'The Gilded Age's' First Trailer Is Old Money Vs New Money

The Gilded Age finally has a release date, with the show debuting in early 2022. A no-longer-a-direct Downton Abbey spinoff set in 1880s New York City, the nine-episode series is written by Julian Fellowes and produced by the same team behind PBS' wildly popular World War I-era drama. Fellowes' new show will debut on HBO in mid-January and run through to mid-March, with the season finale arriving the same weekend as the Downton Abbey feature film sequel. But the new series trailer suggests it has more in common with shows like Succession and Game of Thrones than the show that inspired it.

Set in the middle of New York City's shifting class and wealth landscape in the late-1800s as capitalism and monopoly commerce make new millionaires to live beside the wealthy from previous generations, the series focuses on the Russells, a family of entrepreneurs versus the van Rhijns, who come from the doggedly traditional upper classes. It's very much a "your lot buys it, our lot inherits it" type story. However, unlike Downton Abbey, where those who inherit (like Mary) are the virtuous and those who earn (like Sir Richard Carlisle) are the villains, there doesn't seem to be a clear delineation of protagonist and antagonist, at least from the first look.

However, with Christine Baranski as the bonmot spewing Agnes van Rhijn, who seems a bit like a less-than-kind version of Maggie Smith's Dowager duchess, and Cynthia Nixon as her dependant spinster sister, the assumption is that Julian Fellowes will bend towards sympathizing with old money. That seems especially true when compared to Carrie Coon's Bertha Russell's uptight rage and the joy her husband George (Morgan Spector) appears to take in being a bastard.