‘Downton Abbey’ ratings down in British Season 5 premiere

Goodness gracious! It looks like “Downton Abbey” may be losing its luster.

The popular 1920s-set costume drama had its fifth season premiere Sunday night in the United Kingdom, attracting an audience of 8.4 million viewers to British broadcaster ITV.

Perhaps “Downton Abbey” fans are growing weary of Lady Mary’s romantic indecision, or maybe Lord Grantham squandered a million or so viewers in a bungled Canadian rail investment, but either way the figure is down significantly from the Season 4 premiere, which generated 9.5 million viewers.

While still impressive, Sunday night’s tally also marks the lowest ratings for an opening episode since the series, created by Julian Fellowes, debuted to 7.6 million viewers in the United Kingdom in 2010.

Stateside, ratings for “Downton Abbey” also ebbed somewhat last season, dropping from a PBS record of 10.2 million viewers for the January opener to 8.5 million viewers for the late-February finale.

But we’ll have to wait until Jan. 4, when “Downton Abbey” returns to PBS, to see whether Americans have truly grown tired of the assorted high-jinks of the aristocratic Crawley family and their many servants. (Here’s where we gently remind spoiler-phobic readers not to Google the show for the next few months.)

As for the future of the series, which has already spanned a fictional timeline of more than a decade, Fellowes has hinted that it may soon come to an end, telling the Wall Street Journal that a sixth season was by no means certain. “It’s not going to go on forever,” he said.

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