Trivia / Upstairs Downstairs

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: At the beginning of Season Three, Lady Marjorie is written off the series by having her go down with the Titanic—even though women in first class had the second-highest survival rate of any group on board. The highest survival rate? First-class women's servants—like Roberts, who shows up later in the season to confirm Lady Marjorie’s death.
• Channel Hop: The original series was with rival channel LWT/ITV, but the revival is on BBC One, and competing with ITV's newer period drama Downton Abbey.
• Completely Different Title: A Família Bellamy ("The Bellamy Family") in Portugal. Which became an Artifact Title when the revival was broadcast.
• Dawson Casting: Justified, as there are frequent Time Skips. It's actually a peculiar sort of Dawson Casting, because the original series spans thirty years of historical time, but only four years of real time, so the mainstays of the series never seem to age even though thirty years changes a human being radically, particularly those of Lord Bellamy's, Mrs Bridges' and Hudson's ages. If Rose was twenty as the series begun, she would be fifty at the end, for example. But Jean Marsh herself only ages four years... This is actually quite useful, as, even if they did not know it, it provides a good continuity as to why Rose looks a lot older in the 2010 continuation of the series. If she is actually fifty at the end of the series, then she'd be 56 at the beginning of the 2010 series, so, it all worked out in the end.
• Duelling Shows: The BBC revival with ITV's Downton Abbey, with the added irony of Upstairs Downstairs originally being an ITV show.
• Follow the Leader: Beacon Hill, a CBS series that Americanized the premise (with a Boston setting) debuted in 1975. Not officially a remake, but it was co-produced by Jean Marsh's former agent Beryl Vertue. After strong initial ratings, viewers lost interest and Beacon Hill was cancelled after 11 episodes.
• Killed by Request: Rachel Gurney loathed her character (Lady Marjorie) and was written out of the series at her own request. It's mentioned that she died on the Titanic.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The series was originally supposed to be a comedy, entitled Behind the Green Baize Door, and not feature any upstairs characters whatsoever. While the upstairs-downstairs format went on to inspire media forever after, one has to wonder what that would have been like...
• Playing Against Type: Angela Baddeley (Mrs. Bridges, the cook) had been previously typecast as a Blue Blood, probably because she was blue blood in real life. She wasn't the only one, either.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Honor Blackman was originally considered for Lady Marjorie.
  • There were plans for a feature film version.
• Working Title: Two Little Maids in Town, The Servants' Hall and That House in Eaton Square. It was called 165 Eaton Place until just before the production of the first episode.
• Written-In Infirmity: In 1974, whilst on his way to a rehearsal, Christopher Beeny (Edward) was involved in a serious motorcycle accident and quite badly hurt. From season four onwards, you can see the scar on his chin.

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