The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest, The Great Granola Showdown

edition. It's Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012. On today's program, the huge import hit

TV show, Downton Abbey, with Slate's own June Thomas. We continue our roundup of Oscar-nominated films with Moneyball. And finally, the great granola off is finally here, as judged by our friends at the Sporkful. Joining me today, our Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. Hey, how you doing? I'm good. I've got my

granola chomping canines in. Good. I've got my granola face on in case you were wondering what that was.

Dana, and we're joined by our film critic, Dana Stevens, Dana. Hi. Hey, Steve. How you doing?

Pretty well. Very good. And of course, June Thomas. Hey, June. Hello, Stephen.

Let's dive right in.

What is it like for a hereditary class to have a virtual monopoly on land, wealth, title, status, prestige, as unthinkable as that is.

Now imagine that they lose it.

Downton Abbey is the British television series created by Julian Fellows, best known for his screenplay to my mind, terrific movie, Gosford Park.

Downton Abbey is the most successful British costume drama since Brideshead revisited some 40 years ago.

The numbers are astounding.

It gets six million viewers a week.

Oh, Steve, before we start, I mean, we should, first we should acknowledge that we talked about the first episode of the show and all, when we all kind of fell for it when it first came out. But one of the reasons we've had June on is that the finale has just aired and June has been heading up our TV club coverage of Downton on Slate. So she is steeped in all things, Downton. And maybe we should also warn that there might be some mild spoilers because we're talking about the entire second season, which ended on Sunday.

The series, in case you don't know, tells the story of the Grantham family and their sometimes seemingly tenuous hold on their family estate, and it tells the story of the upstairs, downstairs drama that surrounds the eponymous household, June Thomas.

You're a Brit and now an American, and you moved here. It strikes me in having talked to you several times. Now, to get away from some of what this show is precisely what this show is drenched in, I'm very curious to hear what's your experience of this British important and the kind of Anglo fetishism that surrounds its success.

I love it because it brings nothing but rewards to me.

You know, people who love Downton think that all Brits are smart and so, you know, I love

the anglophilia that it that it brings also because it

has this downstairs I mean I know that I would have been downstairs I would have been

O'Brien for sure no way totally would have been O'Brien or Thomas would have been so you know I

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