PBS DRAWS ITS BIGGEST AUDIENCE EVER FOR A SEASON OPENER

PBS scored the highest-rated season premiere in its history Sunday with the opening episode of Season 4 of Downton Abbey. Apparently drawn by the Season 3 cliffhanger finale, some 10.2 million tuned in — versus 8 million for the Season 3 premiere. Several critics, however, found the going a bit rough. “It’s a bummer,” wrote Washington Post TV critic Joe Heim, “and a two-hour bummer at that.”I watch for the fun, and I hope things brighten up a bit next week. I could use a little more silliness.” But Meredith Blake in the Los Angeles Times commented that “despite a veneer of sadness hanging over the place, not much has changed.” Like several other critics, Dave Itzkoff in the New York Times remarked about the “unusually gloomy opening-credit sequence” but added that series creator Julian Fellowes “seemed eager to get away from grief and back to the storytelling devices he has made synonymous with the series.”