The new season of Downton Abbey airs tonight! I’m so excited to have another peek into the lives of the ever-changing upstairs Crawley family and their downstairs professional assistants! Can’t wait! Wandering around the internet, I found a link that brought me to this web page and of course, I began looking forward to this evening to resume my weekly diversion into this family’s interactions with each other as well as their lives within the historic context … and (admittedly) the soap opera nature of their existence.

But alas! My hopes have been dashed! Dashed, I tell you! Absolutely and positively crushed beneath the caprice of faceless, nameless television schedulers who’ve dangled this carrot before my eyes only to yank it away!

The series is only airing tonight in the UK! My daughter blogged about this a year ago (when the previous season of Downton Abbey had its September premiere across the pond). Incensed by this state of affairs, she discovered a work-around and was happily entertained and caught up on the Crawley family high-jinks long before the series came to US television in January of 2014.

I can’t really say it any better than the Chatelaine expressed it on her blog, but like her, I’m also incensed that the Public Broadcasting Corporation – funded by our tax dollars and our donations and our deep well of patience over their ad nauseam fundraising broadcast segments – has nobly (?) decided the plebeians residing within the continental US are undeserving of equal access to the series! Hence, their decision not to air the series in the US until next January!

Given my daughter’s resourcefulness, I attempted to follow her instructions and see if I could work through alternative channels (shall we say?). Nope, it didn’t work for me. Sitting here in the middle of the country, I suppose my IP is obvious to the controlling gods of the internet. It’s kind of like going to the liquor store with the guy behind the counter asking for ID and (eyes averted), you sheepishly hand him your fake driver’s license. You know immediately it’s not going to work, but you stand there anyway hoping against hope.

So I shall be spending my evening sans a new season of Downton Abbey. I’ve enjoyed The Roosevelts and I think I’m going to enjoy the Henry Louis Gates series (since I love family history), but there’s no debating it:  I’m bothered by their scheduling and it has put a sour taste in my mouth!

Perhaps by January, my bruised and bitter feelings (toward PBS) will have healed enough to tune in to the delayed broadcasts of Downton. Still, you can be sure I’ll be tuning out every time they break for a “commercial” and try to sell me one of their myriad products … my expected purchases proving what a faithful partner I am of PBS. No, that’s not going to happen.