'The Gilded Age' Season 3 Will Shine in Summer

It’s no secret that The Gilded Age on HBO has not come close to replicating the success of Downton Abbey (the series that inspired it) once was on PBS. It’s not the fault of series creator Julian Fellowes (the creative force behind both shows); the landscape of TV has altered radically since 2010, when the latter show first arrived on ITV and then was picked up by Masterpiece on PBS. In the decade it took to get The Gilded Age on the air, Netflix launched the streaming wars, and the series bounced from NBC to Peacock, to Warner and HBO Max, and then to Max and HBO. Expensive and lavish, the show is far from a favorite of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who would have canned it, save for the show’s fandom.

“The gays saved it,” lead actor Carrie Coon cheerfully announced when asked about it on her press tour for The White Lotus Season 3. “Thank you, right now, you saved it. We would not have a Season 3 without you.”

One reason the show is doing so well in the LGBTQ+ community is due to Fellowes leaning into the campier aspects of New York City’s wealthy elites, whether it’s staging a hat parade on Easter as all of New York walks to church, having two jumped-up working-class white ladies verbally battling over tea in sumptuous settings to protect their newfound status, or staging an season long Opera War, a battle waged by two women, neither of whom cares a fig for the art form. Meanwhile, the series tries to keep up with the times by including an entire extra TV show’s worth of characters portraying the Black Bourgeoisie of Brooklyn, in storylines that feel incongruously serious next to the fluff and frivolity of New York and Newport.