British drama or American made films about the British have been a mainstay of film as long as film has been around. The British TV series, Downton Abbey has been a phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic for the last three years.

Following the formula of the 1970s British series, Upstairs Downstairs and the 2001 film, Gosford Park, the series gives equal attention to the upper classes and the servants who work for them. Whereas the five year series Upstairs Downstairs, which ran from 1971 to 1975, began in 1903 and ended in 1930 and Gosford Park was set in 1932, Downton Abbey: Season 1 began in the years leading up to World War I. Season 2 encompassed the war years and its immediate aftermath. Season 3, which has just been released on Blu-ray and standard DVD, takes place mostly in 1920, but concludes in 1921.

Although Downton Abbey is classified as a series, it is really a series of mini-series. Season 3 has only nine episodes, five of which were shown on PBS prior to the DVD release. All nine episodes previously aired in the United Kingdom.

The deeply involving storyline follows the exploits of the Crawley family, consisting of Robert, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville); Lady Cora, his American born wife (Elizabeth McGovern); their daughters Ladies Mary (Michelle Dockery), Edith (Laura Carmichael), and Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay); Robert’s mother Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith); cousin by marriage Isobel (Penelope Wilton) and her son Matthew (Dan Stevens) and their various servants.

Among the servants are Mr. Carter, butler (Jim Carter); Mrs. Hughes, housekeeper (Phyllis Logan); Mrs. Patmore, cook (Lesley Nicol); Mr. Bates, valet to the Earl (Brendan Coyle); Anna, ladies maid to the girls (Anna Froggatt); O’Brien, ladies maid to Lady Cora (Siobhan Finneran); Thomas, footman, later valet and under-butler (Rob James-Collier); William, lovesick footman (Thomas Howes); Daisy, lovesick kitchen helper (Sophie McShera); chauffer Branson (Allen Leech) and straying maid Ethel (Amy Nuttall). New to Seaon 3 are footmen Alfred (Matt Milne) and Jimmy (Ed Speleers) and kitchen helper Ivy (Cara Thoebold).

Chief story themes throughout the series are betrayals by class within class, class against class, family member against family member, several love stories and changes in the fortunes of the landed gentry. Death hangs over the series like a shroud. Each season brings several tragic ends to characters we have come to love. Season 3 is no exception as two of our favorite characters leave this mortal coil in unexpected ways. To say more would spoil it for those who have not yet discovered this great series, or caught up with Season 3. This is one series which must be seen from the beginning.

The film has won numerous international awards including a Golden Globe and 2 Emmys for the legendary Maggie Smith who continues to steal every scene she’s in. Even the formidable Shirley MacLaine, guest-starring as Elizabeth McGovern’s mother in the Season 3 opener, withers under her gaze. Other actors singled out by awards givers include McGovern, Hugh Bonneville, Dan Stevens, Michelle Dockery, Anna Froggatt, Brendan Coyle and Jim Carter. The Season 2 ensemble received the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Cast in a TV Drama Series while episode 5 of Season 3 was airing on PBS on the East Coast.

Two other British made-for-TV dramas making their DVD debuts are Page Eight and Endeavor, both of which are available on Blu-ray and standard.

David Hare, the British writer/director best known for his Oscar nominated screenplays for The Hours and The Reader, directs the film from his first original screenplay in two decades.

Bill Nighy, in one of his most acclaimed performances, plays a British intelligence officer who must solve a mystery that reaches into the highest levels of British government and international intrigue. He’s joined by a stellar cast that includes Rachel Weisz as a mysterious neighbor; Michael Gambon and his best friend and boss; Judy Davis as a fellow operative; Alice Krige as the woman he left pregnant years before; Felicity Jones as their daughter; Ralph Fiennes as the sitting Prime Minister and Marthe Keller as an art dealer.

Weisz is wonderfully sympathetic as the neighbor who turns out to be a native of Syria whose brother’s death raises question of its own, but the standout supporting performance belongs to the always reliable Judy Davis who received an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of a woman who both everything she seems and nothing she seems.

A prequel to the long-running British mystery series, Inspector Morse which ran from 1987 to 2000, Endeavor takes the character back to the start of his career in 1965.

Set in Oxford, Inspector Morse was one of the great thinking man’s detectives, the character killed off only when actor John Thaw decided to leave the series, the actor himself dying less than two years later at the age of 60. The series was revived as Lewis (Inspector Lewis in the U.S.) beginning in 2006 with Kevin Whatley who played Thaw’s sidekick for fifteen years as the lead detective with all of Morse’s foibles now firmly entrenched in him. Laurence Fox of the Fox dynasty (he is James Fox’s son; Edward Fox’s nephew) plays Lewis’ sidekick James Hathaway. While that series is still running, the Brits have given us yet a third iteration of the Oxford mysteries this time featuring Shaun Evans as the young Morse.

Set in 1965, the so-far single outing has the young detective almost quitting his rather routine boring job as a junior detective in a small town until he is given a temporary assignment in Oxford. There he solves a complex double murder in which the suspects include the once famous opera singer whose records he collected as a lonely teenager. Evans, who briefly attained notice as Annette Bening’s young admirer in Being Julia, plays Morse with a poignancy rare in detective dramas. His character is more in tune with the brilliant deep thinking, sad-eyed lost puppy characterization that Fox brings to Lewis than the seen-it-all tired old man characterization that Thaw and now Whatley bring to the first two long-running series. Critics are referring to the new film as part of what they’re calling the Oxford trilogy based on just this one film. That’s quite an honor.

New releases this week include Blu-ray upgrades of Cabaret and Laura.