'Downton Abbey' Season 4 premiere review: Slow, grief-stricken start

No one left anyone "in the lurch" on "Downton." This is show business, with an emphasis on "business," and Stevens, a hot actor, had other opportunities -- or, as he told the Telegraph a year ago, "From a personal point of view, I wanted a chance to do other things."

Nevertheless, by leaving, he put the show in a tough position that it spends much of Sunday navigating. Even in the best and happiest of times, the moral superstructure of "Downton Abbey" works in a deliberate, unhurried way: Its stiff-upper-lip, All's Right with England code demands that "good" must come out of "bad," but that "bad" does need to be taken care of first. The absence of Crawley is bad and huge -- a black hole that sucks individual story lines and energy deep into its maw. Every core character is wracked -- Lady Mary above all.

But the good news is that most of all the other characters you love are back, behaving in ways you'd expect them to, with intriguing differences. Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) seems smaller in stature, but his vibrant and more-alive-than-ever mother, Violet (Maggie Smith), has grown. The cloak of grief, braided with her famed willpower, fits her quite well.

And the show remains, as ever, a thing of immaculate beauty. Controversy arrives later this season. There's a big shock by the third episode later this month. In the meantime, enjoy the languid charm.