The start of Downton Abbey's fifth season is still a ways off — it's expected to air in September on ITV in the U.K. and in January on PBS's Masterpiece Classic in the U.S. — but British broadcaster ITV has released the first teaser for Season 5, which is long on atmosphere if short on actual new content from the upcoming season.
Set against the backdrop of familiar scenes of everyday life at Downton (i.e., shots taken directly from the now-iconic opening credit sequence), the unwavering voice of trusted butler Carson (Jim Carter) offers some foreboding words of dread about what might be coming to the great house and its inhabitants this season:
"I feel a shaking of the ground I stand on. The nature of life is not permanence, but flux. Things are changing."
Pretty ominous, no?
Among the new faces set to appear this season on Downton Abbey: Richard E. Grant (Girls, Gosford Park), Anna Chancellor (The Hour), and Rade Sherbedgia (24), while Dame Harriet Walter and Peter Egan will reprise their respective roles as Lady Shackleton and Lord Flintshire.
