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And there, beneath the chandeliers and portraits of royalty past, the seventh Earl of Grantham, in tweed, seemed right at home.

“It’s a beautiful residence,” said the actor Hugh Bonneville, in his familiar dulcet tone before the reception was in full swing. “And it feels, well, it feels like Downton really.”

“It’s just like home,” Elizabeth McGovern, the show’s Lady Grantham, added, playing along.

Using the British Embassy to showcase cultural exports is something that goes back decades and includes reception for the Beatles in 1964 just after their first U.S. show at the Washington Coliseum, when an overly anxious souvenir hunter clipped a hunk of Ringo’s hair. “We didn't stay there long,” the drummer remembered later, saying “These diplomats just don't know how to behave."

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But in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Stevens admits that he made the decision before filming for the third season had even begun. “We were always optioned for three years,” he said. “And when that came up it was a very difficult decision. But it felt like a good time to take stock, to take a moment. From a personal point of view, I wanted a chance to do other things."

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Thomas’s storyline this year, which has to do with his sexuality, feels like the most modern and relevant of any this season.

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And this morning, they checked off another tourist to-do item when they rode the subway:

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New Yorkers should stay on the lookout for more sightings as the cast continues its NYC tour (try Rockefeller Center -- Bonneville, for one, loves Christmas in the city).

PBS will stream a live Q&A from New York with the cast at 8 p.m. on Dec. 12.

Season 3 of "Downton Abbey" premieres Jan. 6 on PBS.

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The New York Times points out that Fellowes visited Edith Wharton's estate in Lenox Hill, Mass., "who will surely guide" the drama. "This was a vivid time,” Fellowes said. “With dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls, of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry; a time when money was king.”

NBC has not announced when "The Gilded Age" will air and Fellowes, hedging his bets, will also producing a fourth season of "Downton Abbey."

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A source from ITV1 told the Sun, "We know it’s very popular in America as it’s so quintessentially British. We’d heard the Obamas liked to watch it but we were very surprised when someone from the First Lady’s office got in touch asking for the series." ITV was "more than happy to sort out some DVDs for them to send over," but emphasized that "we hope they keep the spoilers to themselves as our US fans may not know about ... well, you know what!” (The above Sun article contains said spoiler, so read at your own risk).

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The episode aired on the NET channel and according to BBC, it "removed the scene to comply with parental guidance viewing rules." The channel says the full episode broadcasted early morning on Tuesday.

"The love affair between the two men... was not censored," said Costas Spyropoulos, managing director of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. "The kiss was not shown because of the time the programme was broadcast and the corresponding parental guidance warnings," he added.

The BBC reports that "viewers complained about the edit on social networking sites" and the country's main opposition party called it "an obvious case of censorship," describing it as "an extreme act of homophobia and discrimination which ... we cannot characterize as unprecedented."

The irony wasn't lost on everyone:

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1.) Best drama, or can “Mad Men” hold off “Downton Abbey” and “Homeland”?

There’s a story in the New York Times today all about how psyched PBS is on “Downton Abbey’s” Emmy hopes. Objectively, Season 2 of the British costume drama was inconsistent — Matthew’s vanishing paralysis! Bates turning into a whiny maybe-murderer! That amnesiac heir covered in bandages!— but it’s got momentum, more viewers than “Mad Men” and an audience who doesn’t really care how bad it can be. Moreover, “Mad Men” has won best drama four years in a row, and no show has ever won five in a row. If “Downton’s” not the show to upset “Mad Men," there’s always Showtime’s far more deserving “Homeland."

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Executive producer Rebecca Eaton gave away a few hints earlier this year: “Somebody will be born, and somebody will die, somebody pretty key in the cast, unfortunately not going to make it. It’s the 1920s now.” Also, Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine will join the cast as Cora's (Elizabeth McGovern's) mother. “There are some wonderful scenes between Maggie and Shirley MacLaine — Shirley MacLaine being as ditsy as ever,” Eaton said. “And Maggie barely restraining her sneer in having to deal with this American. Maggie Smith is a handful, it’s true. She’s very difficult. She knows her worth, and she’s tricky on the set, but she delivers when the time comes.”

The season premieres in the U.K. this fall, but Americans will have to wait until  Jan. 6.

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We were said to be watching it because we were stupid Americans or we were watching it because we were nostalgic for being ruled over or because we loved Jane Austen or country houses or "Upstairs Downstairs" or (the first) "Brideshead Revisited." Or for more reasons than this, or for fewer reasons. But we were watching it, we were watching it, watching it, watching it, watching it.

“Stop watching it,” certain people kept saying. “You’re stupid to watch it.” Others said, “What is this?” and then were also soon watching it, shortly after, because who could stop? Even when it was bad. Even when the plot bumped along like a car would on those bad roads, or when upstairs and downstairs the women with men at war had simultaneous, gasping premonitions of doom, which came true for only half of them. (Unless, of course, the one whose lover did not die gasped instead at the premonition that she would marry, which, to be sure, that one had always dreaded.)

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But in the sharp BBC comedy series “Twenty Twelve,” just now getting to the States, the shambling occurs all around him: a public relations “branding” expert who can’t stop jabbering nonsense, a facilities chief who can’t keep his mind on one topic, a secretary who serves him too well, a wife who despises him.

All the while, he’s trying to keep up the old stiff upper lip as he tries to get through each useless week when he knows they’ve gotten no closer to addressing the kind of systematic problems the 2012 Olympics will likely cause in London’s East End when the games open in less than a month.

From John Morton, creator of “People Like Us,” “Twenty Twelve” is the funniest British satire since “The Office,” and it's done in very much the same faux-documentary style (with the interviewer’s questions now being occasionally heard, or his camera at one point being knocked out of his hands). When it first aired in England last year, they could all still laugh at it, when the games still seemed so far away.

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Let me be clear. I remain an avid fan. I loved "Downton Abbey" from the first moment I laid eyes on it. The lustrous sets. The gorgeous costumes. I could watch the upholstery on that show for an hour and be satisfied. Each month that passed between the end of Season 1 and the start of Season 2 brought a small heartache. I squealed just a little when the swelling violins took up again in January.

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“I wish you hadn’t told me you watched it illegally,” said Bonneville, choosing words that suggested he shouldn’t be writing dialogue for the nobleman otherwise known as the Earl of Grantham. “That’s really pissing me off. Shame on you. Be ashamed.”

Like so many other nerdy "Downton" fans, I also greedily consumed the Christmas special over the holidays in some dark corner of the Internet -- but without feeling any such shame.

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Is the show ultimately a defense of the flawed yet often alluring world it portrays? After all, the monarchist Tory in question is plummy-voiced writer and creator Julian Fellowes, a life peer who is married to a royal lady-in-waiting. (If you’ve seen the show, you'll understand when I say he is more Carson than Branson. If not, catch up on Netflix.) Fellowes told the Guardian recently, "At the risk of sounding sentimental, I believe the monarchy stands for a fairness that we like to think represents us. I hope 'Downton' has that kind of decency about it."

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