by Thinus Ferreira
The "new" Downton Abbey will be on M-Net (DStv 101) with the premium blue-ribbon channel that has acquired Julian Fellowes' brand-new American-set period drama series, The Gilded Age as an Express from the US title.
The Gilded Age, from HBO, will make its debut on American television on Monday night with a double-episode start, and will start on M-Net a day later on Tuesday 25 January at 20:30.
Julian Fellowes is responsible for the hugely successful British period drama series Downton Abbey, and is looking to replicate its success with a similar type of story but in an American setting.
The 9-episode first season of The Gilded Age begins in 1882 in New York City when a young Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson) moves from rural Pennsylvania to New York City after the death of her father, to live with her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon).
"Accompanied by Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), an aspiring writer seeking a fresh start, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old-money set, and her stupendously rich neighbours, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife," the show's official logline reads.
"Exposed to a world on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?"
Several of the faces of The Gilded Age will be very familiar to DStv subscribers and have been on M-Net already, ranging from Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald of The Good Fight, to Cynthia Nixon of And Just Like That.
The Gilded Age will be available on DStv Catch Up after its prime time broadcast and is a co-production between HBO and Universal Television, a division of the Universal Studio Group.
