The tastemakers at HBO cordially invite you to "The Gilded Age," a feathered and flounced costume party disguised as a premium-cable period drama. Even if you have a weakness for snobby servants and heroines with parasols and moxie, you should approach the latest project from "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes with extreme caution. And maybe a bucket of cold water to dash your comfort-TV dreams before the series does it first.
Debuting Monday, "The Gilded Age" should just call itself "Downton Abbey, American Style," because that is clearly the goal. Judging by the series' anemic early episodes, the Americans are not yet fit to touch the hem of the Dowager Countess of Grantham's garment.
Set in New York City in the late 1800s, "The Gilded Age" looks at the fraught yet fabulously styled lives of the old-money families who are about to take a dive in history's power rankings and the nouveau riche upstarts who are encroaching on their manicured turf. It also pokes into the downstairs lives of the cooks, butlers and ladies' maids who keep these high-maintenance lives humming.
