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"Downton Abbey&amp;#039;s Nigel Marchant has opened up about the future of the period drama. Merchant serves as one of the producers for the series along with Liz Trubridge, while Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame and Rebecca Eaton are the executive producers.  When asked for how long Downton Abbey can continue, Marchant told reporters at the Monte Carlo Television Festival: &amp;quot;I know Julian&amp;#039;s mentioned in the past there&amp;#039;s a five-year span to it and we certainly want to end on a high and we&amp;#039;re all of conscious of that.  &amp;quot;I think that&amp;#039;s the joy of doing this series at the moment - we&amp;#039;re still upping the ante. The scripts are fantastic. So I don&amp;#039;t think anyone would put a line in the sand to say how much we&amp;#039;re actually going to do.&amp;quot; The series has found huge success outside of its native UK audience, even being spoofed by Jimmy Fallon on his late night US show. &amp;quot;We sat there and made a show we were very proud of but we&amp;#039;ve all done that before on many other shows,&amp;quot; Marchant added. &amp;quot;You never know how it&amp;#039;s going to go down. &amp;quot;It appeals to such a wide audience...We tried to create a peer drama that was shot in a new style, that was shot in a more modern style, and I think we managed to get that across.  &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a similarity to American shows like The West Wing walking around, and we try to keep that energy downstairs. And then you show the difference upstairs. But I don&amp;#039;t think any of us expected it to have the impact it had.&amp;quot;  Downton Abbey is set to return for a third series with iconic actress Shirley MacLaine to guest star as Lady Grantham&amp;#039;s mother. Allen Leech - who plays Tom Branson, the Irish chauffeur to the Crawley family - recently described what it was like working with MacLaine. He shared: &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s a living legend, you know, like Maggie [Smith] as well, and just the two of them talking... Shirley would turn and she&amp;#039;d go, &amp;#039;When I opened for Sinatra...&amp;#039; and you go, &amp;#039;OK...&amp;#039; You could write a book based on what was said!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Downtown Abbey&amp;#039;s third run will premiere in September on ITV1 in the UK and in January 2013 on PBS in the US. Watch the Jimmy Fallon spoof of Downton Abbey below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/downton-abbey/news/a387691/downton-abbey-producer-we-want-to-end-on-a-high-note/>