History Trivia / UpstairsDownstairs

* WrittenInInfirmity: In 1974, whilst on his way to a rehearsal, Christopher Beeny (Edward) was involved in a serious motorcycle accident and quite badly hurt. From season four onwards, you can see the scar on his chin.

* McLeaned: Rachel Gurney loathed her character (Lady Marjorie) and was written out of the series at her own request. It's mentioned that she died on the Titanic.

* {{Rewrite}}: The First Season ended in the setting of the year 1909, but it was deemed important to keep the storyline within the reign of Edward VII, who died the next year. So, although the Second Season continued its developed storylines, it reversed the chronology to the year 1908.

* DuelingShows: Creator/TheBBC revival with Creator/{{ITV}}'s ''Series/DowntonAbbey'', with the added irony of ''Upstairs Downstairs'' originally being an ITV show.
* FollowTheLeader: ''Beacon Hill'', a Creator/{{CBS}} series that Americanized the premise (with a Boston setting) debuted in 1975. Not officially a remake, but it was co-produced by Creator/JeanMarsh's former agent Beryl Vertue. After strong initial ratings, viewers lost interest and ''Beacon Hill'' was canceled after 11 episodes.

* DawsonCasting: Justified, as there are frequent [[TimeSkip Time Skips]]. It's actually a peculiar sort of Dawson Casting, because the original series spans thirty years of historical time, but only four years of real time, so the mainstays of the series never seem to age even though thirty years changes a human being radically, particularly those of Lord Bellamy's, Mrs Bridges' and Hudson's ages. If Rose was twenty as the series begun, she would be fifty at the end, for example. But Creator/JeanMarsh herself only ages four years... This is actually quite useful, as, even if they did not know it, it provides a good continuity as to why Rose looks a lot older in the 2010 continuation of the series. If she is actually fifty at the end of the series, then she'd be 56 at the beginning of the 2010 series, so, it all worked out in the end.

* ActorAllusion: The revived series featured Creator/AlexKingston as Dr. Blanche Mottershead, a bisexual archaeologist. The sexual orientation and profession happened to be those of one of Kingston's best known other roles at the time, as Dr. River Song in ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* DawsonCasting: Justified, as there are frequent [[TimeSkip Time Skips]]. It's actually a peculiar sort of Dawson Casting, because the original series spans thirty years of historical time, but only four years of real time, so the mainstays of the series never seem to age even though thirty years changes a human being radically, particularly those of Lord Bellamy's, Mrs Bridges' and Hudson's ages. If Rose was twenty as the series begun, she would be fifty at the end, for example. But Jean Marsh herself only ages four years... This is actually quite useful, as, even if they did not know it, it provides a good continuity as to why Rose looks a lot older in the 2010 continuation of the series. If she is actually fifty at the end of the series, then she'd be 56 at the beginning of the 2010 series, so, it all worked out in the end.

* WrittenInAbsence: Edward spends almost half a season off-screen supposedly recovering from having fallen down the back stairs and broken his leg. In reality, actor Christopher Beeny broke his leg in a motorcycle accident on the way to the studio.

* ArtifactTitle: The original was broadcast in UsefulNotes/{{Portugal}} as ''A Família Bellamy''[[note]]"The Bellamy Family"[[/note]]. When the revival, featuring no Bellamys and only one of the old servants, was broadcast there, guess what title they went with?

* DuelingShows: The BBC revival with ITV's ''Series/DowntonAbbey'', with the added irony of ''Upstairs Downstairs'' originally being an ITV show.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The series was originally supposed to be a ''comedy'', entitled ''Behind the Green Baize Door'', and not feature any upstairs characters whatsoever. While the upstairs-downstairs format went on to inspire media forever after, one has to wonder what that would have been like...

* ActorAllusion: The revived series featured Creator/AliceKingston as Dr. Blanche Mottershead, a bisexual archaeologist. The sexual orientation and profession happened to be those of one of Kingston's best known other roles at the time, as Dr. River Song in ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* ChannelHop: The original series was with rival channel LWT/{{Creator/ITV}}, but the revival is on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC One]], and competing with ITV's newer period drama ''Series/DowntonAbbey''.