It's official: Dan Stevens steps down from 'Downton'

So?  Julian Fellowes will no doubt, inspire us all with Matthew's loss and then intrigue us even more with some new twist or turn in the Crawley family.  As long as Julian, the writer of it all, remains at the helm, we are safe and sound with whatever situations he invents. As an actor, Dan will no doubt fade into obscurity as so many others have, who take such courses after so notable a one series role.  Mary needs a larger than life Gatsby type guy to assuage her loss of Matthew....perhaps someone who'll make some sexy love scenes worth watching.... and not drop dead in the course of things.  It could be some Australian mogul...........no wait, I do hate that Aussie accent so.  Maybe he can be some dashing banking tycoon to save the day for Mary's family after the Crash and the Depression from Wall Street.  Not knowing the breadth of the season just wrapped up in England, makes it hard to add any definitive storylines.  We will hold our breath and please continue to fund PBS however you can. 

How terribly sad for all parties, but what has been done cannot be undone. I had heard rumblings that Stevens would not return for a fourth season. Somehow, I knew the exit of Matthew Crawley would happen exactly as it did.

Just because there was a three-year option on Downton Abbey, doesn't mean that Stevens should have opted out early. As a key player in the series, unless Julian Fellowes wanted to be rid of Matthew, it reflects badly on Stevens as someone who will bolt at the first opportunity with dreams of moving on to bigger and better things.

Before making his Downton Abbey exit, Dan Stevens would have been wise to seek the counsel of ex-pat, David McCallum. Stevens is not in as good a stead as McCallum, who had more than a few period dramas in his C.V. as well as roles in some prestigious movies when he packed  up his family upon being chosen for the role of Judas in "The Greatest Story Ever Told."

McCallum's meteoric rise in fame in the 60's was a matter of luck, but he worked hard to achieve it and faced sacrifices he never anticipated. "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." kept McCallum in the lime-light for three years, and he said in an interview with Mike Douglas that all the hysteria had moved on within two years afterwards. Since the 60's, McCallum has taken jobs in both the US and the UK to keep his career going. Despite the U.K. cult classic series, "Sapphire and Steel", McCallum didn't receive serious notoriety again until being cast on "N.C.I.S."

Downton Abbey gave Stevens his boost in popularity, but what Stevens has known is a fraction of what McCallum enjoyed in the 60's.

At this point, all we can say to Stevens is good luck. Stage in the U.S,. can be fickle, though, and making decent money with stage roles is, at best, like playing roulette with one's future. Substantial movie roles for British actors can be fickle, though a few actors enjoy a fair amount of success. With Hugh Grant's reaching his 40's, his years as the young, romantic lead are waning, maybe Stevens will find some success filling roles that would have been passed on to a younger Grant. Whether Stevens will enjoy success on U.S. television beyond bit parts and soap operas is an equally fickle. 

Let us hope Crawley's wreck isn't a foreshadowing of the wreck of young Stevens' career.