.

This isn’t even full on Maggie Smith sassy face and I am entranced.

By God Maggie Smith won.

Now Upstairs, Downstairs is cancelled and Maggie Smith is throwing down with Shirley McClaine. A woman who Smith suspects “believes we were past lovers in another life.”

Because Smith is a no-nonsense kind of woman who has no time for McClaine, see this anecdote she told the Toronto Star:

When she talks about some of her stranger theories, you just listen. She told us in Santa Fe, there were UFOs up in the mountains and the bears were coming down to visit the local Starbucks as a result. I asked if they were all drinking skinny green lattes, but she never answered me.

But yeah, enough about how when Maggie Smith dies the entire world will go into mourning and we’ll all be unnecessarily sassy for at least a week in her honor. Let’s get onto the trailer for season 3 that shows a lot of smooching, some serious side eye and at least one choir of singing school kids because that’s still a thing in trailers.

The new season premieres on ITV in the UK next week. In the US we won’t be able to legally watch it until January 2013. By then it will be over in the UK AND they’ll have had a Christmas special so be extra wary on Tumblr y’aaaaaall.

Quotes Source [Toronto Star via Vulture]