To see the road not taken, one need only think of that parallel fantasy masterpiece, written in exactly the same decades, and on a similar scale, by a similarly eccentric Englishman: T.

NEWYORKER: The Dragon��s Egg

Live one day at a time and make it a masterpiece.

CNN: I ran 50 marathons in 50 states, all while battling cancer

But in my defense, I counterbalance my Downton viewings with at least one hour spent with my chainsaw for every hour tuned into Masterpiece Classic.

FORBES: Down On Downton: Why The Left Is Torching Downton Abbey

Sir Trevor describes Kiss Me, Kate as a "masterpiece" and says the play within a play is one of the great musical works of the 20th Century.

BBC: Trevor Nunn directs 'Shakespeare musical' Kiss Me, Kate

In a four-hour masterpiece, Sale packed two ice cream sundaes and, by one teammate's estimate, around 30 bags of potato chips into one of the skinniest bodies the sport has ever seen.

WSJ: Chris Sale: Baseball's Greatest Metabolism

It is the rare masterpiece that achieves perfection, and Wright's Fallingwater is conspicuously not one of them.

WSJ: A Marriage of Nature and Art

Her husband, David Alexander, mostly sticks to the "Masterpiece" series on PBS (though he quit "Downton Abbey" after one season because it was "too superficial").

WSJ: Can We Please Stop Talking About TV?