“Downton Abbey,” “Sherlock” and More High Drama from PBS at TCA

On hand for the final “Downton” session and the cocktail party that followed: Cast members Joanne Froggatt, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Laura Carmichael and Penelope Wilton (pictured below, left to right), along with executive producer Gareth Neame (who is also the executive producer of BBC America’s upcoming “The Last Kingdom”). They were accompanied by “Masterpiece” executive producer Rebecca Eaton, who began the press conference by fretting, “Oh dear, oh dear. I never thought this day would come.”

Eaton’s wistfulness was understandable, given the many ways in which PBS and the “Masterpiece” franchise have benefited from “Downton” – the highest rated drama in PBS history.

“It’s a heartache that it’s ending,” Eaton said, fresh from watching a reel of highlights from the series’ first five seasons with the cast. “It’s a very dangerous thing to stand around with actors remembering things. Saying goodbye is going to be very, very hard, but we’re very, very proud.”

For what it’s worth, the International Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton, the location for this summer’s TCA tour, was more crowded than it had been for any other panel last week and likely just as packed as it will be for any of the broadcast sessions coming up this week and next. That’s the power and the pull of “Downton Abbey,” the departure of which is going to leave millions of viewers feeling perfectly miserable.

PBS will be feeling pretty miserable as well if it loses that giant “Abbey” audience. It has already taken big steps toward providing programs with potential outsize appeal, even if they aren’t as massive in their impact as “Downton.” A fresh batch of “Sherlock” movies will help, and it appears that this summer’s big hit “Poldark” is a keeper. (Never in 25 years of attending TCA tours have I heard so many PBS publicists rave about the abs on one of their leading men. They’re talking, of course, about the washboard midsection of “Poldark” star Aidan Turner.)

And then there are “Indian Summers” and “Mercy Street.” “Summers,” an actual “Masterpiece” production, is set largely at an English social club in India near the end of British rule. It bears some similarity to “Downton” with its mix of the English ruling class and the local people who serve them; it revolves around the social, political and romantic conflicts that come about as Indian independence looms. Academy Award nominee Julie Walters stars as the doyenne of the social club. Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Nikesh Patel, the two male leads of “Summers,” agreed with me that their series may appeal both to fans of “Downton” and also the successful “Most Exotic Marigold Hotel” movie franchise.

“Mercy Street” looks to be another potential keeper. It follows the lives of doctors, nurses and others working at the Mansion House Hospital in Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia in the early years of the Civil War, and it feels like it has enough soap opera elements to appeal to the “Downton” fan base (or fans of any fast-moving drama with multiple storylines and conflicting character relationships). The cast would seem to be more at home on Fox or The CW than PBS; it includes AnnaSophia Robb (“The Carrie Diaries”), Jack Falahee (“How to Get Away with Murder”), Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”), Cameron Monaghan (“Shameless”) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“The Spectacular Now”) along with Gary Cole (“The Good Wife”), Norbert Leo Butz (“Bloodline”), Tara Summers (“You’re the Worst”) and striking young unknown Hannah James, who will turn up in a major broadcast or cable series within a year or two, if not in feature films. You read it here first.