“Downtown Abbey” is back–and I recently sat down with a star of the show to get a preview of the coming fifth season of the series.

“Downton Abbey” co-star Laura Carmichael stopped by the WSJ Café–that’s the arts and culture interview and performance series I run at the Wall Street Journal–to talk about what’s next for her character Lady Edith Crawley and other secrets of the show.

The show captures a period when the horse-and-buggy 1800s were giving way to the more technology-driven 1900s, and Lady Edith is at the center of that change, seeking out new roles for herself as a writer, a mother, and a member of a turbulent family. She’s arguably the most interesting character in the series, because she promises to show the most growth, and may prove to be the Crawley who is best suited for a new century of suffrage and superhighways. Plus, previews for the fifth season showed Lady Edith being overcome by a fire raging through Downton, so I had to find out what that was all about. And what’s the deal with Lady Edith’s baby daddy?

Watch a video of my chat with Carmichael.

The fifth season of “Downton Abbey” will premiere Sunday, January 4, 2015, on Masterpiece on PBS at 9 p.m. ET.



Check out my new book “Game World.”