Watch Season 3 of Downton right now (USA only)

[Hisey]

I know there are a lot of Downton Abbey fans here, and I just figured out how to get Season 3 at a reasonable cost here in the USA. Maybe there is a better way, but this is the one I figured out.

Download TunnelBear. This is an app that (I think) gives you a British IP address. You must buy the $4.99/month package, but you can cancel at any time, and it should only take a month to watch all 8 episodes (plus the new Xmas episode).

There are two TunnelBear settings. Set them to UK and ON.

Shut down your browser. Then log back on to TunnelBear (takes a few minutes to be connected).

Go to ITV.com

Go to ITV player

Choose Downton Abbey

Rent the episodes you want, or rent the whole season for 7 pounds (about $12 or so). Or watch the Xmas episode for free for the next 20 days (it might not make much sense, since you haven't watched season 3)

Do all the verification of email stuff.

Return to ITV, watch and enjoy! I saw episode 1 last night.

[This does work, but it took a bit of wiggling around to get it going. I worked on it for about 20 minutes for 3 days, and on the third day I was rewarded with that first episode, and the promise of more. People who are more tech savvy may get things rolling right away. There are other instructions online for doing this. Also, there are free versions of software like TunnelBear, but I didn't find out about them till I had gotten everything set up.]

[Hisey]

Oops, just found out that Season 3 is airing today in the US. So I guess my great discovery is not that great, unless you don't have cable (I don't).

[celestial]

Oops, just found out that Season 3 is airing today in the US. So I guess my great discovery is not that great, unless you don't have cable (I don't).

Nor do I. But during past seasons they put the episodes on the PBS website and I'm sure they'll do it again. The website is: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch-online/

But yes, Tunnelbear is amazing! I got it too late to watch season 3 on ITV, but all the episodes are available for free there for a limited time. If the PBS website doesn't work out, I'll pay to rent the episodes on ITV. In fact, I am wondering if I should just do that anyways-- is the US version edited differently?

[Hisey]

I don't know, that's a good thought. Is there a UK version and a USA version, like there are for books?

And thank you for telling me about PBS airing the episodes, I didn't know that.