I just finished watching the whole series (again) and I found myself wondering how the show would have been had Dan Stevens decided to stay on?
Obviously, his leaving allowed the show to delve into further details about the estate and inheritance and the death duties. But what about if he stayed on?
Is there any source from Jullian Fellows about where he might have taken the show had he stayed?
If he would have stay, necesarilly the next death would have been Robert and there for Matthew would have been the next earl and Mary the next countess. The death duties also would have affected the estate because Robert was owner of the other 50%.
In series 3, and for what we know, Stevens told to the production that he would be leaving in the middle, so if you look carefully, he and Mary had a lot issues, they discussed about Swire´s money, then how to run the place and Mary took side with her father, etc, i bet that when they knew for sure that he would be leaving the series, they made the relation betwen him and Mary more sweet. With that i am not saying that they were unhappy, i am saying that they were having a normal relation betwen wife and husband and in consideration with their characters.
We dont know more about how other things could have happened, but i bet, that Matthew would have been a good family head, maybe helping more Edith and Tom, bonding more with his child, etc. Because he was middle class, he saw problems and their solutions in a different way that the rest of the family, now i think that space was filled by Tom Branson to the end of the series.
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