This may be the golden age of television, but if so, it has a dark luster. The most talked-about series of the decade include sadomasochistic fairy tales (“Game of Thrones”), cynical farces (“House of Cards”) and dystopian parables (“The Handmaid’s Tale”).

And then there was “Downton Abbey.”

Writer-producer Julian Fellowes’ comfort-food costume drama, set in a Yorkshire manor house from 1912 to 1926, turned out to be brilliant counterprogramming. An instant hit in the U.K. in 2010, it crossed the pond to PBS as a “Masterpiece” title and became the network’s most watched drama ever.

Four years after the series finale, the intrigues of the Crawley family and their (mostly) loyal servants are continuing on the big screen in a two-hour film that opens Sept. 20 in the U.S. (a week later than Britain).

Jolly old Fellowes?

“I think the Americans responded to the warmth of the series,” Fellowes said in a recent interview with azcentral.com. “They don’t like negativity as a people, in my opinion. They respond to positivity, and it was a positive show, an optimistic show.”

“Optimistic” may or may not be the best word to describe the current zeitgeist, but Fellowes, who just turned 70, is comfortable being a contrarian in the cause of positivity — and of tradition. After all, that’s what “Downton Abbey” has been about from the beginning: an aristocratic family’s quest to remain relevant (a cynic might say retain their privilege) in a progressive era.

With 15 minutes on the phone to probe the secrets of Fellowes’ success, here’s what we learned.

‘Downton’ wouldn’t exist without Bob Balaban

Fellowes got his start as an actor but moved on to screenwriting and helped adapt “Little Lord Fauntleroy” and “The Prince and the Pauper” for the BBC. A script based on Anthony Trollope’s novel “The Eustace Diamonds” was never filmed, but it did catch the eye of actor (and occasional producer) Bob Balaban.

“In another part of the forest, he was trying to set up a film with Robert Altman that was going to deal with the traditional country house whodunit,” Fellowes said. “And when they had failed to attract any of the more established writers, (Tom) Stoppard and (Christopher) Hampton and so on, Balaban volunteered my name, saying this is sort of his territory.”

‘Gosford Park’ evolved into ‘Downton Abbey’

That film was 2001’s “Gosford Park,” an exquisitely spare deconstruction of familiar tropes that featured Maggie Smith playing one Countess of Trentham, a fictional appellation that would become Grantham on TV.

Smith being Smith (i.e. one of the greats), the two performances aren’t at all the same, but the similarities do make “Gosford” look like a study for “Downton,” much like Aaron Sorkin’s film “The American President” established a blueprint for “The West Wing.”

“It was and it wasn’t,” Fellowes said. “Clearly, it was a reexamination of the same way of life, but we had quite deliberately planted ‘Gosford Park’ at the end of that life. We didn’t really want to do that with ‘Downton,’ so we went back 20 years, from 1932 to 1912, and started there.

“‘Gosford’ is a darker place than ‘Downton.’ It is a more cynical view of the whole setup. I didn’t want to go into the dark and rather wry version, because would people want to come back and see it week after week?

“A hallmark of the series was that almost everyone involved, upstairs or down, was doing their best and trying to make the most of the cards that they had been dealt. It is essentially an optimistic show which is written to a backdrop of decency, which I don’t think is completely true of ‘Gosford.’ I think ‘Gosford’ has a sour taste, really.”

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Fellowes started his research very early

So, how did he become an expert on English manor houses?

Fellowes was not born into the aristocracy, but his father was a globe-trotting diplomat who certainly would have known the difference between a marquess and a viscount.

“I was very lucky because I got interested in history — in my family’s history and all that sort of thing — when I was quite a young boy,” he said. “All of my great-aunts were still alive, so I was talking to them about what it was like being presented in the 1890s, getting married in the 1900s, where they set up house and so on.

“And, you know, my brothers missed all that. They got interested much later, in their 30s and 40s, and by the time they did, everyone was dead. And I had had this opportunity to talk at first hand with my great-aunts about all those experiences, most of which ended up in ‘Downton.’”

‘Downton’ reflects his conservative views

Married to the daughter of an earl, Fellowes became a baron in his own right in 2011 — the year after “Downton Abbey” premiered — when Queen Elizabeth II elevated him to the peerage (a lifetime honor, not a hereditary one). That put him in the House of Lords, as a Tory.

If “Downton Abbey” is a throwback to a less cynical time, so is Fellowes’ brand of conservative politics.

“The popular left-of-center view of everything that happened before 1968 — that it was all terrible and three-quarters of the world was having a horrible time between 1066 and some pop concert in the late ’60s — I don’t believe that is a realistic view of humanity,” he said.

“I mean, the sheer nonsense of the idea that everyone was always incredibly rude to their servants, you’ve probably heard that. Whereas when you actually think about it, would you choose to live in a house with a group of people you were being incredibly rude to all the time? Would you choose to have someone come into your bedroom to help you to dress whom you didn’t like? There’s no logic in it at all, psychologically.”

Responding to the critics

Fellowes isn’t responding to any particular criticism, but “Downton” has gotten some, of course. A rape subplot in season four raised eyebrows because a housemaid was targeted by a predatory stranger, even though then — as now — most sexual assaults were committed by men who knew their victims.

The broader question, though, is whether the show’s altogether rosy upstairs-downstairs relationships amount to whitewashing of class conflict in English history.

“I think these absolute views are very short-sighted, really,” Fellowes said. “And anyway, we are dealing with something much nearer the modern day. I mean, a servant who felt badly treated was perfectly capable of handing in their notice and getting another job. There was nothing to stop them doing it. Did you know that in 1880, the average term that a footman spent in a London household was 18 months? They were all on the move all the time. So this sort of modern view of these wretched people living downstairs sobbing is simply not true. 

“I don’t really accept that completely negative view of anything. The Roman empire was based on slavery. Does that mean every aspect of the Romans was terrible and they should be entirely dismissed? No, of course it doesn’t. It just means there’s one element in their economy that we find completely unsupportable. But it doesn’t mean they achieved nothing and they were nothing.”

Writing to an actor’s strengths

In addition to its warmth and optimism, “Downton” became a hit because audiences fell in love with the characters. Some, like Smith’s grande dame, are juicy stereotypes brought to life by world-class actors, but all have become true collaborations between writer and performer, Fellowes says.

“I had never experienced writing for performances you’ve already watched and enjoyed, and that is quite different,” he said. “You start to write for the strengths of the actors that you’ve got, and you deliberately create situations that you think they will do particularly well.

“Someone like Molesley came in for a few episodes and then he was going to move on. And then I realized that Kevin Doyle had created this extraordinary character that was very much in that tradition of sad comedy that you could find hundreds of years ago in the commedia dell’arte or whatever, and nearer in time the people like Stan Laurel or Charlie Chaplin, where the sorrow of their character is part of the comedy, and you’re laughing the more they make you sorry for them. And of course I started to write situations for him that would give him opportunities to bring that out.”

Is this really the end?

According to “Downton” producer Gareth Neame, the show could have gone on to a seventh season if not for Smith’s decision to leave, but talk of a movie version began immediately.

Fellowes never expected it to happen.

“People now say, ‘Oh, surely you saw there was bound to be a movie,’” he said. “I mean, no. I thought the end of the series was the end of the series. Now I think the end of the movie is the end of the show, and already people are saying, ‘Will there be another film, will there be another film?’ I don’t know.

“I guess I’m the only one in the dark.”

Talk to the writer about arts and culture at [email protected] or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel.

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