Upstairs, Downstairs

On the data. SIXTY-EIGHT IS NOT IN DISPUTE. TVmaze, TheTVDB, Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of TV and Radio all give the original run as thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen and sixteen. On a site where most pages carry an argument about a number, this one carries none. THE BLACK AND WHITE EPISODES ARE SIX OR FIVE, AND BOTH ARE RIGHT. The ITV colour strike ran from November 1970 to February 1971. Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of TV and Radio both say six episodes were made in black and white. The dedicated episode guide at updown.org.uk marks five as broadcast that way, episodes two to six, because the opener was recorded in black and white, withdrawn by LWT to protect overseas sales, and re-recorded in colour at the end of the first production block. So six were made and five went out. The reconciliation is an inference rather than a sourced sentence, and it is written here as one. THE AMERICAN RUN WAS FIFTY-FIVE, NOT SIXTY-EIGHT. For America the first two British series were reduced and merged into one season of thirteen, and thirteen of the first twenty-six episodes were not shown at all. The Encyclopedia of TV and Radio gives the original American run as fifty-five. The missing thirteen were released to American viewers later under the banner The Missing Episodes, in autumn 1988 according to updown.org.uk and Wikipedia's prose, and in 1989 according to the Encyclopedia and Wikipedia's own table, which contradicts itself. Sixty-eight is the count of British broadcast episodes and is what this page uses. TheTVDB WOULD TOTAL EIGHTY-THREE AND SHOULD NOT. Its fifteen entry specials group contains no drama: chat show appearances, retrospective documentaries and one alternate cut of episode one. None of it is counted here. ONE EPISODE EXISTS IN THREE CUTS AND IS COUNTED ONCE. On Trial, the opener, has a Sarah stays edit used when the five black and white episodes are also shown and a Sarah leaves edit used when they are omitted, and TheTVDB separately lists an On Trial USA Version dated 6 January 1974. Three edits, one episode. The scrapped black and white recording of it is often called the pilot and was not one; it was junked and no copy is known to survive. THE BELLAMYS OF EATON PLACE IS A BOOK, NOT A SPIN-OFF SERIES. This is worth saying plainly because it is listed as a 1979 television spin-off in a surprising number of places. It is a 1976 prose family history by John Pearson, also published as The Bellamy Saga, written off the back of the series. TVmaze returns no results for it at all. There is nothing to watch. Several other spin-offs were developed and never made, including the Stockbridges buying the house back, an American series about Hudson and Rose, and a seaside boarding house series that was probably dropped after Angela Baddeley died in February 1976. BERYL'S LOT IS NOT PART OF THIS. Yorkshire Television for ITV, 1973 to 1977, three series and fifty-two episodes, written by Kevin Laffan and others, about a middle-aged woman's self-education. Different company, not even the same ITV franchisee, no shared characters, setting, continuity or creator, and no Jean Marsh involvement of any kind. The only link is that it was inspired by the memoirs of Margaret Powell, a former domestic servant, who is also often cited behind this show. A shared real-life source is not a franchise link. DOWNTON ABBEY IS NOT PART OF THIS EITHER, however often the two are compared. Different creator, different production company, different house, different characters, no shared rights and no shared continuity. An era, a country and a two-tier household is not a franchise. THREE MORE NEAR MISSES. Beacon Hill, CBS, autumn 1975, thirteen episodes, was commissioned to reproduce this show's formula with an Irish Catholic family in 1920s Boston and was not a remake or an adaptation of it. The Upstairs Downstairs Bears, CITV from April 2001, is a preschool stop-motion series from Carol Lawson's picture books and shares only the title and the idea. Royal Upstairs Downstairs, BBC Two, 2011, is an unrelated history programme that sits right beside the real shows in a database search. ONE DATE IS DISPUTED AND MOVES NOTHING. The first series ends on 20 March 1972 per Wikipedia and 5 March per TVmaze and updown.org.uk. Regional ITV transmission in that era was staggered between companies, so both could be true somewhere. Wikipedia also contradicts itself on the start, with prose saying 10 December 1971 against its own table's 10 October; TVmaze, TheTVDB and updown.org.uk all support October, so the prose is simply wrong. NO TELEVISION FILM, NO AIRED DRAMA SPECIAL AND NO UNAIRED PILOT, in either the original or the revival. Checked specifically. The documentaries and chat specials that do exist, from Russell Harty in 1975 to a five-part DVD history finished in 2006, are not drama and are not rows here.

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