Hot 2016 topic? Not politics

Even before they cast the ballots in the Hawkeye State, the final season of “Downton Abbey” will be launched and will dominate the 2016 discussion in America. We have our priorities straight. All we know for sure is that Irish Republican Tom Branson and his little girl Sybil are leaving a Yorkshire home that even Mitt Romney could love, and are moving to Boston.

The PBS-imported British classic (2011-16) has been must-see TV for all couples not contemplating divorce, although a temporary separation has been granted for Super Bowl Sunday for the last five years.

For a variety of reasons, Downton has provided an extra kick in our empty-nest household, mainly because we coincidentally acquired in the same time frame the entire DVD set of the Masterpiece Theatre classic “Upstairs, Downstairs” (1971-75). The similarities of these two productions, launched 40 years apart, are riveting in a historical and societal context as well as the parallel soap-opera drama that keeps a good part of the audience coming back for more.

I’ve tremendously enjoyed the historical treatments, both of which essentially deal with the demise of what we would call today the one-percenters, the English aristocracy, and the rise of the modern middle class, up from virtual serfdom and service levels as World War I altered its society forever.

The “Upstairs, Downstairs” plot covered the 1903-1930 periods while “Downton” Abbey started in 1912 and (my first prediction) seems closer to a 1927 finale.

The cast of characters in both feature class separation of master and servant and their personal relationships, as well as interaction among them to keep their lives humming along.

Although Lord Bellamy (Upstairs) and his clan are situated in London, he and his first wife could easily have swapped places with Downton’s Earl of Grantham (Robert Crawley) and his American wife up in Yorkshire and viewers would never have missed a beat. And among the servants, the Downstairs butler Hudson and Mrs. Bridges are cloned at Downton by Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes as the people who really run the show.

While we have been uncertain as to the fates of the conflicted characters in each episode, we always know what’s around the corner in their lives because nobody documents their history more completely than the Brits.

Both series have episodes focused on the Titanic, The Great War, the Irish Easter Rising of 1916, the Roaring ’20s and the 1926 General Strike.

“Upstairs, Downstairs” had the earlier historical start, giving a six-episode view of the Edwardian decade with a sobering intuitive climax that King Edward XII’s death in 1910 was the end of the golden age of the upper class in Europe and America.

Today, any post-World War II author or screenwriter has had plenty of facts to support that demise (well, maybe not America) and the BBC has given us two of the best examples of historical fiction. If you’re ever in England, you might want to see the real thing and judge for yourself. Basically, the descendant Lords and Ladies of these original McMansions are more like the gatekeepers at Shelburne Farms, only massively bigger and more in debt, and they have created awesome tourist attractions to help pay the bills.

Highclere Castle, south of Oxford, is the actual setting for the Downton Abbey production and likely draws more tourists these days than Ben & Jerry’s. The current Earl & Countess of Carnarvon, the family owners since 1674, look like a real cool couple and they’re not ashamed to milk this thing to the bone to keep the castle afloat. Check their great website and Facebook page as well.

Yet, with potential of smaller crowds and blowing the top off the awesome chart in this niche, personal experience says check out Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Compared to Blenheim’s 187-room “country house” and 2,000 acres, Highclere/aka Downton is an outhouse. For name-dropping alone, Blenheim is now on its 12th Earl of Marlborough, Winston Churchill was born there, and somehow the Spencer family (as in Princess Diana) shines there as well.

And talk fact over fiction. On the BBC classics, Lord Bellamy had to marry a woman with money to raise his stature and live in London luxury, while the Downton dad saved his family’s palace by marrying a Newport, R.I., heiress.

In the real world of Blenheim, the ninth Duke of Marlborough married American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. Mom was happy her daughter was now a duchess and Dad coughed up the equivalent of $65 million in today’s dollars, plus $100 grand a year in 1896 dollars each to husband and wife for the privilege. And in true Masterpiece Theatre tradition, the duke told his new wife he had another girlfriend and he’d never come back to America to visit the in-laws.

And back to Downton’s finale. I predict several options for Tom Branson and his daughter. If it were actually 2016, Tom would take one look at the snow in Boston and catch the next flight back to London and his cushy palace. If he stays, his cousin might talk the Irish rebel into helping Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren run for president.

Best bet is he might take his acquired real estate management skills and wind up well qualified to take the helm of newly gated Downton-West up at Spruce Peak. Then he could drive down to the village and offer suggestions on improvements that his guests might enjoy on their extended stay in Stoweshire.